CHAPTER 8: ONE YEAR
837 Words
Cillian
The lamp cost three thousand dollars.
Ronan told me this without humour while the security footage showed Valentina swinging it at the camera above her bed.
Her hands shook between blows.
I watched that part twice.
I watched the way her breasts moved under the thin shirt when she raised the lamp. The way her ass flexed when she climbed onto the chair. The way her whole body trembled with rage and fear and something else I wanted to put my hands on.
My c**k had been hard since the garage.
It stayed that way while I watched her destroy the room I had prepared for her.
"Brennan cleared the glass," he said. "No cuts."
"Her ankle?"
"Still swollen. She wouldn't let Brennan look at it."
I shut off the screen.
Ronan stayed where he was.
"You should have removed the cameras before she entered the room."
"I wanted to know what she would do."
"Now you know."
His eyes went to the dark monitor.
"She was frightened, Cillian."
I stood.
The stitches pulled beneath the dressing. Valentina had told me not to walk unless necessary.
Declan's summons qualified, though only because ignoring him created longer conversations later.
The council room smelled of whiskey, smoke, and old wood. Finn stood near the drinks cabinet, pouring liquor into a glass. My father sat at the head of the table with a leather folder beneath one hand.
The Kavanaugh crest had been pressed into the cover.
I disliked it immediately.
Declan looked at my leg.
"The nurse did that?"
"Yes."
Finn glanced at the blood that had seeped through the bandage.
"With what?"
"Keys."
He gave a short laugh, then stopped when I looked at him.
Declan opened the folder.
"The arrangement is for one year. She works in the clinic and gives us whatever Antonio left with her. She speaks to no police, federal agency, journalist, lawyer, priest, or anyone else likely to become inconvenient."
He turned the papers toward me.
Page four allowed the family to transfer her between approved representatives.
Kavanaugh's name appeared beneath the clause.
"Take this out."
Declan's finger remained on the page.
"Why?"
"She stays here."
"Eamon has a facility. If he needs her there, she goes."
"He can come here."
Finn lifted his glass. "Is there a reason?"
I looked at him.
He lowered it without drinking.
Declan watched me for several seconds.
"This was supposed to be business."
"It is."
"You watched her for six months. You entered her home yourself. You brought back her cat. Now you are arguing over which doctor is allowed to move her."
Ronan pulled out the chair beside me but did not sit.
"Kavanaugh's site is harder to secure," he said. "Keeping her here is cleaner."
A practical excuse.
My father knew it was one.
He closed the folder halfway.
"Bring her down."
Ronan left.
I read the transfer clause again.
One year.
The number should have meant nothing. I had spent most of my adult life planning three days ahead and assuming someone would try to kill me on the fourth.
Still, I pictured Valentina counting backward on a calendar.
I did not like the picture.
One year of her under this roof. One year of knowing she slept twenty feet from my bed. One year of deciding when I would finally put my c**k inside the woman I had watched touch herself for six months.
The door opened.
She walked in wearing a grey sweater and black trousers. Her hair was still damp. The sleeves covered part of her hands.
She looked at the room first. The doors. The windows. Finn near the drinks cabinet. Declan at the head of the table.
Then she looked at me.
Only for a second.
Enough.
Enough to make my c**k twitch under the table. Enough to remember the exact shape of her mouth when she told me to stop in the garage, and how I had wanted to put my hand around her throat and f**k the word out of her until she used it for something else.
Declan pointed to the chair opposite him.
"Sit."
She did not move immediately.
"Why am I here?"
"Sit down and you'll be told."
Her eyes went to Ronan, then back to my father.
She sat carefully, keeping the table between them.
Ronan placed the contract in front of her.
"Read it," Declan said.
She opened the first page.
He began explaining.
"I can read," she said, but the words were quiet, almost automatic.
Declan stopped.
Valentina went through every line. Slowly. Her thumbnail worried the corner of the paper as she read.
At page four, she stopped.
"This says you can send me somewhere else."
"Reassign you," Declan said.
She looked up. "To him?"
Her finger rested beside Kavanaugh's name.
"If his work requires it."
"I don't know who that is."
"The family physician."
"Then he can talk to me here."
Declan leaned back.
"You don't set the terms."
Her face lost colour, but she kept reading.
- Writer
