Page 5 of Vendetta

“What do you want?” I ask.

He steps nearer. Just one step but it’s enough to make my heart race again. He smiles like he can hear it. Like he can tell the effect he has on my body.

“Don’t play coy Eleri. You’re not an idiot.”

“And neither are you.” I say back though I’m unsure why.

He lets out a low chuckle. “No I am not. I know what I want. And I always get it.”

I half snarl. He’s so fucking cocksure. So certain.

“Why do you want me?” I hiss. “I’m ugly. Ruined. Half blind.” I say. It’s true. My face is so marred, so destroyed from the acid they threw on me that I lost my right eye. There’s nothing but melted flesh there now which is why I keep my hair down to hide it. To hide me.

“No man would want me. I’m a pariah in this city.” I state.

He tilts his head at my words. “No darling.” He says. “You are a queen. My queen. And I will make this entire city crawl on their knees before you.”

I gasp as his words. He’s mad. Insane. This monster, this man who wields more power than anyone should is saying such things to me.

“I will give you tonight…”

“And then what?” I say.

He smiles for a moment. “And then you are mine.”

I push past him. I have to. I have to get away. As I run I have expect him to chase me down, to grab me, to make me stop.

When I get to the dingy bedsit that is my home I shut the door, sliding all the locks across. Not that they’d keep him out if he really wanted to get in. He could have his men smash the door in. Could shoot it off its hinges. No one would call the police. No one would dare. And even if they did it wouldn’t make any difference because they answer to him too. They’re on his pay.

I pace the room. There’s barely enough space between the lumpy old couch and the bed. And it doesn’t help that Sarpedon’s enclosure takes up the entire space that was clearly designed for a dining table. I watch him for a moment, it’s night, when he’s most active, and with the heat lamp he’s in his element. I bought him right after I got out of the hospital. For some reason it felt like a normal pet wouldn’t cut it, and the fact he might live for the next fifty years was a definite appeal.

For the months that I spent locked up in this space, hiding, enduring surgery after surgery, this creature kept my company, kept me sane. He’s the closest thing to a friend I’ve had because my old friends have long since deserted me.

After all who wants to be friends with a person as ugly as me? As broken as me? As disgusting as me?

I grab his dinner, I left it out to thaw so it would be nice and warm for him and as I put it down for him to see, he looks at me as if to say thanks. And then he pounces, wrapping his beautiful skin around it and for a moment I wince. I know the mouse is dead but still.

And then Nico’s face flashes in my head. Suddenly I feel like that mouse, trapped, caught, ensnared. I can’t escape him. I know that in my bones. Even if I packed my bags tonight and got the first bus out of here, he would know, he would find me, and he would drag me back.

But as I sink onto the couch I think of something even more disturbing, even more alarming; that maybe I don’t want to escape him.

Maybe just maybe this man might not be my prison.

Maybe he might set me free.

Him

My knuckles are white. I’m clenching my fists, doing everything in my power not to beat the man in front of me to a pulp.

He’s a lackey. A messenger. No one of importance really and in truth I’m giving him more credit than he’s worth to be even in the same room as him right now.

I look over a Preston. His right eye is twitching, a sign that he’s on edge.

Lackey boy says something. Words. Nothing of consequence and a few of my men smirk. He’s amusing them because they don’t have the sense to understand what’s really going on. What this power play is.

I run the huge gold ring on my left little finger over my lips, tasting the metal, feeling it’s coolness.

Lackey murmurs something and my eyes flit to him as I register them.

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