It wasn’t one fuck, though. Nor does it look like it was one man doing that fucking. I know bodies like hers after the event. I’ve been part of it, watched it, devoured the scene and enjoyed the screams. Never true rape, though. Although, as I hold her now, letting my fingers travel over raw skin and fragile feelings, I’m questioning that given my life and the pills.
She sniffs and grinds her head into my neck, takes deep breaths, as if trying to cleanse herself. That’s a start. At the moment, I’m all I can give her. She can have every piece of me if that’s what she needs because I – Malachi fucking Jones – am at fault here. Maybe I thought it was a game – a folly. Maybe I was just too fucking busy analysing my own selfish feelings. Either way, I didn’t get there quick enough, didn’t protect what was mine to protect.
This is all my fault.
I am to blame.
It’s not a feeling I know regarding a woman, and it isn’t one I damn well like either.
Moving slowly, I tuck the sheet in around her and lift. We’ll go at her pace. If she doesn’t want clothes on, she doesn’t need them. She doesn’t fight this time. She sags in my hold and lets me carry her out through the cabin. Timmins looks at me as we walk past him, offers his help to open the door. He smiles a little. I don’t know what at, but it causes a frown in me. Maybe he thinks this one is worth something to me. He’s been around me long enough to know the difference, I suppose. Private plane by the age of twenty. Private pilot on tap for use whenever I feel like travelling somewhere. A life of privilege.
A life of uselessness compared to this now.
We get out into the hanger and I watch the door on the car get opened for me, see my team of men standing firm in case someone feels like shooting me. All this and yet I wasn’t quick enough, or recognising my own feelings enough, to save her from whatever this has been.
The moment we’re in the car, I call Whit on loudspeaker. He answers, but won’t speak other than that. “Alice, you need to tell Whit you’re safe.”
She looks up at me from my lap, then looks into the air. “Whit?”
“Jesus, Alice. You’re okay?”
She grimaces, tucks her head back into my chest. “Where are Brett and Brandon?”
“I’ve got them. They’re safe. Do you want me to put them on?”
She shakes her head, freezes.
“Bring them to me,” I say. “We’re in Manhattan. At the townhouse.” She looks up at me again, frowning. I run my finger over the crease, trying to ease it out of her. “The whole place is covered. They’ll be safer there than anywhere.”
“Alright. We’ll be there late tomorrow.”
I nod and end the call, keeping my eyes locked with hers. This is what she’ll see from now on as far as I’m concerned. Me. That’s it. Nothing else. We’ll do that until she’s happy to get lost in me again, and then, when that’s done, we’ll see if we can find what we were becoming before some fucker stole her from me.
The drive back is smooth and slow. I don’t see anything outside of the window, nor do I care for its existence. All there is now is a space with her in it. I’d never realised how small she felt in my hold, never understood how perilously fragile she is beneath the storm and aura. It does something to me, creates a bond, a protectiveness that floods my senses.
I’m now as lost trying to process that as she must be. It’s all anger and rage inside me, real fucking wrath that someone, anyone, that would dare touch her. It’s nothing to do with my name, or my wealth, it’s more intrinsic than that – more primal. And for all the primal senses I’ve lived within, all the drugs that have highlighted them and let me use them, never once have I felt them in real time.
“They hurt me,” she murmurs after a while. I keep looking at her, wondering what that means to her, to me, to the world around me that I usually control with ease. “And you killed him.” Yes. Slowly. “You shouldn’t have done that. He’ll come for you now, too.”
Her eyes blink, and she looks away. My hand tips her face back to me, makes sure she keeps looking at the one thing I need her to. It’s the only way forward. And I am not losing the connection we were getting to. No threat about her bad men concerns me other than what it means to her. We’ll be in a fortress soon. One that’s filled with security and my own team and windows that are bullet proof and safe rooms should we need them.
One thing Jones' wealth does well, and has always done, is protect itself.
Sheet still wrapped around her, we get out the moment we arrive. I carry her through the large foyer, up the main staircase, and then into my bedroom suite. She’s put straight in the bed, and again, she looks so fucking small and fragile there. “Sleep, little Alice,” I say, backing away.
I watch as she curls up into a ball again, and sit. I’ll wait here until she sleeps.
Watch over her. Protect what is mine to protect.
An hour or so later I leave her and wander down the stairs, making sure one of my team is posted by the bedroom door. It’s quiet in the house. Nothing and no one but maids and servants going about their business. It would be. My wife is dead in the morgue downtown, and the servants – as always – are barely visible about the place. But one thing that is here, the one thing I’ve got left to vent on, is Damien. That cunt still breathes. He shouldn’t.
My wrath for vengeance is far from finished.
And I have an hour to play with before she needs to be woken.
Blood rushing through me, I grab what I need and search for someone who knows where he’s been put. One of the team eventually tells me he’s in the cellar. I go down to it, wondering when the last time I went there was. Childhood, I think. It doesn’t matter either way because what is about to happen is nothing like how a carefree child would behave. It’s about rage and guilt and fucking hatred.
I turn down the steps, glare through the door when I eventually see him sitting in a pile of old, discarded furniture. He looks up the moment I turn the old key, moves backwards away from me. I hold the small bag up, emptying the contents onto the floor so he can get a feel of what might be coming for him. He stares at the offering, shocked at the sight of castrated skin and balls lying uselessly on the ground.
