Page 32 of Irish Betrayal

As her eyes tracked across the outline of the flat’s kitchen and living room, two things happened at once. The door behind her clicked shut at the same time the flat-screen television hung over the gas fireplace flickered to life.

And then her body went numb. The comfortable normal of absolute silence crawled across her prickled skin as a video of herself flooded the large screen.

First, it was one of her laughing while she repotted a plant in Peter’s personal greenhouse—in her bra.

The next was of Peter rubbing his hand across her naked, flat chest.

The next, their first kiss.

The next, her laughing, lounging against his desk in only her underwear.

The next, her small hand tracing the swollen veins of Peter’s erection.

The next, her dancing naked through one of Trinity’s greenhouses.

The next, a close-up of Peter swiping his tongue against her…

“No,” she cried, shaking her head in disbelief. “Stop this! What have you done?” Blair spun on her heel until she was facing the brass locks of the front door. Shudders wracked her frame like lightning strikes.

She could only keep shaking her head in denial, her mind refusing to put the obvious dots together. It was wrong. All wrong. She hadn’t seen—hadn't known.

She’d been used. All along. Used.

But for what? Blair felt her knees grow weak and her head was spinning, dizzy and faint.

She felt gasping whimpers leave her normally silent throat. “Why?”

“You’ve been mine since the first moment we met, Blair. You’ve been mine and only mine for the past nine years.

“I know you think you can leave me. Try it. I dare you, sweet girl. I fucking dare you.”

It was then that she saw Peter was naked…and excited, just standing there with the TV remote in his hand, and kneeling by his side was an equally naked woman.

Her brain stuttered on and off, attempting to understand what…who she was seeing. The new Trinity science teacher. Miss Shulk.

Peter noticed where Blair’s eyes had gone. “Ah, yes. Mindy was a better student than you, Blair. Much more malleable.

“But you, Blair, you looked like a child well into your teen years. You had a perfect body. For me. Add to that your genius and passion for plants, well, I knew it was destined that we’d met.”

Blair’s mind felt like it was cracking. Her eyes slid shut and the horror of what she’d done, what he’d done, flickered like a horror movie against her closed lids until she bent over and vomited. Bile gushed from her body, the acid burning her throat, causing her eyes and nose to water and burn.

Peter barked to the woman still sitting silently at his feet. “Mindy,” he barked. “Clean this mess up. Now!”

Blair shook her head, bewildered. “You…you…you’re a monster. A…a…a pedophile,” she stuttered, swallowing down another bout of nausea.

“No. I’m not, my girl. I never took your virginity. I never put myself inside you,” he sneered while stroking his disgusting member. “That would have made you unclean, and I don’t get off on unclean things.

“Want to know why I chose you besides your lovely, little child’s body?”

Blair could only shake, her teeth cutting into her lower lip, the taste of metal coating her tongue.

“Not only did you look different than most girls, but you were also deaf, making you an even bigger outcast, easier to mold you into the woman I knew you could become. Mine.”

He frowned at her before moving his gaze to Mindy, who was diligently scrubbing up Blair’s vomit, still naked, and still completely removed.

“I didn’t count on your intelligence, which I had a weakness for, to work against me. You’ve been so stubborn over the years. And now, after all we’ve been through together, you honestly believed you could walk away. And go to your precious Daniel. Never.”

“I’m going to the police. You’re sick. This,” Blair swung her head around, taking in the television still shuffling through the despicable images, back to Mindy on the floor, and Peter stroking himself, smirking, “is madness. Sick madness.”