Page 119 of Broken Butterfly
“Fallon sent the staff home for the next couple of weeks, which means no chef-prepared meals. I’ve made him a few things he can just zap in the microwave or eat cold.” I open the kitchen’s huge luxury refrigerator and show him the stacks of Tupperware I prepared. “So, what have you guys been up to?”
“I’ve been in the study with Fal looking over some business papers with him.”
“See? All those business classes you’re taking are paying off already. Maybe Fallon will offer you a job.” I grin at him.
“Hell no. I like working on cars, not wearing a suit.”
“But you look sexy in a suit,” I reply dreamily, an image of him in his prom attire popping to mind. God, he looked so good that night. I snack on a dill pickle spear while daydreaming and Ryder’s heated gaze watches me.
I pop the pickle out and wag it at him. “What is it with guys fixating on women eating phallic-shaped foods like pickles, bananas, or popsicles?”
“It’s food porn, babe. No guy can watch and not imagine his woman’s lips wrapped around him like that.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” I reply with a shrug, then lick the juices off the side of the pickle before biting into it just to rile him up. I’m rewarded for my efforts when he has to adjust himself. “I promise to take care of that later,” I tell him, my eyes zeroed in on his crotch.
“Babe.”
I look up. “What?”
Ryder throws his trash away and leans over the granite counter island. “Trevor left a little while ago to take care of a few personal things. You know, I don’t think he’s acknowledged to himself that it’s his dad who’s gone too.”
“He really didn’t know Phillip that well. I know he said they talked and all, but that man was a shit father. I’m glad that Fallon is letting Trevor help. They’re going to need each other.”
“Fallon also needs food. He hasn’t eaten since you forced that bagel on him this morning.”
“Point me the way to the study and I’ll take Fallon his lunch.”
“Across the foyer, down the hall, third door to the left.”
“Got it. I’ll be right back.” I pick up the plate I made for Fallon, snatch a bottle of water from the fridge, and give Ryder a pickle-infused kiss that has him emitting a deep belly laugh.
As I walk down the long hallway, I slow to look at the various portraits and paintings hanging on the walls. If I didn’t know any better, I would swear two of the paintings are authentic Monet’s, which means they probably are. On a side table against the wall sit a few framed photographs. One of them is a family photo that I stop to look more closely at. Fallon was adorable when he was a little boy with his scraggly blond hair and crooked smile. A smile that was hiding the punches and bruises from his father. The older boy with the blank, dead eyes must be Peter, the older brother Fallon told me about. Chills race down my spine at the sight of him, so I quickly look at the two adults in the photograph. Fallon’s parents.
I’m not a vengeful person and I consider myself to have strong morals, but I’m not sorry that they’re dead. The abuse Fallon endured by their hands for years, the things his mother did to Peter, the scars his father left on Fallon…I’m glad Fallon is free of them. I honestly don’t know what kind of person that makes me, but after everything I’ve been through—seeing my parents’ blood pooling around them and their dead eyes staring at me while I was forced to watchHimstab and rape my sister—it changed me. I would never think myself capable of taking another life, but I would gladly takeHis. Some monsters should never be allowed to exist on this earth.
Wait.
The violent thud of my heart slamming against my breastbone has me picking up the framed photograph for a closer look. My eyes narrow and focus like the aperture of a camera lens. White noise fills my ears until I hear only the sound of Hailey’s whimpers, and the gurgling of choked blood as it pools in my mouth asHeremoves the knife from my side. The butterfly tattoos on my upper torso that cover my knife wounds erupt into a painful fire like acid burning through flesh. Heterochromatic eyes, the brown and blue from my nightmares, look back at me from the picture.
Fuck, fuck, fuck! Ohmygod! No!
“I knew I was on borrowed time before you’d eventually find out.”
I jump so violently at the sound of Fallon’s voice that I drop both the plate of food and the picture frame. They fall in slow motion and smash to the floor, the sound they create traveling through me like the boom of cannon fire.
Fight or flight. Adrenaline and red-hot rage infuse my blood.Fight or flight. I turn to face my new nightmare, every muscle in my body vibrating.Fight or flight.
I choose to fight.
“You lied to me!”
Fallon stands five feet from me, hands in his pockets, those ice blue eyes never wavering from my accusatory green ones.
“I wasn’t lying when I saidHewould never hurt you again,” he says, but all I want to do is smack him.
“You knew all this time and you lied to me!”
“I did what I had to do to protect you,” he says softly, those blue eyes looking down at the floor then back up at me again; however, this time, when he looks at me, he tries to smother the fear in his eyes with a stony expression. I watch as those sly-blue eyes darken into fathomless voids of nothingness. No emotion, no feeling behind them—just vacant and empty. But, like him, it’s all a lie.
