Tomorrow I'll push her harder.
I should leave her and get back to business, but I find myself studying her in the dim light.
The curve of her spine. The way her lips are swollen from my use.
The tear tracks still visible on her cheeks.
The small scar on her neck that I now know came from that night—she must have cut herself on broken glass trying to help them.
My phone vibrates.
Vincent:
You sent everyone home from Hell. That's not like you.
I didn't realize I'd done that, but it's true.
After I finished with her, I cleared the entire floor.
Some possessive instinct of not wanting anyone else to see her like this.
Not wanting to share even the sound of her screams.
Dangerous. This is dangerous.
I leave her sleeping and sit in my armchair located in the corner.
The monitors show Hell empty except for my little lamb in my bed.
I pull up everything my men have gathered on her this week.
Medical records from after the murder—severe PTSD, survivor's guilt, dissociative episodes.
Therapy notes acquired through bribes: "Patient continues to experience intrusive thoughts linking violence with arousal. Likely a trauma response to witnessing parents' murders."
If only her therapist knew the truth—that the man who murdered her parents just fucked her into unconsciousness, and she thanked him for it.
Vincent appears in my doorway without knocking—the only person who'd dare.
"The judge's daughter? Really?"
"You already asked that."
"That was before you cleared Hell for her. Before you marked her like you're keeping her."
"Three nights," I tell him. "That's all."
"And then?"
"Then she goes back to her life and forgets this happened."
Vincent's laugh is humorless. "You don't believe that any more than I do. That girl is ruined for normal now. You've made sure of it."
He's right.
After what I've done to her tonight, what I plan to do tomorrow, she'll never be satisfied with safety again.
She'll crave this—crave me—every day for the rest of her life.
