Page 71 of Ruin

“Sir,” I nod, our hands separating.

He eyes my cheek, likely glowing a vibrant red from his niece’s slap, and he smiles with his eyes just a little. I respect that.

“Weeks,” he says, making me blink. “Months now, he’s been gone almost three,” he sighs, and he looks… exhausted.

Even in the darkness of the driveway, light streaming out from the open door at his back, I can see the deep rings shadowing beneath his eyes.

“If you can find my son,” he pauses, and he looks at me with a glint in his eye, like he knows something he shouldn’t, but isn’t going to address it. “I will forever be indebted to you.”

I stare at him and in this moment, I think of my own father. A man I never respected, only feared, and I wonder what it would have been like growing up with someone like Dee instead.

“Can you?” he hushes, hopeful. “Find him?”

I stare at him, and I can see Charlie, in all the features you wouldn’t expect to, the slope of his nose, pull of his lips, the curve of his ears, pinned closely to his head in a way that is too pretty.

“If I can find him, it doesn’t mean I can make him come back.”

Dee eyes me, and I can see his venom, “I understand that,” he nods, glancing back over his shoulder before refocusing on me. “We just need to know he’s okay.”

I swallow, at the sincerity, the way his throat rolls with his own swallow, Adam’s apple bobbing. This man loves his son.

I nod, “I can do that,” it is a whisper I did not mean to let slip, my words a little shaky.

I drop my gaze, blink down at my feet, and try hard not to jolt as his hand comes to my shoulder, squeezing lightly with comfort.

“Thank you,” Dee’s deep voice rumbles, releasing his grip and taking a step back. “Thank you, Kazimir.”

And without waiting for me to look back up, he starts back up the steps, the door clicking closed. And I take a full deep breath, clenching my clammy palms.

I climb back in my car, circling around the driveway and heading back to the wrought iron gates, already standing open. I turn left as I clear the gates, entering onto the private road, absent, as always, of any other vehicles. And as I drive along the pitch dark roads, thinking of the purple house I haven’t seen in years, I already know that’s where I’m gunna find him.

Chapter31

Charlie

Ava’s pale, gaunt face is pierced with the brightest eyes. They’re like dual North stars lashed in night, sitting atop her sharp cheekbones.

Bright sapphire blue ringed in deep honey brown peer up at me, wide and wet and captivating. I thumb her bottom lip, parted from the top, my rough, calloused skin snagging on the small tear I just put in it. A puncture wound from my canine through her pretty red pout. Blood beads, my own eyes widening, pupils blown as I hone in on it like a most coveted delicacy.

That’s how she feels to me.

Something not many could ever hope to have.

To keep.

And yet, here she sits, atmyfeet. A rare, unusual creature, something that should only be treated with the most loving, delicate touch, but, instead, she has me.

Barely breathing, I stare down at her, submissive, responsive, so, fucking, “Good,” I rasp.

Her parted lips tilt up at the corners in some gruesome semblance of a smile, the blood from her lip spreading across the tautness of her pretty mouth, forcing the bubbled pearl of blood to rush down her pale chin, drip to her barely clothed chest. I watch it fall, enraptured as it rolls into the low, gaping neckline of her oversized, loose vest top. Red blooming in the crisp white fabric, and I study the droplet as it expands in the material like gory, spearing fingers.

My knees hit the mauve rug, solid mahogany floors beneath it harsh on my bones, something I didn’t pick out when we decorated this house, but Ava seems to love. Considering she still won’t voluntarily sit on anyrealfurniture. She enjoys sitting on this particular carpet, running her fingertips over it. Although, I wonder if perhaps it’s that she can look up in here, feel like she’s outside without actually having to leave the safety of the walls we have found some sort of solace in over the past few months, almost three. The domed roof, a glass turret revealing the pitch night’s sky, stars glittering, the moon a sliver of a waning crescent as the sky prepares for a new moon.

She likes the gym too, the thick mats she lies on three times a day so I can manipulate her legs, trying to build muscle. They twitch now, her toes flexing, bending, parts of her control coming back. Now that the warmer weather has arrived, I can get her in the outdoor pool, too. I wonder if she knows how to swim.

I draw her chin down, the shackle still a restriction on her movements, something I am going to correct, just tonight, replace it with something that is all me. And a little bit her. I think of blue sapphires and black diamonds set in bright silver draping over the dainty column of her pale throat, and smugly smother my smirk, stare into the eyes I would choose a thousand times over real sapphires.

Anything.

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