Secrets and Sins: Malachim (A Secrets and Sins Novel) (Entangled Ignite)

Secrets and Sins: Malachim

Naima Simone

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright ©
2013 by Naima Bryant.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Edited by
Tracy Montoya

Cover design by Fiona Jayde

Ebook ISBN 978-1-62266-079-7

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition
September 2013

The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
The Addams Family, American Bar Association, Armani, Batman, Boston Children’s Hospital,
Boston Magazine,
Boston “T”, Boy Scouts, Brad Pitt, Bukowski Tavern, Celtics, CharlieCard, DeLorean,
Dick and Jane,
Disney Channel, Dr. Phil, Etch-A-Sketch,
Forbes,
Formica,
Frigidaire, Google, Hall & Oates,
Honda, Jack Daniels, Jell-O, Joker,
Law and Order
,
Lorena Bobbitt,
Lifetime Channel, Mercedes,
Mission Impossible,
Muzak, NBA, Old Navy, Oscar, Pentagon,
People Magazine,
Perry Mason, Peter Gabriel, Polo, Sam Adams, Sherlock Holmes, Stevie Wonder, Suffolk Downs,Ty-D-Bol,
The Walking Dead, The Wall Street Journal,
Western Union, Yo-Yo Ma,
Zod
.

Dedication

Chapter One

Birmingham, Alabama

“I know you’re not asleep.”

The sibilant whisper was hot against her ear and cheek.

She’d known it was coming. Like a dog that had been kicked in the ribs one too many times by its master, she was sensitive to his moods; his body language; the hard, flat glint in his green eyes. Something she’d done tonight—smiled too warmly at a colleague, spoken too long with the man seated on her left at the dinner party, not glanced at Alex often enough during the evening—had been inappropriate or offensive. Some act of disrespect had broken one of her husband’s many rules. Now she would pay for the indiscretion.

“I know you’re awake, Elena,” Alex repeated and brushed a gentle kiss below her ear. She shivered. Not out of desire. “You didn’t think I would forget, did you?”

No, she hadn’t. At one time, she might have hoped or prayed he would grant her a reprieve for whatever sin she’d committed. But now she knew better.

He enjoyed it too much.

Giving up the pretense, she slowly rolled over. Met her husband’s hooded gaze and mildly disappointed smile. Disappointment. Another façade she was well acquainted with. Alex had spent the last hour and a half downstairs, barricaded behind his study doors whipping his rage higher and hotter. Her one transgression would have bloomed to three inside his mind by now.

“I was waiting for you to come upstairs,” Elena whispered. “You know I can’t sleep without you beside me.”

“Such pretty words,” he crooned, cupping her cheek and smoothing his thumb over her trembling bottom lip. “Such pretty lies.”

“Alex—”

“Shh.” The pad of his thumb pressed hard against her lip, crushing the tender skin inside her mouth to her teeth. A faint metallic tinge stained her tongue. “Excuses. You’re about to give me excuses, Elena. And what have we said about that?”

She hesitated, the words trapped in the noose of panic strangling the breath in her throat.

His eyes narrowed into green slits. The pressure on her lip increased. More blood trickled onto her tongue.

“What have we said about excuses, Elena?”

“Excuses are tools of the incompetent used to build monuments of nothingness.” She stuttered to a halt and wet her lips.

“Yes?” he prodded with silky menace.

“Those who specialize in them seldom amount to anything other than an excuse.”

“What are you, wife?” he asked softly.

“An excuse,” she whispered. Shame, hot and rancid, scalded her chest, eating a noxious hole in her heart…in her soul.

“That’s right. A pitiful excuse of a woman, a wife who seeks validation in the attention and accolades of others. You embarrass me with your weakness, Elena. Shame the Rainier name with your whorish mannerisms.” He shoved his face closer, and the overpowering, sweet-and-sour scent of Jack Daniels singed her skin. “Sometimes I despair of cleansing the stink of your mother and sister out of you.” He shook his head and eased off the mattress. Mock regret and compassion turned down the corners of his mouth, softened the forbidding lines from his forehead. “You leave me with no choice,” he murmured, crossing the floor to the closet. He opened the door and tugged a wide, thick leather strap free.

“Alex.” She whimpered, throwing the covers aside and scrambling off the bed.
Oh dear God. Please, not again. I can’t…

“Come here, Elena,” he ordered almost tenderly. “We’re going to spend time together now.”

Her heart somersaulted then dove for her stomach.
Spend time together
. She knew what that meant…

She shook her head, terror stripping away any sense of self-preservation. Her feet shuffled backward, the primal animal inside her raising its wary head to carry her out of the line of danger. The back of her thigh bumped the heavy bedside drawer, and she stumbled, her arms windmilling before she found her balance. His lips twisted into a derisive half-smile.

“You’re only making it worse, honey,” he murmured, stroking his wide palm down the leather strap as if caressing a lover’s tender skin.

What the hell had she done to deserve this brand of torture? Her mind raced over the evening, replaying every minute on fast-forward.
Nothing
. She’d done
nothing
. Helpless anger poured through her, stinging her eyes.

“I’m giving you one last opportunity to walk over here, Elena. If I have to come get you…”

The warning shattered her paralysis. As he rounded the edge of the mattress, she shot forward. Leaped onto the bed and bounded over the other side. Her heart thundered, soared to the back of her throat and lodged there. His enraged roar filled the room, and her steps faltered. But only for a second. With a desperate cry, she lunged for the bedroom door, twisted the knob. Jerked it. Jerked harder.

The door was locked. She was trapped.

“You bitch.” Pain stabbed her scalp as Alex grabbed her hair and whirled her around. Automatically, her hands rose to clutch his wrist, to try and alleviate the bee stings attacking her scalp as strands were ripped from her head. “You stupid cunt. I’ll kill you if you ever run from me again,” he snarled down into her face. “Do you understand me?”

He jerked his hand from her hair and stepped back, his chest heaving.

She lifted her hand toward him, her fingers trembling. “Alex, I’m—”

Fire exploded across her jaw.

The force of the blow spun her around like a broken ballerina. Her uninjured cheek smacked the wall before she could brace her fall. She cried out, shocked. He’d always been careful—so very careful—to hit or grab her where others couldn’t see the bruises. Her back, stomach, thighs. Her throat in the winter when the marks could be hidden by turtlenecks. That he’d struck her in the face where a split lip could bear witness to his brutality scared the hell out of her.

He’s going to kill me. Tonight is the night he murders me...

She uttered a desperate plea for her husband to please, listen, but she knew it fell on deaf ears. Cruel fingers dug into her hair again, dragged her head back until she feared her neck would snap from the pressure. Pain raced up and down the side of her face, arrowing down her neck to return and throb like a heartbeat in her jaw.

The first lash of the leather strap whipped across her lower back. Her spine bowed under the agony. Air burst from her lungs as she drooped to the floor on her hands and knees. Another blow slashed across her shoulder blades. Her ribs. Her buttocks. Over and over.
Crack! Crack!
Her world narrowed to the ugly whistle of leather through air and fire rupturing along her body. At some point, she curled into a ball and surrendered.

…

Dawn spread her pale pink and orange fingers across the sky, and the purple night shrank away from her touch, fleeing westward. The sun heralded its return over the Rainier household with exploratory splashes of soft pastels over the windowsills. Elena crept down the wide, spiraling staircase, grateful for the shadows yet to be dispelled by the new, encroaching day.

Each tiny movement caused agony to streak up her legs, hips, and back, only to race down again in a torturous circuit. She shoved the pain to the rear of her consciousness and continued down the stairs. Later…later, she’d surrender to the aches and the tears. But right now, with escape so near, she couldn’t afford that luxury.

A whisper of sound echoed down the hall as her foot hit the bottom step. She froze, a deer caught on the edge of a wood as a car’s headlights swept over the trees. Deliberately, she inhaled, held the air in, and listened. Several moments passed.

Nothing.

But the scare galvanized her into action. Shaking, she entered the four-digit code into the security system—the tiny beeps mini blasts to her oversensitive ears—unlocked the door, and slipped into the still cool June morning. Her purse—all she’d grabbed before sliding from under Alex’s heavy arm—bounced against her bruised hip as she stumbled down the white stone steps and the long, winding drive. By the time she hit the quiet main road, her legs trembled violently from fear and pain. Quickly, she dug into her bag and withdrew a cell phone. She searched the internet for a taxi service and dialed the number. After giving them an address a couple of blocks away, she set off. She cast several glances over her shoulder, terrified she would glimpse Alex charging down the street after her.

This wasn’t her first attempt at leaving him. But if he caught her, as he’d done two years ago, she knew he would follow through on the threat that had kept her at his side for far too long—he would kill her. But after last night—after his fingers had nearly squeezed the last breath from her throat—she was willing to risk his rage and try escaping again.

She nearly passed out from relief when the taxi pulled up, and she got inside without incident. She glanced at the window, her pulse drumming a rapid beat at her throat. The driver eyed her bruised face and ginger movements with suspicion that turned to quiet concern when she asked him to take her to the nearest hospital.
Please drive,
she urged him silently.
Please just go.
As much as going to the authorities scared her, the thought of dying at Alex’s hands terrified her more. Last night was the
last
time he’d touch her.

Several hours later, she scooted up over the sterile sheets of a hospital bed, tugging the blue and white speckled gown over her shoulder. The doctor had just left after completing a thorough and humiliating assessment of her injuries, including a pelvic examination.

The door to her exam room cracked open, and a fresh-faced nurse with a blond ponytail and pink scrubs peeked in.

“Mrs. Rainier.” She smiled, the sympathy and pity in the small curve of lips grating Elena’s nerves and soul. “There are two detectives here who would like to speak with you.”

She nodded and assumed the habitual, composed mask her career and her husband had required. The world could be going to hell in a handbasket, but Alex demanded poise.

Rainier Rule #3.
Control separates humans from animals.

Two men entered the room behind the nurse. They were older, dressed in suits and ties. Elena searched their faces. In one, she spied tired skepticism, in the other, compassion.

“Mrs. Rainier,” the skeptic said, withdrawing a small pad from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Can you tell us what happened to you?”

She swallowed then licked her dry lips.

“My husband. My husband happened to me.”