The Starkest Truth (A Breaking Insanity Novel Book 2) (11 page)

“I’ve heard it all. I know what I am. I’m weak, because I can’t move past every tragedy in my life, and pretend they never happened and pretend to be happy. How can I forget the memories of every tragic thing that’s ever happened to me, and pretend they never did? As if…” She trailed off as her doll-eyes began to water. “If being human makes me weak, so fucking be it.”

I stepped forward, lifting her chin. Watching her sink into a mood I didn’t like her being in—didn’t want her to be in—shoved my rage back where it belonged. “What the fuck are you talking about, Nik?”

She stared into space for so long, I had to grab her and lightly shake her to pull her out of it.
 

“Where did you just go?” I asked her, moving a piece of hair from her eye to fall behind her ear. Honestly, she didn’t need to tell me. When I pressed her about her past, she told me about a nameless girl who fucked with her for years in high school. If I ever found out the bitch’s name, I would find her and do things to her to make her wish I granted her the mercy of killing her. The nameless bitch wasn’t the only one who I held responsible. Her father was number two and Nikki was number three. Too often Nikki became a victim of her own prison—her mind.

“The answer doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “None of it does.”

“When it comes to you, everything matters.”

She peered up at me with her eyes welling up with tears. “Do you agree? Am I not perfect anymore?”

“You still are, my twisted angel,” I assured her, changing my mood into the one that made her wet and compliant—sometimes not in that order.

Clearly, she didn’t hear me. She blinked at me with a blank expression on her face.

I stared at her breasts, imagining something that would make her scream and beg for clemency. Nipples. Knife. Blood. Screams. Torture. I ran my hands down my face and took in a few deep breaths. It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed my mind. Usually, I’d fuck her, making her come so hard, so many times my harsher fantasies featuring her became diluted, and eventually, pushed out of my thoughts. There was something about the look in her eyes when her pussy flooded my cock or when she came in my mouth that blocked out the torture fantasies I usually had no problems indulging in, or watching others indulge in due to my adept ability at being a puppet-master.

I felt the sudden urge to shove my cock inside every hole she had. Sure, her mouth was a free-zone, but in fucked-up situation number one thousand and one, I couldn’t do it.

My current state reared its ugly head when I’d gone too long without having someone’s death or life in my hands. I needed more of every part of her in every way I could have her when the addiction fits hit me a little too hard.

Turning her toward the door, I pushed her out of the bathroom and slapped her ass. “Get out, so I can finish cleaning.”
 

“Here’s number twenty-four. Fuck you, Ethan.”

Infraction number two: I hated being disrespected. Infraction number three: I told her more than once to stop calling me Ethan. My fist balled and fell shy of punching a crack into the bathroom mirror.

Taking in a deep breath, I met Nikki in the adjoining bedroom. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she had a wild look in her eyes that stopped me cold. I was mistaken. Not wild. No. She was scared shitless. Mindlessly, she pinched the skin on her inner thigh. I knew what she was aching for. Sitting next to her, I took her hand away from screwing with her inner thigh.

“In what part of the universe do two fucked up people equal a good start to raising another human being? I’m not better because I became your wife. I never will be right enough in my head to become a good mother. Even if I wished it, I know what’s going to happen if I tried to be a mother, and it’s…” She looked at me, her hand trembling in mine. “Nothing you do will make what’s false become true.” She darted her hand out, signaling toward the bathroom. “And why are you such a compulsive cleaner?”

All my tools to make her forget what was in her head were on hold. My dick, my seductive words…the look. It was taking everything in me not to do to her what I fantasized about. So much so my fingers twitched.
 

“Right”—she sighed—“you don’t want to talk about it. You never want to talk about it.” She bolted up and got back into bed.
 

I took a moment to pause and smile before finishing what I’d started in the bathroom. After a few months of trying…I was finally going to be a father, ensuring Nikki would be connected to me for the rest of her life. She’d come around to being a mother…eventually.

I WISHED I could say I was ecstatically happy about my pregnancy, but I wasn’t. I didn’t think I would ever be the kind of woman who would ever be completely satisfied with anything. Eric gave me what I needed and something else I didn’t need. I spent one week since I’d found out I was pregnant trying to figure out how I could become a good mother. In trying to become a parent, I would only succeed in doing what our parents did to us. It couldn’t be any other way.

Things were already slightly altered between us since I found out I was with child. My mind ran through the gambit of reasons for the shift. It was quite possible that my delusions were clouding my thought process, thinking things had changed when nothing had. Perhaps it was the issue. We, as a couple, hadn’t exactly evolved.

He agreed to move back into my mother’s house the day after we discovered my pregnancy. It took him a lot for him to do it, but it had to be done. I needed to hold onto the memory of my mother’s life, instead of her death, to prevent falling back into the coping mechanisms I’d used to feel something other than the numbness that brought me deeper into the sinking pit of depression.

I FIDDLED WITH THE edge of my pillowcase while I listened to Eric finish up his shower in the en suite bathroom. The door opened, allowing the steam and scent of Eric’s cologne to pervade our bedroom.
 

We had many things to discuss, but without my medication, I couldn’t address them. Besides the topic of the baby, he hinted about moving into my mother’s bedroom because it was the master suite.
 

When he kissed my forehead and whispered that he loved me, the slow-forming pit inside my gut began to ache.

I waited for the door to my bedroom to latch close before deciding to get up.
 

My hands lingered at my torso, unable to make full contact. I could only presume I was a matter of weeks into my pregnancy; my stomach was still perfectly flat. It was quickly becoming a touch-avoidance zone I couldn’t connect with.
 

I hugged my knees and looked around my room. As I stared at the brick red walls and the sleek lines of the ebony wood furniture, I contemplated all the things that were going wrong in my life. I recalled the disasters that had occurred, and continued to occur after Eric stampeded his way into my heart and mind.
 

Kifo stared at me from her position on the side of the bed. When I stared back at her, she barked at me.
 

Throwing on presentable clothes, I made my way downstairs with the purpose of letting her complete her business outside.

I checked my laptop on the dining room table while I waited for Kifo to relieve herself. I had several messages from a few clients I was in the midst of working on projects with. Nothing was particularly noteworthy.
 

In the most random of moments, Mr. Wilcox sent me an instant message, stating his desire to meet in person to convey his needs because they weren’t being met.
 

He further claimed his website wasn’t what he wanted it to be. I sent him a message back, asking him to be more transparent about his needs.

Immediately after, I received an IM:

Cox81: I don’t bite. Honest. I’m a nice guy. I think you’ll find a familiarity once we sit down.

LaNoireDe89: It’s against my policy to meet with clients face-to-face.

Cox81: Are you sure you won’t meet me? Because I remember you watching me fuck Estelle. You were interested then. I think you still are. Don’t you want to formally meet me for once?

My jaw dropped. Preston? How could it have been?
 

Cox81: Nikki? Are you still there?

LaNoireDe89: What do you want, Preston?

Cox81: To convey my needs. I’ll be at my lounge downtown. I know you don’t like crowds. You’ll be glad to know that no one is around. Meet with me in an hour.

After receiving a message with his address, an alert went up, signaling that Preston signed off. I stared at his messages for a while, sensing a sinister motive.
 

He wanted to meet with me at the exact location contained within the website I’d built for his lounge. It could very likely have been just about business. My history with Eric and the people he surrounded himself with made it abundantly clear that nothing would ever be that simple. It was more of Eric’s dirty past—and possibly present—seeping into my life.
 

Eric’s all-consuming tornado was coming around for a second round.

I was torn between keeping a client, nosiness, or facing Eric’s wrath if he knew I had met with Preston.
 

In a split second decision, I made my choice: I deleted Preston as a client.

WITH MY LAPTOP IN tow, I opened the sliding glass doors to continue my work on the patio while Kifo expended her energy and made the best of the mild May weather. I nearly dropped my precious laptop when Kifo took off, growling and barking at someone on the edge of the deck. The man bent down, and appeared unassuming as he offered his hand to Kifo. She skidded to a stop and tentatively took whatever he gave her.

“Hey,” I shouted, worried he might’ve poisoned her. “What the hell are you doing?”

The man turned around and my entire body locked up in shock. “Since you wouldn’t come to the mountain, the mountain came to you, Mrs. Brenton. We haven’t formally met, have we?” Preston folded his arms and sported a cocky grin. Dressed in a tie and tailored shirt, his dark brown hair styled messily, he appeared to be ready for a professional date. His lips and hazel eyes smiled simultaneously. I’d never encountered him without the marks of Eric’s brutality on his face. I could understand why Estelle would’ve been torn between the two; the understanding was very short-lived.

“No,” I shot back without a single ounce of friendliness. “Because you were usually getting beaten to a pulp by Eric or beating Estelle. Never really needed a reason to meet you, which was why I deleted you as I client and declined to meet you. If Eric comes home and sees you here…” My eyes fell away, spotting Kifo toying with the water’s edge.

Preston paced toward me with purposeful and confident steps.
 

“What are you really doing here? I doubt that you initially contacted me to develop a website for your place. Is this a cover for your more illegal activities?”
 

The corner of his mouth turned up, signaling that I wouldn’t get an answer.

Looking down, I fingered my laptop. “Guessing you service upper clientele from the way you dress and the car you drive. You didn’t need me to boost your reach. I’m slightly on the low end of the cost scale. You could’ve gone with a larger company. Unless, as I said before, the business I built a site for is a cover.” I crossed my arms, suddenly uncomfortable with the way he stared at me in complete stillness. “To show up here, you have to want something beyond the professional. Can you spit it out, so I can terminate you as a client? I really don’t like the dance of pretension. It’s so unnecessary.”
 

He scoured down my body and stopped at my laptop. “Yet, I think you were hopeful. I didn’t exactly use a pseudonym. It appears everything was copacetic so long as I didn’t directly contact you.”

“I have so many clients, I don’t really notice nor care about the names, only the work. If I paid attention, maybe I was hopeful you weren’t a sinister, woman-beating asshole involved in organized crime…maybe. But like Eric, none of the people he surrounds himself with can ever be decent, upright citizens.”

He adjusted his tie and pulled the hem of his waistcoat to sit properly against his form. His hazel eyes persistently smiled under the shadow of his dark brown eyebrows. “You should really get to know me before you make assumptions, Mrs. Brenton.”