Always trying to figure out what I’m thinking. “’Fucks sake, no son of mine is going to play piano for a living. You may as well have studied ballet all these years. It’s only by the grace of God that you excelled in sports, the way you did.”
Grace of God? I busted my ass. Trained hard. Never missed a practice, and went on to set records for the state. But only by the grace of God, it seems.
“You will take over this company. You will take your place in Schadenfreude. Or I will--”
“Kill me? Like you killed her?”
“Who?”
“You know exactly who I’m talking about. I saw her. In the cave. Dead. I saw you fucking her.”
His lips form the malevolent smile of a man who doesn’t care that he’s been caught. “The pedophile? The one who liked playing with little boys? Yes. I fucked her. And then I got rid of her.”
Unbidden flashes of memory flicker through my head like a sketchy dream.
A beautiful woman. Long dark hair. Her hands between my thighs.
Similar to Solange, but perhaps not as exotic, like a watered down version of her.
“You were just a boy when we hired her to be your nanny. Six years old. Your mother was suspicious of anyone who spent excessive amounts of time with you, so we installed cameras throughout the manor.” His voice gives narration to the rapid succession of images still slipping through my mind. “It started with fondling. In the bathtub, mostly. She would touch you. Harmless, mostly. Your mother … she was always so protective, but with Monique, even more so.”
Monique. Miss Monique. At the sound of her name, more images erupt inside my head.
Giggles. Soft caresses. Tickles and the chasing knots in my stomach.
“Your mother insisted we get rid of her.” Eyes on me, he puffs his cigar. “So I did.”
Memories spin and tumble in my brain, jumbling into a mishmash of something that doesn’t make sense. “You’re lying. The woman you killed was Solange.”
“According to Friedrich, this Solange you keep going on about is the result of the trauma you suffered after the death of Jude and the abuse of your nanny. A hallucination.”
I didn’t imagine her. I couldn’t have. She was real. What she did to me was real. I felt everything. I shake my head, but even as I prepare to argue with him, flickering images pass behind my eyes. My mother never acknowledging Solange in the room. The staff giving me strange looks as we’d stroll by together. The way she’d disappear from the castle for days, and show up only when I was upset, or stressed.
No. I couldn’t have imagined her. How could I have imagined something that felt so real?
“I won’t let you make me out to be crazy. So, you can throw me back into that place. It wasn’t a hospital!”
“It’s the institute where we meet. A number of studies are carried out there, but Freidrich thought you might be more comfortable having your first session here.”
“They fucking tortured me there!”
“Friedrich wanted to study the nature of your hallucinations. To see how they might affect what we’re trying to accomplish. Through these delusions, you put yourself at risk, many times over. Killing yourself accomplishes nothing, Lucian. It proves nothing.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”
“As we soon learned. You’ve developed masochistic tendencies.” He shrugs and rolls his cigar between his fingers. “Nothing to be ashamed of. I had them myself, though not as dangerous as yours.”
“I want out of this study.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” He puffs his cigar again, twisting it around to show the bright orange glow at the other end of it. “The only way out is death.”
The percolating anger inside of me explodes, and I push up from my chair. Refusing to listen to another word, I make a mad dash toward the door.
“Lucian!” My father calls from behind, but I run from his office, knocking into Rand on the way.
“Lucian, where are you going?”
I sprint through the foyer, and out the front door. Across the yard and into the woods. Bracken and twigs on the ground gouge the soles of my feet, scratching and scraping at my legs. A light, evening breeze cools the sweat gathered on my exposed skin. It isn’t long before the trees give way to a small clearing and the cliff in the distance. I run faster toward it.
The sound of waves crashing below sing like a dirge over the hurricane of thoughts spinning inside my head.
Solange. She wasn’t