When she woke, Paul tended to her wounds. He gave her antibiotics and a shot of morphine. He tried to cover her body with a sheet, but she cried out in protest, the pain too much to have something touching her back. Day after day, he changed the dressings on her skin and gave her the maximum amount of morphine he could without her overdosing. For Rachel, it was never enough.
At the end of the first day, she pleaded with him to accidentally leave a bottle of pain pills in her room. Though he refused, she continued to beg him for it when he came to see her. She wanted nothing more than to die. She willed her body to shut down on its own, but she continued to wake from every sleep.
Still breathing, still burning.
Despite the overwhelming desire to die, she would never kill herself. Even if Paul gave into her requests to leave the pills in her room, she would only take the amount he dictated. She was not coward enough to take her own life, no matter what Donovan did to her. The pain would end, and this period of time would be nothing more than a horrible memory, a nightmare she could pretend never happened.
During the lucid times, the painful times, her thoughts alternated between suicide and killing Donovan. He had hurt her like never before. His temper was never welcome, but she always tolerated the random beatings. This time, he reached an inexcusable level. She had to ensure it would never happen again.
Murder was not a foreign action to her, but there was a difference between killing a stranger and killing the man she had loved for so many years. She knew that when the time came, she would never be able to go through with it.
When she was medicated, her thoughts incoherent and jumbled, she blamed herself for his actions. She had done something wrong, and she deserved every crack of the whip. All he ever asked of her was love and devotion and she had betrayed him. She allowed another man to kiss her and she enjoyed it, an unforgivable act.
She chastised herself, and thought of all the things she should have done different. She wished she could return to the place where she had strayed from Donovan’s arms. She told herself he was right to punish her, and he had only done so because he loved her, like he told her. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, so he exercised control over her to keep her with him. He branded her so no other man would ever want her and she would never forget where she belonged.
After six days of drifting in and out of consciousness, six days of listening to the dueling voices in her head, she found the middle ground that silenced them both.
She would leave.
It wasn’t an easy option. She couldn’t pack her bags and walk out the front door, promising to send a postcard. No one left the estate on their own accord, especially not her. As soon as her parents died, she was sentenced to spend her life at the estate. Donovan would never allow her to walk away.
A few days later, the solution presented itself when Paul told her to come to the conference room for a meeting. He helped her up despite her protests that she was fine. It had only been a day since she could put clothing on over her wounds, but the healing process seemed to be well underway.
She went into her bathroom, pulled her hair back, and splashed water over her face. As she dabbed it dry with a towel, she studied her reflection. Her face appeared worn, like a child had used her skin for modeling clay. Lines appeared around her eyes and mouth, ones that had not been there before. It seemed ridiculous, as no one aged in a matter of days. She ran her fingers over her cheek and tried to brush the lines off like dirt, but the lines clung to her skin.
Rachel threw the towel at the mirror and walked upstairs to the conference room, where the others waited for her. She stood by the wall behind Paul’s chair. If she sat down, the back of the chair would press too hard against her still raw wounds.
Donovan sat across the room from her, yet she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Vague memories came to mind of him coming in and out of her room while she was heavily drugged. The first time he came to see her, he knelt beside the bed, took her hand, and cried. He cursed himself for hurting her, for losing control and punishing her like that. Between the alcohol and what Eric told him, he fell victim to his own temper.
After his tears stopped, he pulled a sheet over her back to hide the evidence of his abuse, stroked her hair while talking to her, and told her how much he loved her. He visited her several times a day, sometimes talking, sometimes crying and begging her forgiveness. That he hadn’t abandoned her after that night comforted her, but she still could not look directly at him. Not yet.
“We have two jobs tomorrow night,” Donovan said at the start of the meeting.
Rachel was taken aback. She knew about the Pierson job, but had not heard about a second one.
“Paul, Rachel, and I will take Pierson. It’s pretty standard, quick in and out with only the security alarm to bypass. We’ll leave at eleven-thirty for that one. Tony and Joe, I want you to leave by ten o’clock for the Thomas job.” Donovan’s eyes burned through her, and she held still, not daring to blink. She didn’t want to give a reaction of any kind.
“It shouldn’t take long to get into the house,” he continued. “Tony will go in and do it. I want you on the grounds no longer than forty-five minutes.”
He spoke for another fifteen minutes, further detailing the Pierson job, but Rachel stopped listening. Jonathan was going to die because of her. There had to be a way to help him.
Everyone stood to leave the room, the meeting over. She turned to go when Donovan called her back. She shut the doors to the conference room and braced herself to face him.
He looked as he always did, the same enchanting amber eyes and smooth, handsome face, but there was a difference when she looked at him. During recent years, he had pushed her to the point where she was slightly afraid of him, afraid of his temper, of his lashing out at her. Now, she was no longer afraid. She was terrified.
He moved over to her and touched her arm. She recoiled at his touch, and her heart raced. He put his hand on her face and she trembled beneath the heat of his palm. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I never meant to hurt you like I did. I don’t know what came over me. There’s no excuse for my actions, and I can’t express how sorry I am that I hurt you that much. I love you more than anything else in this world.”
She met his eyes and could see his words were true. Had he lied about his remorse, leaving would be much easier, but the tears welling in his eyes mirrored her own. Though his apology was sincere, from his actions that night she knew he was excited by the idea that he had branded her. As long as those wounds remained visible, she belonged only to him. No one else would want her, which was his desired outcome.
Donovan kissed her and his fingers tickled the skin around her mouth. She didn’t know if she was upset because the man who savagely beat her kissed her, or because her body responded to his touch. Her love for him had not died as she thought it would, but instead, she loved him as much as she always had.
Rachel broke the kiss. “I love you, Donovan,” she said. Despite her mind crying out for her to retain sanity, she meant the words. She couldn’t rid herself of such a strong emotion overnight, and part of her wanted to stay with him forever. There had to be a way to make him not want to punish her anymore.
She wanted to tell him about her plan to leave him and promise to stay if he stopped hurting her. The pain in her back flared, and she stopped herself from saying a word. If she stayed, there would be nothing holding him back from using a whip on her again, if not doing much worse things to her. She had no choice but to leave.
When the idea came to her, she almost didn’t recognize it, but when she did, she acted on it. She pulled off his jacket and kissed his face and neck, ignoring the severe pain that shot across her back every time she moved.
“I love you so much,” she said, reinforcing her feelings in both his mind and hers. Nothing she said was a lie, and she was determined to prove it to him. Her mouth teased his with light kisses, and she tugged his shirt out of his pants. While she worked on unbuckling
his belt, Donovan raised her shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor.
She unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it over his shoulders. His mouth found her neck, and his hands wrapped around her waist. Pain mixed with desire, and Rachel bit her bottom lip. Her hands traveled across his chest, while his mouth nuzzled the crook of her neck and his fingers fiddled with the button of her jeans. Her eyelids fell and, for a few minutes, she enjoyed being close to him.
“I’ve really messed up lately,” Rachel said. “I want to make it up to you.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, the words escaping with shallow breaths.
“I want the Thomas job. I want to kill him for you.”
He stopped kissing her. “You would do that for me?”
She stared into his eyes and touched his face. “Of course I would. I love you, Donovan. I’m yours, and I want to show you that I know where I belong.”
He smiled and put his hands under her arms. Being careful not to touch her back too much, he lifted her onto the table. He slid his hands under her thighs and pulled her hips toward his. His mouth landed on hers and she put her body on automatic pilot, her mind in another place, focused on the task of killing Jonathan.
She opened her eyes and glanced over Donovan’s shoulder at the clock on the wall. She had a little over twenty-four hours to make this work.
Chapter Sixty
Twenty-four hours later, Paul barged into her room. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Rachel continued lacing her boots and avoided looking up at him. She didn’t want to see Paul before she left the estate, knowing it would make it harder to go through with her plan. “I’m going on the job.”
“You’re doing the Thomas job?”
“Yes.”
“Rachel, that’s insane,” Paul said. “Your back isn’t even close to being healed. You’re in no condition to do this. I even objected to the idea of you going with us for Pierson.”
She finished tying her boots and rested her hands on her knees. “Donovan thinks I’m capable of handling Thomas.”
“Of course he does, Rach,” he said. “Sending you is the perfect revenge on Thomas.”
She lifted her eyes to look at him. “It wasn’t Donovan’s idea. I requested this job.”
“What?” Paul took a step back. “Why would you volunteer to kill Jonathan Thomas?”
“Because it’s easy. A hell of a lot easier than the Pierson job will be. If I do this one, I don’t have to do the other.”
“Who’s going to do your part for Pierson?”
“Tony.” She stood up and met his gaze. “Are you done lecturing me? Can I go now?”
His expression softened. “Rachel, that day when I left with Donovan to check out the job...” He paused as he formed his words. “Were you going to tell me about Thomas? Was that why you were so upset after your rounds?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me now what happened.”
“I don’t know, Paul. It all happened so fast. He came to the estate to meet with Donovan. He must have snuck out the back, because he found me while I was on rounds. I tried to get him to leave, but then he kissed me. I guess I kind of let him do that. I shouldn’t have, but things were so confusing and then Eric saw us kiss and—”
“Wait.” Paul held his hand up in the air. “Thomas kissed you? That’s all?”
Lead pulled her heart down into her stomach, and the realization came over her that something was terribly wrong. “Yes, he kissed me. That’s all.”
Paul covered his face with his hands.
Already knowing what his response would be, she asked, “What is it, Paul?”
He dropped his hands in front of him. “That’s not what Eric told Donovan. He made it sound like a longstanding affair. He said he saw you in the woods with Thomas, and that he watched everything. The things he said about you and Thomas were...” Paul hesitated. “I told Donovan we shouldn’t believe Eric, that after being tortured for so long, he was saying those things to get out of his own mess. In the end, Eric was so convincing that I even started to believe what he said.”
Rachel bowed her head and closed her eyes, her mind spinning. Eric had won. He knew he was going down and he succeeded in dragging her as far into hell with him as he could. She opened her eyes when she heard Paul speaking again.
“Eric’s story destroyed Donovan. We came back and he hit the bottle hard. I’ve never seen him like that, drinking straight out of the bottle. I left him alone, thinking he would pass out from how fast he was drinking. I didn’t know—”
Rachel touched his hand. “Don’t go there, Paul. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
Paul lowered his head for a moment. “When you and Joe return from the Thomas job, the rest of us will still be gone for Pierson. We’ll be on that job for quite a few hours.”
She blinked. “It had crossed my mind.”
“I brought some part-timers in from the security company to patrol the grounds tonight. George and his crew were inexplicably unavailable to cover for us. Tonight’s crew has never been here before, and I don’t think they’re competent.”
Her eyes darted around the room, digesting the meaning behind Paul’s words. “That’s too bad about George,” she said, despite her elation. She had been concerned with getting around George and his sharp-eyed crew when the time came to leave. “Anything else I should know?”
“Joe has a couple beers every night.”
Rachel looked at Paul. “I know this.”
“If you decide to drink a beer with him I sure wouldn’t take any pain medication. Taking three or four of those with alcohol would probably knock you out good.”
“I bet it would.” She smiled, grateful to have Paul in her corner.
Paul reached into his pocket. He took her hand, and pressed a bag of pain pills against her palm. “I trust you to do the right thing with these.”
Her hand tightened around the bag. “I promise,” she said. She shoved the small bag into her front pocket.
“Good luck with Thomas,” he said. He planted a kiss her cheek.
She fought the tears that threatened to fall. “Thank you, Paul,” she whispered.
Chapter Sixty-one
Rachel crept down the hallway, her boots making no sound on the marble floor. Her heart pounded in her throat and her breathing echoed in her ears, magnified by the silence.
As she neared the door at the end of the hall, the subdued melody of a piano filled the air. She placed her ear against the door and strained to hear the music. She recognized the beautiful and complicated meshing of tones, could follow them exactly in her mind, yet she struggled with how she knew the song.
She gripped the doorknob and turned it with the greatest of care. Holding her breath, she eased open the door, alert for any creaks the hinges might utter.
The marble floor continued past the door. To her left, a circular staircase rose from the floor and reached for the second floor below a dome ceiling. Any other time, she would have appreciated the beauty of the intricately detailed railing, but she didn’t care about the staircase.
Across the room, Jonathan was seated at a white grand piano with his eyes closed. His head moved in time to the music he created, his face rich with emotion. As soon as she saw him, she remembered the origin of the song, and her hand covered her mouth. She wondered why she didn’t identify it sooner.
They had danced to it.
No distractions.
Donovan’s instructions from her first kill forced her to move forward. She walked across the floor, her gloved hand leveling her gun in front of her. The long sleeves of her black shirt concealed her chafed wrists.
She didn’t bother keeping her footfalls silent, and Jonathan’s fingers ceased dancing across the keys. As he stood up and walked toward her, his casual dress astonished her, given the tuxedo and business attire she had previously seen him wear. His unkempt hair topped off blue jeans and a plain, cotton shirt. Rachel’s thou
ghts wavered, her attraction to him rekindled, and she almost forgot the reason for breaking into his home.
His eyes moved from her face to the gun and back again. “I knew you were an angel, but I didn’t realize you were a dark one,” he said, showing no indication that he was surprised by her presence. “I take it you do little more than security work for King.”
“It’s true I came here to kill you.”
“Sent by King, no doubt.”
“You won’t sell to him, but those who will take over your company upon your death will be easier to persuade.” The hollow words sounded rehearsed, and she hated having to force the unconvincing charade.
“That’s funny. I didn’t realize my company was worth so much to him. Are you sure that’s the real reason?”
Rachel remained silent, her well-practiced script falling apart before her eyes.
“I just wish my life was worth more than that to you,” he said.
“If it wasn’t, you’d be slumped over your piano right now. I’d like to make you a deal. A business proposition.”
“And what would that be?”
“You pay me one million dollars, and you get to keep breathing.”
Jonathan didn’t blink. “One million? I take it King doesn’t know about this.”
“I don’t suppose he does.”
“How long do I have to come up with the money?”
Rachel glanced at the wristwatch she wore over her long sleeve. “Twenty-seven minutes.”
“You’re expecting a miracle.”
“Not necessarily. I also need you to create an account for it to go into, one that can’t be traced back to me.
“And you’re awfully trusting in that request. My computer is in there,” he said, pointing to a door behind him.
She followed him into his den, where his laptop rested on an oak desk next to a towering houseplant. Rachel focused on the wall to her left. Pictures of children with their parents covered the top half of the wall, and Rachel found herself drawn to the photographs.