Page 95 of Ruthless Prince
Then I pictured my sister lying on that hospital stretcher five years ago, deathly pale and soaked with blood, and my fury returned. I couldn’t let Willow’s beautiful doe eyes affect me. I couldn’t let the tears splashing down her face get to me. Her inability to remember hurting Chloe didn’t make her innocent or undeserving ofretribution.
She still deserved everything she got, and I would be the one to give it toher.
She kept sobbing and quaking on the floor. I relished every tear that rolled down her cheek, every hoarse cry from her throat. She’d never looked so vulnerable. So wonderfully breakable. It gave me a rush of power that went straight to my head like a line ofcoke.
With a curl to my lip, I considered crouching down and adding to her misery with the flat of my hand, but I was disturbed by a buzzing in my pocket. After checking my phone, I jabbed her in the side with my shoe. “Saved by the bell,” I said. “I have togo.”
She didn’t say anything as I leaned down and snapped the metal cuff back onto her ankle. She just keptcrying.
“I’ll bring you more water soon,” I muttered, glancing at the discarded bottle on the floor. Given all the tears she was shedding, she’d be dehydrated in no time. That simply wouldn’t do. I needed her alive and healthy if I wanted to keep punishing her. Letting her wither away and die would be toomerciful.
“Thank you,” she murmured through chest-racking sobs. “Sir,” she added in awhisper.
“You need to eat,” I said, kicking the granola bar over toher.
I left without another word and headed up to the third floor. My sister’s day nurse Eloise was waiting for me at the door to her room. She was short and stout with kind brown eyes and gray streaks in herhair.
“I’m glad you’re home, dearie,” she said in a hushed voice. “I thought now would be a good time for a visit, because Chloe’s been quite activetoday.”
“Howso?”
“She’s been awake for longer than usual, and she’s been moving quite a lot. She’s even made a fewsounds.”
“Does that mean anything?” I asked, glancing over her shoulder at my sister’s bed. She was propped up on several fluffy white pillows, staring into space. “Could she be gettingbetter?”
Eloise gave me a faint smile. “I think she’s just having a goodday.”
I shouldn’t have asked. I knew she couldn’t speculate on Chloe’s condition, because she didn’t want me or my parents to be disappointed if and when she failed to improve. It was doubtful she ever would. Five years had passed, and she hadn’t said a single word. All she was capable of was the occasional grunt ormoan.
I stepped over to her bed and sat down on the chair Eloise had left beside it for visitors. “Hey, Chloe,” I said softly. “How’s your day going so far? I heard it’s beengood.”
She slowly turned her head and stared in my direction, eyes glazed. She wasn’t really looking at me. She couldn’t even comprehend who or what I was. My voice was just a stimulus that her body automatically responded to, like it would to any other sound in theroom.
Her lips parted, and a thin string of drool escaped her mouth, slowly dropping down herchin.
“Oh, you poor thing,” Eloise said, fussing over her with awashcloth.
I held out my hand. “Let me doit.”
“Are you sure, hon? I don’t mind. It’s myjob.”
I gave her a tight smile. “It’s fine. Take a break. I want to have a few minutes alone withher.”
She nodded and patted my shoulder. “I’ll be right over there if you needme.”
She handed me the cloth and briskly headed over to the little station the nurses had set up for themselves on the far side of Chloe’sroom.
I dabbed my sister’s chin and left cheek, wiping up the silvery patches of drool. “There you go,” I said. “Allbetter.”
She stared vacantly at me, green eyes barely able to focus. Her lips were dry, her skin was pale, and her blonde hair had been cut short to make it easier to manage. It was a far cry from her old appearance. She used to be a vibrant teenager with long hair, sparkling eyes and a megawatt smile. Now she was a fadedhusk.
My eyes skated over the framed photos on her bedside table. The last photo taken of her before the ‘accident’ sat on the end. It was taken before she went to the fall dance, and she was posing with our father, tongue stuck out at the camera. He had one arm protectively draped around her waist and a proud grin on his face. My mother was next to him, smiling with her hands clasped in front of her. I stood by her side, one arm slung around hershoulder.
That was the way things had always been in our family. I’d always been closer to Mom, and Chloe had always been a total daddy’s girl. She was the apple of his eye, his spoiled little pet, whereas I was just a mold to be filled in his image. He expected me to turn out just like him, purely because I was his son, but he never put the effort in to make thathappen.
The closest thing we ever had to a bonding experience was when I was fourteen. He took me to a private room in the Wonderland Club and presented me with a hooker. She was naked and bent over the bed, and he told me to go over and screw her. According to him, boys needed to lose their virginity at a young age to avoid being manipulated by girls in the future. He said he saw too many young men making fools of themselves in desperate attempts to score their first piece of pussy, and he didn’t want that forme.
I couldn’t do it. I was only a year into puberty, and I couldn’t get it up in the presence of a real nude woman, much to my father’s shame. He backhanded me across the face and said that it might hurt now, but if I didn’t learn how to handle women and treat them properly, they’d hurt me far worse when I was older. That was what real men did, he told me. Control and dominate. It was what women needed. Even my sister would need a man to fill that role for her one day, much to hischagrin.
