Page 106 of Feed Your Fiends

And you really thought a hundred grand would do that? Beaulieu’s tuition is more.

“I appreciate your pity,” I say evenly. “I can’t believe she was so comfortable to ask you for such a large sum upon your first meeting.”

“She’s an opportunist who took her one chance before you inevitably got bored and dumped her. I doubt she would’ve made it to Christmas dinner, and she knows that too.”

“Was it just money that you offered her?’

He nods.

“I’m a little confused then…you didn’t offer her any jewellery? Maybe something of Delphine’s before you gave her the money for her silence?”

He wrinkles his brow. “Why would I give her something of Delphine’s?”

“Because you offered her a necklace, remember? If it’s not Delphine’s, do you often wear chokers yourself?”

“A necklace?” he asks, perplexed. “I didn’t give her a necklace.”

“Yes, you did. I can show you what it looked like,” I say.

One second, I’m beside him, and the next, I’m on top of him, my knees digging into his elbow joints to pin his arms. I dig my thumbs into the hollow of his throat, pressing so deeply I’m sure the soft tissues inside are touching. His flesh, once pale, is now a pretentious shade of purple that oozes between my fingers. His eyes, focused on mine in horror, bulge from the sockets.

Gant

Darker and darker he turns, and when a blood vessel in his left eye explodes and his body grows limp, that’s when I finally let him go.

For a second.

I tug his long silver hair and drag him off the bed. He falls with a hard plunk to his knees on the hardwood. Fisting my new leash, I wrap it twice around my wrist before dragging him to the standing mirror.

Spit, blood and bile shoot from his nose and mouth and drip from his chin onto his pristine pyjamas as he coughs and gags, too dizzy to even fight back.

It's amazing. A second ago, he looked like an angel, and now, he resembles a mottled corpse like the death portrait. But the patchy purple is receding from his hue as he takes on a healthier, pinker shade.

“It looked just like that,” I hiss, tipping his head back to show him each red impression of my fingers. “But facing forward, like you strangled her from behind.”

“Gant—”

“You touched my little dove. Youhurther. I came looking for a connection to my mother. I trusted she would be safe going to the bathroom alone, and in those five minutes that she was out of my sight,you touched her—”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“What was it like?” I ask, crouching behind him and digging my knee into his spine. “Why else would you choke someone from behind if not to hurt them?”

I demonstrate until his eyes roll up to the ceiling. Until he’s back to plum and his knees give way as he collapses onto his belly.

Twenty seconds of spitty sputtering passes.

“I’m waiting for an answer. One that makes sense.”

I unravel his hair, just once so that I can drape it under his chin and hang him from it instead.

He quickly gets the point, noting how fast my patience is running out. “I told you she’s an opportunist!” he says breathlessly. “She never went to the bathroom. She ambushed me in the garage, in the car. She must’ve seen me pulling into the driveway. We talked about how much she wanted for her silence and the next thing I knew, she was on my lap, begging me to choke her while I played in her cunt in the passenger seat. She’s a little freak. You must know that already.”

“She is,” I say calmly. “Although she hides it well.”

Relief floods his features.

“Just like you hide a lot of secrets in this room.”

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