I deflated the gag and removed it, then freed her of her restraints. I gathered her in my arms and took her to my bedroom, laying her stomach down on the bed. She lay there, quiet and passive, staring straight ahead, not saying a single word.
“Jenny,” I started before I fell silent. How could I apologize for this? What right did I have to ask for forgiveness? I had promised to protect her and I had failed.
I used a damp cloth to soothe her poor, bruised bottom. The skin had split open in a few places and I dabbed some antiseptic on the cuts. She hissed in agony and I held her hand. “I’ll be done in a little bit, cherie,” I whispered. I found a couple of pills for the pain and offered them to her. “Painkillers,” I said.
She nodded. “I trust you,” she said quietly as she swallowed the drugs.
There was a lump in my throat and I was unable to respond to her words. Words that I did not deserve.
“Where is Sylvia?” she continued.
“Gone,” I replied. “She will never bother you again.” I wanted to promise her this, but the words wouldn’t come out past the lump in my throat.
“Don’t you have to go now?” Her voice was the smallest whisper and my heart hurt to hear the broken note in her voice. “To see her?”
“She doesn’t matter. She never has. Right now, the only thing that matters is you and I’m not going anywhere.”
She stayed silent for a very long time. “I didn’t want to cry,” she said finally. “I wanted to be brave.”
“You were brave,” I said quietly. My fingers laced in hers. “You are so brave. I am so proud of you.” She thought I was muttering words of reassurance. I wasn’t. I was in awe at how courageous she was. I knew what Dylan did to women, how effectively he broke them. I knew how hard it was to walk back towards recovery and she had done all of that and more.
“Alexander,” she muttered. “Will you lie down next to me and hold me?”
My bright star. She broke my heart with her softly-voiced request. I couldn’t reply; I didn’t trust my voice to hold steady. Instead, I lowered myself next to her, our sides touching, my arm around her waist, holding her close and claiming her as mine. Even though I had no right to do so and even though I knew it was all going to fall apart in a few days.
I stayed still and waited for her to fall asleep. Only when I knew she was deep in slumber did I push myself off my bed.
I needed to deal with Sylvia.
Chapter 20
Alexander:
Jean-Luc was waiting for me as I made my way outside. He shot me an urgent look. He could see the barely concealed anger in my stance. I rarely lost my cool. I always stuck to the plan, but right now, I was fighting the urge to snap Sylvia Anliker’s neck with my bare hands.
“Remember,” he said harshly. “This cannot be traced back to you. If Dylan finds out, he will disappear.”
My nails gouged into my palms, I was clenching my fists that hard. I nodded curtly. “She should consider herself lucky,” I said tonelessly. That was a lie. The way Sylvia was going to die was not going to be pretty at all.
***
She jumped to her feet as the door opened. She had some minor bruising on her face and her hair was a tangled mess. She had fought the men who had brought her here.
She was in a warehouse in one of the more unsavoury parts of Paris. She didn’t know that – the men had tossed a black hood over her face as they’d taken her. The room she found herself in when the hood had come off was sparse. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling. There was a wooden table in the centre and a straight-backed chair. In the corner, a bucket served as a place to pee.
She’d been in that room for three hours. Three hours while I’d held Jenny in my arms and attempted to comfort her. Three hours while I tended to the welts and wounds the cane had left on my bright star.
Not Jenny. Her name was Ellie Samuelson and she’d been caned once before by Dylan while Sylvia had watched. The two of them had filmed that scene.
Sylvia was always going to die. Yet, had she not touched Jenny, it would have been so much easier for her. Now? There was no mercy left in me.
“Alexander,” she exclaimed. For an instant, I saw relief on her face, a hope that I’d come to rescue her.
No one was going to rescue Sylvia. She was going to die in this room.
Then awareness descended over her face. “You. How?”
I looked at her with undisguised loathing. “Did you not think that your sins would catch up with you, Sylvia?” I asked her. “Did you think you could just get away with it all?”
She opened her mouth to answer. “Is it about the girl?” she asked. “I barely laid three stripes across her ass. Have you suddenly become reluctant to share?” Her lips curled into a sneer. “Why, Alexander, are you in love? You do like your strays, don’t you? She spins a sob story about her sister and you fall for her? Saving people is like fucking catnip to you, isn’t it?”