“What the fuck,” I say through heavy lips. The pillow under my face is wet with drool.
The pillow? How’d I end up on a bed?
I try to sit up but my head swims. I grunt and thrash, but it’s like I’m swimming through mud. I jerk myself and land in an ugly pile on the floor in the gap between the mattress and the dresser. I’m making a mess, knocking over a lamp and the bedside clock, but I can’t help it. My head’s a wreck. All I can see are those skeletons, all that blood, and Arsen’s disappointed frown as Maud sank the needle into my arm.
“It’s okay, honey, it’s okay.” Maud’s voice. She gently gets me back into bed. I feel floppy and weak. I try to struggle, but she’s a lot stronger than she looks. “The doctor was here a bit ago. He said you’d be just fine, assuming I got the dosage right. Which I did.”
“You drugged me.”
“I sedated you because Arsen didn’t have the heart to do it himself.”
“Skeletons,” I moan at her as the memory of finding that horrible room plays through my head again. “He’s going to kill me too. You’re going to help him, aren’t you?”
“No, he’s not. Hush now. I’m sorry it came to this, I really am.” She soothes me gently and pulls the sheets up to my chin. “I’ve been watching over Arsen for a very long time. Believe it when I say he’s a good person. Troubled, yes, but a good person.”
I start crying. Because fuck, I’m beyond overwhelmed. “You knew about them,” I say, sobbing at her. “The bodies.”
She nods sadly and hugs me. “I knew about them,” she confirms. “But please don’t ask me about it. When he comes back, he’ll tell you himself.”
I cry harder. Because shit, he’s going to come back, and then he’s going to murder me just like he murdered those people in that room.
And Maud’s going to help him stretch my body out and clean off my bones until I’m pearly white.
I’m going to become a part of his creepy serial killer shrine.
I don’t understand what’s happening. My brain’s a mushy mess. Whatever Maud dosed me with really fucked me up and I’m having trouble coming back to myself. She sits with me though and seems like she’s trying to be soothing and calming, but it’s not helping.
She shoved a freaking needle in my arm.
“We knew you’d go in there eventually,” she admits once I’ve calmed down enough to sit up. My head’s still fuzzy like someone jammed cotton in my skull, but the room’s not spinning anymore and I’m starting to be able to think. “I told him to get rid of it. I told him it was time to move on. But he said he couldn’t.”
“I don’t understand,” I admit, rubbing my face with both hands. “Why is he keeping skeletons in a locked wing of the house?”
The door opens. Maud moves away from the bed as Arsen comes into the room. I push myself back from him, flinching away, and I can tell Maud’s concerned. He stands at the far end of the room staring at me. His face is caught between anger and disappointment.
Maud goes to him. “Don’t punish her,” she says sharply. “It wasn’t her fault.”
“She disobeyed me.”
“Won’t be the last time she does, either.” Maud glances back at me and the worry in her face makes my adrenaline start pumping. Does she think Arsen’s about to hurt me?
“You disobeyed me too.” He glares at her then. “I told you to stay out of those rooms.”
“I heard the commotion and thought you needed help.”
“You drugged my wife.”
Maud crosses her arms defiantly. “And I’d do it again. That girl was losing her mind.”
“Don’t you ever do that again. Do you hear me?”
“It was for her own good.”
“I don’t care. Don’t you ever do that again. Do you understand?”
Maud looks annoyed but she nods her head. She leaves the room, the door clicking softly shut behind her.
Which leaves me alone with my psycho serial killer husband.
He looks like himself still. That’s the worst part. Arsen’s still handsome. Beautiful really. He’s in a dark suit and his hair’s pushed back in that perfect lazy wave.
I know how those lips feel against mine and what it’s like to laugh in his arms. I know how his dick tastes in my mouth and what it’s like to moan his name as I come.
He’s still him. Even if he’s also deranged.
“You killed them,” I say.
He nods once. “I killed them,” he agrees.
“I don’t understand. Why do you have skeletons in your house? Why is there so much blood?”
He doesn’t move. His stare is disconcerting and terrifying. It’s taking all my self-control not to break down in tears right now.
What happened to the man from yesterday? Arsen’s still that guy. Only now I realize he’s been hiding something heinous from me all this time.
He did try to warn you, idiot.
But does that make it any better?
“You should have listened,” he says and steps toward the bed.
“Stop. Don’t come closer.”
“I told you not to go in there. I told you not to.”
“You have a room full of corpses. Your housekeeper drugged me.”
His jaw works. “I’ve spoken to her about that already.”
“Didn’t really seem enough to me.”
“Lena, I asked you to do one thing. When you got those lock picks and learned how to use them, I didn’t punish you. I trusted you instead. And now look at us.”
“Maud drugged me!”
“You were digging your nails into my neck,” he says with a snarl and yanks down his collar. Red scratches and welts cover his throat. “She thought she was helping.”
“Your housekeeper just walks around with a sedative?”
“Maud’s more than she seems. She worked as a poisoner for my father for a very long time before retiring to this position.”
My mouth drops open. “Poisoner? Are you fucking insane?”
It never even occurred to me that poison could be a career path. But then I also never thought keeping the skeletons of my murdered enemies was a good idea either, so here we are.
“She’s very good with compounds.”
“Great, so you trusted a woman that kills people for a living with freaking needles.”
Seems like a lot could have gone wrong and I’m maybe a little bit lucky I woke up.
“You never should’ve been in there to begin with,” he snarls, coming closer.
I flinch back. “Stop, Arsen. Please, don’t touch me.”
He hesitates. His face softens and he blinks a few times. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, sounding surprised. Like he can’t believe I might actually be afraid of him right now.
“Tell that to the blood you left in that creepy hallway.”
His hands squeeze into fists—and then slowly relax as he lets out a breath.
“I had hoped I might get the chance to make you understand before you saw all that,” he says at last and comes to sit at the end of the bed.
I pull my knees to my chest, hugging myself tightly, too afraid to do anything else. I don’t know what to think anymore. The effects of the drug are mostly gone now, but the memory of that room is still sharp in my mind.
I knew Arsen had a dark history. I understood that and I still was willing to look past it.
But how am I supposed to ignore this?
“Then make me understand,” I say, almost pleading.
“Maud’s right. I should’ve gotten rid of them a long time ago.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, not looking at me. Arsen’s such a big, powerful man, but there’s a deep vulnerability to him. That’s a side he keeps hidden. Like those skeletons.
“Who are they?”
“My old guards.”
I go very still. A tingle runs down my spine. “The ones that used to hurt you?” I whisper.
He nods slowly, not looking at me. “When I took over from my father, I hunted them down. I wanted to wipe the slate clean. I wanted to take revenge on them for what they did to me. But it didn’t help. Killing them didn’t fix the wound in me. That’s why they’re still in that room. That’s my father’s old office. That’s where they tortured me the most back when I was young. I turned them into skeletons and thought maybe leaving them in there forever would be enough, but it’s only been a burden. It didn’t take away the pain, heal the scars, or erase the memories.”
I stare at his rounded shoulders, at this powerful man hunched forward as if in pain. It’s hard for me to understand why anyone would think keeping a murder-shrine was a good idea, but he’s clearly still struggling to come to grips with what happened to him. Maybe he doesn’t even realize he’s still processing.
That doesn’t make him weak. It makes him a human being.
I lean forward and touch him. I do it softly, as if stroking a hungry bear. He half-turns to look at me. His eyes are deep and sorrowful and so, so beautiful.
“The skeletons are creepy, Arsen,” I tell him. “You have to get rid of them.”
His mouth opens—and then he laughs. He grins and shakes his head, and a low chuckle rips from his throat. I smile back at him, trembling with fear, but also with something else.
I’m seeing a part of him that nobody else was meant to see.
He keeps this locked behind a door.
But he’s letting me inside.
Well—I had to pick the lock. But still.
“I know you’re right. I’ve known it for a while. I just didn’t know how to let go until now.”
“Letting go is the easy part.” I move closer to him. “We’ll clean up the blood. Trash the bodies. Burn that whole wing, actually.”
“Maybe we can stick with cleaning it.”
“Fine, but I’ll gladly start the fire if you need help.”
“I bet you would, baby. I think you might’ve set me all the fuck ablaze already.”
I lean against his back, wrap my arms around him, and hug tightly. He breathes out a sigh and presses into me. I hold him like that and slowly the fear evaporates.
This is a man. A scarred and hurting man, but still only a man.
“Don’t drug me ever again, okay?” I whisper, my face against his shoulder.
“I’ll speak with Maud again.”
“She’s seriously a poisoner?”
“One of the most ruthless killers in the whole mafia, believe it or not.”
My stomach twists. “I’ve been eating her food.”
“There’s a reason she’s such a good cook.”
I groan, burying my face in his back. “I’m thoroughly freaked out.”
“I promise, baby, I’ll get rid of the bodies, and I’ll make sure Maud never drugs you again.”
“And I promise not to open doors you tell me to stay away from.”
“Think you can keep that one?”
“Probably not.”
“Good.” He twists and kisses my hair. “You wouldn’t be you otherwise.”
