The Beginning of Connie and Isaac: Blue Butterfly Series (The Blue Butterfly Book 3) (22 page)

“Shit.” She sighed, cupping my face and wiping away a tear with her thumb. “Are you absolutely positive?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I called into the walk-in clinic in Soho after my last assignment. I’m already fifteen weeks. It’s already part of me, Bullet. It’s already trusting me to give it life, I can’t…” My head shook furiously as my wide eyes begged her. I wanted my best friend to make everything alright, to promise me that I could be a mother, a good mother. But of course she couldn’t do that. Yet, promises or not, I swore to my baby that I would do everything I could to keep it safe, as impractical as it seemed right then.

Rubbing her face with her hands, Bullet blew out a breath then nodded firmly. “Then I’ll be by your side every step of the way, Shadow. This auntie is gonna have to kick some serious ass, but you know what? Maybe… just – fucking – maybe, girl.”

She chuckled at my relieved grin. “Really?”

“You need to stay away from Frederik. You need to follow every damn order to a tee. Keep out of trouble, Shadow. We’ll deal with your growing size as we get to it.”

“Okay.” I nodded, grateful for her taking charge. “Oh by the way,” I added nonchalantly when she got up and headed for the door. “I just had sex with Becca.”

The way her feet stumbled was comical, her eyes, full of shocked horror and curiosity, making me giggle. “What the fuck did you just say?”

I nodded slowly and gave her a casual shrug. “Yeah, I had a face full of her pussy.”

She dropped back into the chair and gawped at me. “What the fuck?” she repeated.

“A birthday present from Isaac.”

She spluttered and swallowed. “Since when did flowers and chocolates go out of fashion?”

“Well, it seems pussy is the in thing this year.”

“You hate the bitch!”

Giving her a smile and a wink, I lifted my tired body out of the chair and patted her shoulder. “Yeah, and I made her scream like a fucking banshee.”

She blinked at me then the funniest of chuckles resonated from her, forcing free a chuckle of my own. Lifting a hand to me, I high fived her. “Get in, my bitch!”

I was still laughing as I made my way back to my room. I wasn’t in it much lately, my nights spent with Isaac, but I had a feeling things would change. His ignorance angered me, but in retrospect, my reaction had been pretty much the same as his. So I was shocked to find him waiting for me in my room with a carrier bag in his hands.

He looked up at me with his sparkling green eyes as his pale face showed each of his worries. His frown seemed deeper, the lines on his forehead more obvious than usual as he chewed his bottom lip with his teeth.

He lifted a hand to me, and hesitantly, I slipped my hand into his. He pulled me to his lap until I had no choice but to part my thighs and drop onto his knee. Dipping his hand into the bag he’d placed on the bed beside him, he pulled out an apple. “Eat,” he commanded as he pulled out some cheese. “And this.”

I stared at him and took the items. He didn’t say anything else as he took more items from the bag. Before long, a pile of food nestled on my bed; kiwis, bananas, oranges, nuts, berries and a whole host of cheeses made my mouth water.

Taking my chin between his finger and thumb, he guided my eyes from the stack to his eyes. “I have to go to Russia for a few weeks. You will eat properly. You will look after yourself. You will be extremely careful around the others. Exercise carefully, train even more carefully. I’ve given Devlin an order for some vitamins; make sure you take them every day. We want our child to be big and strong.”

I couldn’t speak as tears flooded my cheeks, my relief and happiness rendering me mute. However, I managed a nod before I took a big bite of the apple, its crisp flavour bursting in my mouth. We weren’t afforded fruit as Phantoms, they were considered a luxury. In fact, food was considered a luxury. Food was given when Frederik felt like rewarding us – which wasn’t very often.

Isaac laid his hand over my belly. His eyes watered and he blinked to clear his gaze. Framing his face with both my hands I kissed him hard. He moaned into me, his other hand snaking around the back of me to hold me close to him.

“Can we really do this?” I asked timidly, frightened of his answer, but his soft smile made my heart beat that little bit faster with hope.

“I don’t know,” he answered with a sad sigh. “But damn it, we’re gonna try.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And try we would. So fucking hard. But as with everything, your best is never enough. Phantom life was cruel. It didn’t just take your life, it took your soul too.

April 2008.

“IT WAS MY
fault,” Bullet lied as Frederik held us both before him, Gregory holding me flat to the floor as Jacob pinned Bullet down by her hair.

“What?” I gasped. “No, no, Bullet.”

“It was me, Master. I stole it!”

“Bull….” I cried out when Frederik’s boot slammed into the side of my hip, the crack loud on contact. I wedged my lips together to stop the scream that wanted to hurtle from my throat.

“Refrain from talking. You are both liars. Liars and whores. I’m holding you both accountable.”

Bullet’s eyes shot to mine. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed. I shook my head at her. I knew why she had done it. I would have taken the blame for her if she was pregnant, knowing what cruel torture Frederik would have lined up for us.

We both flinched when we were pulled up together, both of Frederik’s puppets knowing what he wanted without him having to even voice a command. That’s how manipulated we all were.

He walked slowly over to Bullet, his cold eyes making me shiver. He stood before her, looking over her as though she were an insect that had crawled over his food. I hated him so much. I wanted him dead. I wanted to kill him myself, and I think if it weren’t for the fact he was my lover’s father, I would have ended him by now. I had no doubt in my head I was capable. As Isaac had told me often enough, I was the most formidable Phantom of the whole clan. I also knew this was the only reason Frederik kept me alive, because I was useful to the family, not because of any compassion towards me. If he ever found out about my relationship with his son and heir, then I knew that would change with a snap of his fingers.

I flung forward when Frederik slammed his fist into Bullet’s face, knocking her to the ground. Jacob and Gregory grabbed each of my arms, holding me back.

“Master, please don’t.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “You will see what your disobedience brings, Shadow. You refuse to be controlled. So maybe making your friends take your punishment may start to control you better.” He turned back to Bullet. “You stole from me, so I think the only appropriate punishment is to steal something from you.”

My eyes remained dry, my ability to cry stripped from me, as my friend took my punishment. They raped her, each of them, after they broke her frail body. One after the other they took her and then all three of them together. My best friend never shed a tear. We held each other’s eyes through the duration of our visits to hell. Another piece of my soul shattered as her blood trailed along the ground and pooled against my foot where they had tied me to the pole that was fixed to the floor for occasions of punishment.

Their sick grunts twisted my stomach as Bullet’s silence shredded my heart. It was then that I felt my baby kick for the first time. A moment of absolute joy held me up in that moment of sheer desolation. I couldn’t close my eyes. I was made to watch what my actions for stealing some bread from the kitchens had brought. We were all so very hungry, each one of us malnourished and weak. It was only because of this that I had managed to hide my pregnancy and I had been amazed at how my baby had survived in the devastating condition my body was in, hence the need to steal food. Unfortunately this time we had been caught as Bullet had kept watch for me.

It was only when a solitary tear leaked from my best friend’s eye and trickled across her cheek that the vomit came. “I’m so sorry, Bullet,” I whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Isaac had been gone for over six weeks and I missed him with my very soul. I’d been hanging from the cross for eight days, the skin on my back hanging off my bulging spinal column after many punishing lashes.

I knew my time to die had come, and in a way, I hungered for it. My soul had perished as the rats had eaten my toes, my own urine providing them with a tasty meal - obviously they were as starved as me. The door to the courtyard had been locked and no one, not even the sentinels were allowed to visit me.

And all because I had refused to slaughter a nine-year-old boy.

He had been my last assignment. And the finality of my life. In the days I swung naked, the rain beating down on me, the icy nights ravaging my frail bones and my arms aching with the weight of my skinny body, all I hoped for was one final smile from Mae and a goodnight kiss from Isaac. That’s all I wanted. I didn’t pray for food or luxuries. I didn’t require extravagant goods or excessive pampering. I just longed for my sister and my lover. I knew Isaac cared for me. He’d never openly expressed it, but I felt it in the way he looked at me, and the way he touched me. And right then, when Frederik walked into the small square area with Panther holding the rain off our Master’s head with an umbrella, I knew it was time. And he’d brought my friend to witness my death. That’s how sick and mean the bastard was.

Panther gulped as his eyes raked over my dying body, his heartache at the sight of me evident when he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to strengthen himself for the upcoming horror.

“Untie her,” Master demanded.

Handing the umbrella to Frederik, Panther stepped forward and yanked at the knots in the rope. “I love you, sister,” he whispered as I fell to the ground on my knees, my aching arms unable to support me when I slapped my hands into the mud.

“Get up,” Frederik barked.

Attempting to stand, I fell forwards. I considered just laying still, hoping that he would promptly end my suffering for denying his order but pride made me try and when I eventually came to stand before him, the exhaustion debilitated my weary body and I could take no more. I dropped to my knees again, wet mud adding a layer to the dry mud that caked my legs.

I no longer registered the pain, only numbness and an overwhelming need to die.

“Get up,” Frederik hissed. I cried out, surprising even myself at the strength my body found to voice my anguish when he brought the whip across my back in punishment. I didn’t howl at the agony, only the despair.

“I can’t, Master,” I managed to croak out, even though my body defied my words and I palmed the ground again to push myself upright. My hand slid in the sludge and I fell forwards, my cheek gliding over the dirt, some of the earth slithering up one of my nostrils. The rain that beat down on me made my skin heavier, making standing even more excruciating. Even the Gods hated me, apparently.

The slurry of dirt picked up by the leather of the whip fed my flesh when my skin split with yet another thrash from my master. “Get up, Shadow!”

Swallowing slowly, I urged myself to stand, the rain laughing at me when its strength mocked me and made the task almost impossible. I didn’t care that my bare arse stuck up in the air, I didn’t care that blood and mud were now my clothes, I didn’t care that my beautiful long black hair had been hacked off, nor did I care that my skin hung off my protruding ribs. The only thing I cared about was my sister, and how my pain and agony gave her peace and happiness. And that in itself gave me the determination to stand once more.