Lucian Morelli wasn’t going to save me. He wasn’t going to hurt any of the men who’d hurt me, because even if I could tell him, I wouldn’t. I’d never tell a soul as long as I lived.
I smiled to myself at that.
As long as I lived.
That wouldn’t be long.
Not anymore.
I’d seen the Power brothers that morning. I recognized the face of Elliot Ree outside the Central Apartment block as my chauffeur pulled away from the drive. They were coming for me.
I wiped the blood from my legs, pressed a wad of tissues to the cuts and relaxed back against the wall, sinking into the soothing calm, riding the ebb and flow of it as my body tried to make sense of my actions, until finally, the sobs and the trembling had stopped. I caught my breath, patched up my wounds and hid my stash away, then forced myself into some kind of walkable state, even without a few lines of cocaine to see me through it.
Mom wanted to speak with me. No shit. I knew she’d have plenty to say. Holy hell knew what her offer would be, but I was damn sure it wouldn’t be a good one.
I made sure my tears weren’t showing before I made my way back downstairs.
My heart stuttered as I realized my mother was already a floor down by the main staircase. Waiting.
As always, her face was one of utter disgust when she saw me there, her lip nothing but a snarl of disdain.
I tried to think of words, bullshit chatter, just like usual, but I didn’t have to worry about that.
Her welcome to me was a slap across the face, hard enough that I cried out in a gasp.
“If you ever so much as put a toe in a downtown hovel again, Elaine Beatrice, I swear to fucking God Almighty, it’ll be the very last thing you do. This time I’m serious. You’ll be dead to me.”
My heart was racing, but nothing more came, just a jab of a finger in my face as she reiterated her stance.
“You don’t belong in that seedy hovel of a place. You’ve never belonged in it. You belong here, with us, holding up your damn family name, not making a mockery of the rest of us.”
I didn’t belong there with the rest of them. I never had. Not once. Not since meeting Reverend Lynch when I was a tiny girl.
I would have usually dipped my head to my mother and scurried away, as scared of her disapproval as always, but I didn’t. Not that day.
“I’m not making a mockery of our family name,” I told her. “You do plenty of that on your own. At least the people downtown know they’re losers. At least they enjoy it.”
“Watch your mouth,” she hissed, but I didn’t. I didn’t watch anything other than her scowl.
“One day you’ll accept that our family is disgusting,” I said. “In the meantime, stop judging me for wanting to be out of it.”
“Maybe you don’t belong in it,” she told me. “Maybe you never have. You’ve always been a vile, cheating, lying little girl. Just as well I have a solution for us, isn’t it?”
Her tone was so cold.
“Uncle Lionel told me. An offer.”
“Yes,” she spat. “An offer.”
“Tell me, then,” I said, trying my best to sound strong. “What is this offer?”
I knew it was going to be a bad one before she started speaking. I could see it in her stare.
“Christopher Rawlings,” she announced. “He wants you as his bride. Baron Rawlings suggests you are to be the latest addition to the Rawlings name and the British aristocracy.”
No.
NO.
Not Baron Rawlings…
I was shaking my head before she was even done speaking.
She sighed, folding her arms across her chest. “Don’t try my patience any more than you already have, Elaine. This is a fantastic opportunity for you, and a fantastic opportunity for the Constantine name.”
Constantines and Rawlings . . . it made my skin crawl.
“The tabloids would love it,” she said. “It would be a delight of a marriage. A delight of a pairing.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to marry Christopher Rawlings.”
She scoffed at me. “I didn’t expect you would. He’s a sad little fool, nothing like his father. What I would expect is that you would see the mercy in my proposition. A fresh start, in England, with a brilliant family name on your ring finger.”
I loved England. I’d have loved a fresh start away from my corrupt family . . . but not with an equally corrupt family with their arms open wide to pull me in.
Not with Baron Rawlings there with open arms to taint me forever.
Mom was still talking, rattling off the benefits.
“I’ll finish your debts with the Powers one last time. You’ll be out of the cycle. No drugs in your life, no losers to hole up in the pits of shit with. Baron Rawlings was very clear on that. Nobody would come within a mile of you. Nobody they didn’t approve of.”