Defaced: A Dark Romance Novel Read online

  She ran around a corner and slammed hard into a solid body.

  Lily let out a scream. Hands grabbed around her arms and then twisted her back around, one hand moving to clamp over her mouth. There had been enough time for her to see that there were five people, and each of them wore black balaclavas over their faces.

  “No!” she screamed, muffled beneath the hand. She struggled, kicked back at the legs behind her.

  “Quit it, Flower,” a voice hissed in her ear.

  Monster?

  She felt herself relax a fraction. Monster removed his hand from her mouth, though he still pushed her forward, back toward the house.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded, directing her question at him over her shoulder.

  “You can’t actually think I’m going to tell you that.”

  “Are they here for me?”

  “What?” he sounded genuinely baffled.

  “The people with guns. Have they come to rescue me?”

  He gave a cold laugh. “You can’t actually think you still need rescuing?”

  Lily had no idea what she was supposed to say to that, but from the way he spoke, she believed the people didn’t have anything to do with her.

  He pushed her into the house before turning to the other masked men. “Keep alert,” he instructed them as a group, then he turned to one of the masked men in particular. “Step up security if you have to bring in more men. Do whatever you have to do in order to keep this place secure.”

  The man nodded, and they turned as a group, and Lily noted the guns held at their hips as they ran back the way they’d come.

  Monster shut the door and engaged all the locks.

  “Where’s Tudor?” she asked, realizing the other man was missing.

  Monster turned to her. “One of those men was Tudor. He’s the head of my security team—was so when my father was alive. He doesn’t take part in much hand to hand combat these days, but he coordinates the rest of the team.”

  She stared at him. “What sort of business are you in that you need a security team?”

  He reached up and pulled the balaclava from his head, allowing her to see the two contrasting sides of his face.

  “You shouldn’t have followed me out,” he growled, not answering her question. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “I don’t think I need to try too hard. Seems like everyone wants to see me dead these days.”

  He glowered at her. “I don’t.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “No? You’ve threatened it often enough.”

  He scowled. “I’m not having this conversation with you. There are far more important things going on.”

  “Like what? I heard people shooting.”

  “It’s been taken care of.”

  “What has?”

  “Rivals of mine in the business world. They’ve been threatening a takeover for some time, and it seems they wanted to make good on their word.”

  “What is your business?”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “If I tell you that, I’ll have to kill you.”

  “There you go with the death threats again. But it’s not like I’ve got anyone to tell.”

  “My business is in weapons.”

  “Like …” she searched her mind for what she knew about the topic. “Gun running and stuff?”

  He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “No. Much bigger than that. I don’t believe in putting guns into the hands of children. We develop the sort of weapons countries want to buy.”

  Her eyes widened. “What? Like nuclear?”

  He laughed again. “No, not quite that big, but missiles, among other things.”

  “But ... but why?”

  Confusion clouded his face. “Because that’s what the business is. My father grew it from nothing, and then he passed it onto me.

  “You didn’t have to take it.”

  His confusion deepened in the lines on his forehead, in the pinch of his mouth. “Of course I did. What else would I have done? I was born for this. The whole reason my father raised me as he did was so I would be ready for this world.”

  “But you’re not in the world. You’re here, at this prison of a house.” She didn’t want to push him, didn’t want to risk being locked back up in the room, but she had to know. He was such an enigma. Despite everything he’d done, she wanted to understand him.

  “I can conduct my business from this house. My father explained to me how I couldn’t risk people seeing me like I am. The men I work with only respect what they can fear. I wouldn’t want to do anything to shatter that illusion.”

  “But surely you can’t run a business without ever leaving this place?”

  “Our modern society is the perfect place for someone like me. I can hide behind a mask of internet connection, of fake pictures, of emails and telephone conversations.”

  “Has no one ever seen you?”

  His expression darkened. “No one who has ever lived to tell the tale.”

  Her stomach clenched with fear. She’d seen him.

  Sixteen

  “What happens now?” Lily asked Monster.

  He shook his head. “Nothing. You continue treating me, and when I am healed and look like a normal man, I can leave this place and negotiate with my enemies face to face.”

  “But you’ll never look like a normal man,” she said.

  He lifted his fingers to touch the side of his face with the birthmark. “Why? Because you’ll never be able to fully heal me?”

  It was her turn to shake her head. “No. Because even with the birthmark, you’re still more shockingly beautiful than any man I’ve ever seen.”

  Lily clamped her hand over her mouth. Where the hell had that come from?

  But her words made him pause. His eyes took on a hard glint, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “Is that supposed to be a fucking joke?”

  She started back in surprise. “What? No, of course not!”

  “I’ve been told how hideous I am my whole life. Don’t expect for one second that I’m going to believe you telling me I’m beautiful. What are you trying to achieve? Do you think you can manipulate me somehow?”

  “No!” she repeated. “I was just saying what I thought. Yes, you have a birthmark, but the face beneath is still beautiful.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said, his lips thinning, nostrils flared. “I know what I am. I’ve seen the revulsion on the faces of the few people I’ve come into contact with during my life—I saw it on my own father’s face when he looked at me.”

  She locked her eyes on his. “Do you see any revulsion in my eyes when I look at you?”

  “You’re good at hiding your feelings from your patients. I imagine it’s an important part of your job.”

  “I’m not pretending. No one with any kind of disfigurement would ever repulse me, and I know you can’t see it because of your past, but you’re gorgeous, Monster. You have the sort of features I would expect to see on the front page of a magazine.”

  “What, a magazine about freaks?”

  “Don’t talk about yourself like that,” she snapped.

  His eyes narrowed. “Then stop lying to me. What do you think you’re going to achieve? That you’ll get on the right side of me and I’ll let you go?”

  She stuttered, “No … No! I never thought that at all. I was just speaking the truth.”

  “You want the truth? The truth is I’m a monster, on the inside and out. Even if you manage to fix my face, you’ll never change who I am inside.”

  “So why did you bring me here? If you say you’re a monster on the inside and out, why do you want your face to change?”

  “It is far easier to get people to trust you if you are handsome. Why do you think I don’t let people see me? They would experience emotions while I am trying to conduct business. Emotions of revulsion, or perhaps even pity. I want them to respect me, and they never will with my face as it is.”

  “How can they treat you like anything if you won�
�t put yourself out there?” Forcing away her awkwardness at initiating contact, she reached out and gently touched his hand. “Just because you’ve been told you’re a monster your whole life, doesn’t mean you are. What happened to make you hate yourself so much?”

  His dark eyes widened in surprise. “I don’t hate myself.”

  “No? It seems that way to me. Your father kept you locked up in that room, and he taught you that you were something people feared, but there was no truth in that. You were just a child back then. He was the one who was the monster, not you.”

  He rubbed his hand over his face and shook his head. “I should have done something when my father was still alive. I question myself constantly, asking myself why I didn’t. He was a bully, and he was trying to make me like him. I knew that, yet I did nothing. I was big enough to stand up to him physically for years, and yet I let him hit me. Even when he told me that he murdered my mother, and had considered killing me, too, I still didn’t retaliate. What kind of weak person does that make me?”

  Her mind reeled. His father had killed his mother? “Oh, my God.”

  He shook his head again, and glanced away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be saying these things.”

  “He kept you as a prisoner, Monster. You were a child and he imprisoned you and beat you, but he was still your father. You loved him, despite everything. That’s your greatest strength, Monster. I see it in you. Despite everything you’ve been through, you still have the ability to love with every inch of your being.”

  But still he wouldn’t look at her, and cold shards of ice pierced her heart. Some part of her knew he was going to let her see into his past, and she was terrified of what she would find.

  “I wasn’t a child the entire time. I grew, but still did nothing.”

  “You weren’t exposed to the outside world. Maybe you grew physically, but the world didn’t change for you. He kept you as a child mentally by keeping you away from other people.”

  He shook his head again. “No, not all the time. There were things he did … things I did … that took me far from childhood.”

  Alarm spiked through her. “What do you mean? Did he touch you? Sexually abuse you?”

  But he laughed, the sound devoid of any humor. “No, not him. He was never like that. Even with all his faults, he never touched me in such a way. But when he saw I was old enough to be interested in women, he brought them to me. Prostitutes. They were horrified when they saw what they were being paid to please, but he beat them until they did what they were paid to do.”

  She was sick to her stomach. What was he saying? That he had sex with women not only paid to do so, but beaten, too?

  “I know you don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to be telling you, but perhaps part of me wants you to understand. I hated that they wouldn’t look at me. I hated myself for being so repulsive. Remember, these women were being paid to have sex. They were the type of women who would have sex with anyone for money, but they couldn’t even bring themselves to look at me. And part of me hated them for it. I only wanted someone to accept me for who I was. Part of me took pleasure in their tears. I was bitter about who I was, how I looked. I took my anger out on them, and I took pleasure in their pain.”

  She could barely bring herself to say the words. “You hit women and forced them to have sex with you?”

  He shook his head. “No, I didn’t force them. They came to me willingly because my father paid them, and perhaps they were scared of him, possibly scared of me, too. But yes, I was rough with them. I wanted them to look at me. I wanted to see the fear in their eyes.” He glanced away. “I told you there was darkness in me, Flower. I told you I was a monster on the inside as well as out. Think about what I did to you. I had you taken from your life and brought here to be my property. Don’t ever think that I am a good person, because I’m not.”

  She wanted to cry. She was so torn. Every part of her rational brain screamed at her to get away from this man—that someone so utterly broken could never be put back together again—while the part of her that only wanted to heal and fix and put right wanted to take him in her arms and hold him until the deep, intense pain she sensed in him went away.

  “I … I …” But she didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m not telling you because I want you to feel sorry for me, or even understand me. I’m telling you simply because I want you to know who I am. I want you to realize that you might be able to help the outside of me, but deep down I’ve done things that are unforgivable, and you can’t do things like tell me I’m beautiful.”

  She took a shuddery breath, a painful knot lodged deep in the base of her throat. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words tangled in the knot and refused to budge. Only on her exhale did her breath become a cry, and a tear spilled from her eye and ran down her cheek.

  His tone softened. “You shouldn’t cry for me, Flower. I’m not worth your tears.”

  She pressed her lips together, her chin trembling. “How can I not cry? Your story is breaking my heart.”

  He stared at her, studying her face, and she wondered what he was thinking. Was he about to send her back to her room?

  “Ah, fuck it,” he growled.

  He reached out and captured her face in both hands.

  Her initial instinct was to push him away, her heart rate catapulting at this invasion of her personal space, but then he stepped in toward her and kissed her, his lips firm, confident, his tongue pushing into her mouth to connect with hers.

  Her mind tripped. This was the last thing she’d been expecting. Though she knew she should push him away, he’d somehow broken through her fear, and she found she was enjoying him kissing her.

  His hands left her face and slipped around her back, one sliding up her spine, to the nape of her neck, to lace in her hair. The other moved downward, to cup one cheek of her bottom and press her firmly against him. She could feel the long length of his arousal hard against her stomach, and the first flutters of excitement started low in her belly.

  We shouldn’t be doing this.

  She knew it was wrong on every level, especially after everything he’d just told her, but she couldn’t help how her body reacted to him. She wanted to touch him, she wanted to be kissing him. For the first time in ten years, such intimate contact didn’t turn every inch of her body into stone.

  Lily lifted her hand to his face as he kissed her, her fingertips lightly skirting the raised surface of the birthmark she’d been brought here to remove. Except, she barely noticed the mark anymore. She’d told the truth when she’d said getting to know her patients made her see their marks differently, except instead of the birthmark becoming more defined to her, she no longer even noticed it. She simply saw them as the person they were—not their deformity.

  She might have been brought here to fix Monster’s face, but right now what she wanted more than anything else was to fix his soul.

  Seventeen

  The front door opened, the numerous locks clicking one after the other, and both Lily and Monster sprang apart and turned toward it.

  Tudor walked in, the balaclava now removed from his head and held in one hand. He glanced between Monster and Lily, and something passed across his face that Lily couldn’t quite read. Clearly, the older man had picked up on there being something between the two of them, but whether he was annoyed or pleased, Lily couldn’t be sure.

  “We need to talk,” said Tudor, addressing his boss.

  Monster nodded. “Yes, I’m aware of that.”

  Tudor passed the balaclava from one hand to the other. “This won’t be the end of it. They’ll try again.”

  Lily looked to Monster. “Who will? Your business associates?”

  She noticed Tudor frown at her words.

  “You already know too much,” said Monster, taking her by the elbow. “You need to go back to your room. You’ll be safe there.”

  “Safe? From what?”

  “Just do as I say. I’ll tell Marianna to b
ring you a meal shortly.” He frowned and glanced around. “Just as soon as I find her.”

  “She was frightened by the gunfire,” Lily said. “She ran toward the back of the house.”

  Monster pressed his lips together, studying her face in the way he did that made her shrink. “And yet you didn’t,” he said, thoughtfully. “You ran toward it. Why was that?”

  “I already told you, I wanted to know what was going on.”

  “You weren’t looking for a way to escape?”

  “No! I just wanted to find out what was happening.”

  He leaned in close. “I will punish you if you try to escape. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Part of her wanted to test him. He’d kissed her; she could still feel the pressure of his mouth on hers, still had the taste of him on her tongue. The idea of him punishing her made her shiver, both with fear and longing. What would he do to her? How far would he take it?

  “I heard people beyond the walls,” she admitted. “I wanted to know how to get out there.”

  “Flower?” He growled his warning.

  She held his gaze. “I only wanted to know.”

  He looked over to Tudor. “Wait for me in my office.”

  The older man nodded, and turned to leave.

  He took her by the upper arm and gave her a small shove to get her moving, before frog-marching her down the hallway, back toward her room. This time she didn’t care that he was making her go back there. Her heart raced, but not because she was frightened of being locked up, or that he would hurt her. She’d sensed the relationship between them growing. Yes, he was dangerous—she didn’t doubt that for a moment—but he also hummed with the sort of sexual tension she’d never come across before. For years, she’d gone without any kind of sexual contact—or even contact in general. After what she’d been through as a young adult, she’d never met anyone who’d awakened that side of her. And yet Monster did. She couldn’t explain it. Just being near him excited her. When he touched her, her inner core tightened, her whole body vibrating with lust which coiled downward, condensing between her thighs.