“I can’t believe it,” she whispered through her tears. “You did that for me… you made them pay for what they did to me…”
“They deserved a whole lot fucking worse, Elaine. They’re lucky I didn’t have more time.”
I held her close, savoring the touch of her body against mine. She was tiny, pressing hard to my chest, and I loved feeling her like that, so trusting of me. I don’t know how long we were standing there, but the sky was turning pink to dusk outside when she pulled away from me. Her eyes were puffy but every bit as stunning, and her smile was delicate in the most gorgeous of ways.
I told her how I’d tracked them down at the golf course and accosted them at hole four. I told her how they knew exactly what I was taking revenge for, but all the while I was finishing up gathering our things ready to go.
“I’d have killed Lionel myself if I could,” she told me, and the flash of hate and hurt in her eyes showed me just how true that was. “Honestly, Lucian. I’d have killed him myself.”
I was very glad to have delivered her wish by my hands.
Her mind seemed to click back onto our own situation as I gathered the rest of our suitcases.
“Terence Kingsley,” she said again. “They’re looking for Terence Kingsley. His face is all over the news. There’s a hotline wanting information about him.”
I knew we were fucked. She didn’t need to tell me. The Terence Kingsley nail in the coffin was just one of many. We just had to pray that we could make it through the hours to get to the airport tomorrow. It’s not as though we could even check into a hotel for the night with one of my other fake IDs. We were too recognizable with Terence Kingsley’s face all over the news alongside Elaine Constantine’s.
I got the suitcases ready to go, positioned at the bottom of the stairs. She told me how she’d packed everything she could see we’d need, and how I should check it to be sure, but I shook my head at her.
“Whatever you’ve packed will be fine.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Getting out of here is our biggest hurdle,” I told her between loading up the suitcases into the trunk of the car. “But the UK isn’t going to be all that easy. People will be screaming out for our blood, on both sides of the family divide.”
“I know,” she said, then took another deep breath. “My uncle Lionel has sex with my mom, you know? Well, she used to. They’ve had that thing for years. She’s going to be screaming out for blood louder than anyone when she finds out you killed him.”
“She’ll hopefully be screaming out for Colonel Hardwick’s blood, then, since I set it up to look like he shot Lionel. She won’t be screaming out for his blood for very long though, since he’s already dead. I made sure it looked like he killed himself after murdering your uncle. Only that won’t wash. Not for long. Not for the people who know us.”
“Hopefully they’ll never know it was you. Not ever.”
“There’s that beautiful optimism again.” I shrugged. “Your mom should have listened to you when you were a little girl begging for her care and protection. She’d have probably killed your sick fucking uncle herself.”
Elaine said something that shocked me right to the fucking core.
“Not so sure about that.”
“Not so sure about that?” I pushed, helping her out to the passenger seat of the Merc. “That your mother wouldn’t want to kill a man that was setting you up for abuse?”
She shrugged. “Just not sure she really ever loved me enough that she would have turned against him.”
If I’d have had a heart, it would have broken to see the pain in her face. My angel truly believed that she was unloved, by everyone. Only it wasn’t just that. It was the twiddle of her fingers in front of her again that spoke words she’d never say. The way they were twisting, hurting. The way she was clearly so broken inside.
My angel really believed she was worthless.
Only she wasn’t worthless.
She was worth everything in my whole fucking world.
“I really am going to make them all pay,” I told her, and my voice was a ripple of well-deserved hate for those disgusting pricks.
“Thank you,” she said, and there was the young Elaine again, staring over at me with a smile.
It was all I could take. I grabbed her hard and strong before I lowered her down to her seat, showing her my full depth of emotion before letting go of her enough to belt her in, trying to show her everything she deserved and had never had. Protection and love. I’d give her both until my very last breath.