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Minutes past, then Hector spoke. “You’d have a child on the way already? How horny are you?”
I bit back a laugh. “You have no fucking idea.”
He sighed forcefully and thumped a fist against the window. “This is all so fucked up.”
I watched the droplets of rain trickle down the window. “It will be over soon. Trust me.”
Hector’s eyes spun my way. “I do, brother. With my life.”
I nodded. “I need to go.”
“Where to?” Hector asked.
“Minty’s. To see Vivian.”
I began to walk to the door but Hector’s tight grip around my bicep made me pause. “You sure about that? She’s not in a good way.”
I looked again at the room and a shudder racked my bones. These walls had nurtured a murderer, a criminal of the lowest possible kind. Sinclair may not have held a gun to the head of every customer we’d had, but by putting his trust in an egotistical psychopath, otherwise known as his only son, he may as well have done.
I forced my breathing to steady as I took in the concern on my brother’s face. “I can’t not see her Hector. I didn’t know if I was ever going to see her again, and now she’s here, I’m not missing another second.”
Vivian
I headed straight for the shower the second Minty and Hector left. My skin was still raw from where I’d scrubbed it incessantly the previous day but I couldn’t shake the dirt that seemed to coat my every surface. I felt repulsed by my own covering. Shame crawled through my veins, erupting from each pore like a plague.
I scrubbed and scrubbed until my arms and thighs bled. And the funny thing was, I felt no pain. I felt nothing at all. Only shame that simply would not wash off. When the floor of the shower became a blood bath, I turned off the taps and stepped out, wrapping a fluffy bath sheet around my shaking bones. I silently promised Minty I’d replenish her towels – this would be the second I’d ruined in less than twelve hours.
After I’d curbed the bleeding, I realised I had nothing to wear. Minty had generously given me free rein to pillage her drawers and wardrobe while I was, in effect, held hostage in her flat, so I crossed the corridor to her room. Just as I pressed my palm to the door, a movement to my right sent a tsunami of fear through my torso, freezing me to the spot. It could have been anything – a fly even – but the events of the last few days had sharpened my defences. I no longer trusted anything.
I slowly twisted my head, feeling my cheeks burn and my heart race. A figure filled the mouth of the corridor. It was large, sharply cut, and unmistakeable.
“It’s me,” Rupert said, softly.
I wished I could run. I wished I could closet myself inside Minty’s room and lock the door, but I couldn’t move. Instead, guilt, embarrassment, humiliation, and – in the eye of that storm – a warmth that weighed upon the space between my thighs, glued me to the floor.
I said the sole thing I’d had on my mind since I walked into this place. “I want to go home.” It came out a whisper.
The figure remained still. Didn’t venture forward. “I know.”
My fingers pressed against the door but it didn’t budge, so I curled them around the door handle.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Rupert said. “I won’t even touch you. I just wanted to see that you’re okay.”
I couldn’t stop the unladylike snort leaving my mouth. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be okay.”
He didn’t reply but I heard his teeth grind. And I felt it in my core.
Sweat broke out across my collarbone so I turned my focus back to the door. “When is this going to end?” I wasn’t even sure what I was asking. What did I want to stop? The stomach-churning memory of Ossian between my legs, or the unmistakeable yearning for Rupert in that exact same spot?
His deep breaths echoed in the small space. “Trust me to come close and I’ll tell you.”
I filled my lungs and emptied them, long and measured, then I replied. “Let me get changed. Then you can tell me everything.”
I walked into Minty’s bedroom without waiting for a reply and found a pile of folded clothes on a chair by the door. She’d muttered something about leaving a selection of things out for me before she left with Hector. I hadn’t wanted to be left alone. Not when Ossian was still around, somewhere on the island. But I didn’t want to burden them. Hector had just discovered his family was a total sham and Minty had to show up at work while knowing she was harbouring the Thorn family’s public enemy number one. I couldn’t burden them anymore.
I dressed in a pair of butter-soft leggings, thick socks and a worn-out sweater. Winter in the middle of the North Sea was harsh and my perpetual shivering told me that heating – or the ability to pay for it – was severely limited amongst the islanders.
I walked back to the living room to find Rupert standing uncertainly in one corner of it. He gestured to the sofa and I sat, rigidly.
