Birds of Paradise

  I eyed him. “And I’m sure that’s crossed your mind once or twice. But since you know it all, you know doing such a thing would be the same as putting a bullet in my brain. So we circle back to our original problem. You saved the girl, right? Maybe so you could have one teeny light mark on your midnight soul, I don’t know. I don’t care.” Another lie. “But it doesn’t matter the reason, because that split-second decision you made in the dark that night, that has permanent consequences. You chose life for me. And that’s about as permanent as death right now, and for the foreseeable future.”

  I sucked in a breath filled of broken glass, the outpouring of my hurt, my desperation, my truth working like a mini marathon. It was also the most words I’d spoken in weeks, making my throat dry and scratchy.

  Until now, I hadn’t yelled.

  Ever.

  I wasn’t a person who yelled. For a number of reasons. One was that my mother’s rules of ladylike behavior forbade such unrestrained explosions of emotion.

  Another was that yelling was pointless. In my family, in my marriage, in my life. Screaming at the top of my lungs would do nothing. Wasn’t screaming and yelling for attention, maybe for help, salvation? I wasn’t rewarded with any of those things in my life.

  Yelling wouldn’t give me help, or salvation.

  I got attention, of course. From the man who’d glimpsed me skulking through the house while meeting my father. From the man who’d decided then and there that he was to have me. And have me he did.

  I was an object to my father, something to be given, a business favor, something to increase his standing in the underworld. Plus saying no to one of the top arms dealers in the country was certain death. My father was rather attached to survival, so he bartered my life for his, without remorse.

  It took a while to get everything decided, planned. My father was meticulous about planning. Not because I was his youngest daughter and he was concerned about my fate. No, because this was important to him. It had to happen. Even though he’d heard about my husband-to-be’s tastes. His former wives buried in shallow graves.

  There was nothing complex behind the why of it—he simply didn’t care. Neither did my mother. Nor my brothers or sister. They were all a part of the same cold-blooded dynasty.

  I hadn’t yelled at any point of the process. When my father had briskly informed me of my fate. On the first meeting with Christopher when he’d shaken my soul to the core with the unrestrained cruelty in his eyes. Not on my wedding day. Or my horrific wedding night. Or the many horrific nights—and days—after that. Not even the day I lost my daughter.

  Or the day he kicked me out—quite literally—onto the street.

  Words had the power to wound me, cripple me, but I had no power to do the same to others. No dominion over something like a war cry or a scream.

  Until now.

  In front of my murderer, surrounded by his beautiful corpses.

  My yells weren’t going to grant me salvation from him. I wasn’t looking for salvation. You didn’t look to the damned for salvation, after all. He wasn’t going to help me, either. The closest he’d come to helping me—I suspected the closest he’d ever come—was not killing me, and even that wasn’t for certain yet. I suspected my death was still weighing heavily on his mind.

  But I got attention.

  Something so heavy it rivaled the weight of the sky, of my sorrow. It seeped into every part of me. His gaze, every inch of him, was focused on me. Pouring onto me. Into me.

  It was sweet and sour on my tongue, that attention. It wasn’t the cruelty of my husband, the sadism. It was something in the same family, but not quite immediate.

  “Nothing is permanent,” he said. “Not even death.” He glanced around the room. “We all wither and decay eventually. Everything does. Everything becomes nothing.”

  And then he turned on his heel and walked out.

  7

  Oliver

  He watched her.

  He suspected she knew. Maybe that he’d watched her personally, maybe not. But he knew she was aware of another set of eyes on her. He sat in front of his security screens in the morning, watched her emerge for breakfast at scattered times.

  For a lot of people, this may have been the norm. Disordered people. The ones who woke up at different times in the morning naturally. People who weren’t chained to a work schedule and let nature wake them up.

  Nature had failed Elizabeth. Horribly. He didn’t need to know the specifics to know this. So she dealt with it by rebelling against every facet of human nature. The need for human contact. The need to feel sunshine on the skin, to breathe in the fresh air carried by the wind. To breathe at all.

  She controlled everything she could—which was really nothing at all.

  Still, she clung to routine. Violently.

  He suspected that was the only thing that had her functioning currently. That and his death threat. Though it wasn’t a threat. If she hadn’t gotten out of bed, if she hadn’t regained whatever she had left of her strength, he would’ve killed her. He would’ve had to. He couldn’t witness her like that for another moment.

  He couldn’t figure out quite yet if her getting out of the bed was the best or the worst thing for both of them.

  So he watched her.

  More than he should’ve, which was not at all. He traveled, he worked, but only took on contracts that took him away for no more than five hours. He told himself that it was because he couldn’t leave her in his house unattended for that long—it was potentially damaging to him and everything he’d spent years to build.

  He didn’t entertain, let alone admit, the thought that it was because he was worried. About what she might do to herself in those hours. About what his clients would do to her if they knew she was still alive.

  This was not the case, as far as he knew, and he made it his business to know everything.

  He paused.

  That’s what she had said. That he knew everything. The venom combined with the utter sorrow in her words did something to him. But he couldn’t admit that either.

  It was bad enough that he was spending more and more time in this little room of screens watching her go about her routines. Watch the way her limbs moved in the room he’d made for her to practice yoga in. Watched as she sipped the tea his housekeeper had made for her but barely touched the numerous other foods scattered around.

  Same with lunch.

  And dinner.

  Despite it being served, and her sitting down to go through the motions of a meal, she picked like a bird.

  He thought at first it might be due to some kind of food allergy: gluten, lactose, nuts. He’d ordered his housekeeper to throw out anything containing peanuts and cook everything without allergens.

  Still, the result was the same.

  The thought crossed his mind that she was on some asinine diet like countless other women in this asinine world. He quickly dismissed that. Elizabeth was not like any other woman in this world. She certainly wasn’t asinine. She was an enigma. Nor would she want to make her appearance pleasing to men, especially to herself.

  He came to the conclusion that it was as simple as her appetite withering away just as everything else inside her was doing.

  It angered him, though he didn’t admit it.

  Now, after she’d remained standing in the middle of his collection room for long moments after he’d left, he watched her wander slowly back toward her side of the house. She paused, like she always did, in the entranceway, staring at the doors.

  He leaned forward to see if his state-of-the-art screens might provide a glimpse as to what was going through her head as her brow furrowed and her teeth caught the inside of her lip. She was contemplating. Lamenting.

  Then she abruptly emptied her expression and walked—a lot more purposefully this time—into her room and yanked open her laptop, stabbing at the keys and glaring at the screen.

  Yet another enigma. He had assumed—been certain of, in fact—that she
was a coward. A little mouse who skittered around life, careful not to disturb anything she didn’t have to. Hence her self-induced isolation.

  Her blowup minutes ago had proved him wrong. He studied the human condition, both in life and death and in that time in between. He considered himself somewhat of an expert. But every time he was sure he’d figured her out, she proved him wrong.

  He was not a man used to being proved wrong.

  Maybe that was why his voyeurism was reaching a mania. An obsession, a raging need to figure her out. Analyze her.

  Her anger in his collection room had done something to him. She had done something to him. She’d shown him she wasn’t a little mouse. Shouted at him, insulted him, seethed at him. Taunted him. Invited him to punish her. And with anyone else, he would’ve. He would’ve hurt them. Killed them.

  He wanted to hurt her. But not like he did with anyone else. He wanted to punish her.

  His cock twitched in his pants.

  He shut the screens off, letting out a hiss of disgust. In her. In himself. This was dangerous. She was dangerous. She could turn into a complication. A weakness.

  Weakness was fatal.

  He stood.

  He would make sure it wouldn’t be fatal to him. Stepping forward, he was about to go and do exactly what he should’ve done one month ago—kill her. The beeping of his phone stopped him. Glancing down at the screen, at the contract, he decided it was not her day to die. Yet. It was someone else’s.

  But that didn’t mean her fate was safe.

  Nor did it mean his was.

  Elizabeth

  It was hard, seemingly impossible to go back to my routine after yesterday. After seeing his room of horrible beauty. After seeing him in all his horrible beauty.

  But that was the only thing left to do. Without routine, there was nothing here but the impossible truth that I was stuck here in a house of dead things. Including him. Including myself.

  So I got up.

  I did my yoga.

  Showered.

  Dressed.

  And despite the knots of nausea in my stomach, I went to the dining room for breakfast. Meals were a force of habit more than anything else. I forced down the food with considerable effort. I couldn’t stomach much more than a few bites at a time. Like my body was rejecting the substance to keep it alive while my daughter decayed in the ground.

  Whatever it was, it was enough to keep me alive, but also enough to keep a size two drowning me.

  Though that was a good thing. I liked layers. I liked hiding my body, the sharp edges of my bones through the folds of clothing. There were no tattered and baggy hoodies here, so I made do. Today, I wore white leggings and a tee that was supposed to be fitting but covered me to mid-thigh. Another long-sleeved tee was shoved on top of that. I layered this with a baby pink cashmere jumper, the biggest one I could find, skimming over whatever womanly curves I had left and drowning them in wool.

  It was warm inside, so completely inappropriate. But what did it matter? Even if it was warm outside, I was never going to feel the balmy summer air. And even if someday I did, I’d never expose my bare skin to the elements, to the world.

  I stopped in my tracks when I reached the dining room, my heart stopping with me.

  Everything was as it should’ve been, the food laid out artfully, enough to feed at least six people. Various jugs of liquid, in case I decided to change up my normal OJ and tea combo. My plate and silverware, sitting in the spot I always sat in.

  All as it had been since I’d started my routine.

  With some additions.

  The air was noticeably colder in here, seeping through my layers, through my flesh, right to the bone.

  Maybe I just imagined that, though, when my eyes found his.

  Found him.

  Sitting at the opposite end of the table, sipping coffee and regarding me silently. No emotion, not even an arched brow. As if nothing was out of the norm, and my hit man and I sat and had coffee and croissants together every morning.

  I continued to stand frozen in the doorway. He continued to watch me. I got the feeling that he might continue to watch me, silently, no matter how long I stood there.

  That was a thought that made me move toward my normal seat, thankful it was as far away from him as the table allowed. But the distance still wasn’t enough; the weight of his stare still settled on my chest.

  I didn’t let my eyes leave his as I reached for my mug, not because I was particularly thirsty but because I craved the heat of the bitter liquid. Though even that wasn’t enough to chase away his chill.

  Still he said nothing, yet his eyes were probing, prodding, invasive.

  I put the cup down with a clatter, cursing my nerves for getting the best of me. Where was the woman my mother raised? The wife who managed to not even bruise a tea cup with a wrist her husband—the one sitting across from her reading the paper—had broken the night before?

  I knew the answer to that.

  She was dead.

  Every woman, girl, being I had been before that day in the hospital perished when my daughter was laid on my chest. Whoever I was now, whatever I was now, was a stranger.

  How was it I was only realizing this now?

  “I’m going to have to request that you eat more,” he said after an indeterminate amount of time. His eyes went to my empty plate.

  So did mine.

  “Is that a request or an order?” I asked, my tone holding a bite to it that I didn’t know I could possess.

  He didn’t blink. “It doesn’t matter what it is. It matters that you do it.”

  “An order, then,” I surmised.

  What I didn’t do was touch the food.

  He waited.

  I continued to be still.

  Again an indeterminate amount of time passed before he spoke. There was no outward sign of irritation. Not a narrowing of the eyes nor an exaggerated exhale. Just the cold, hard marble of his exterior.

  “The number of days someone can survive without food varies from person to person,” he said. “In 2009, research supported the consensus that human beings can survive without food or drink for eight to twenty-one days. This is extended to up to two months if said person has access to water.” His shrewd gaze saw through my layers, as if he was inspecting my skeletal frame. “Women are recommended to eat at least 1200 calories per day. Dipping below 800 has serious side effects, such as weakened immune system, irregular heart beat and heart attacks.” He looked at my empty plate. “You’ve been consuming approximately 500 calories per day. Extending that any longer is going to subject you, and by extension me, to serious health complications.” He sipped his coffee. “I don’t do complications. As you said yesterday, your presence does present one big one in itself. Anything beyond that is going to mean I have to do something. It’s your choice, ultimately, but understand that I’m at my limit for how much your choices and your handicap are going to disrupt my life.”

  Well there it was.

  If I didn’t start eating enough to maintain my healthy body weight, to prevent complications, he was going to kill me. He didn’t say it outright. He didn’t need to. It was the underlying thread of my entire existence since I’d woken up with him in my bedroom.

  My life was teetering on a knife edge. And he held the knife.

  Without even realizing I did so, I picked up a muffin. And once more, like a movie, my consciousness cut to the crumbs on my plate and muffin in my stomach.

  It seemed some part of me wanted to continue to survive. At the mercy of my hit man, who I didn’t even know the name of.

  One Week Later

  My routine became altered. Not that it ever was really mine.

  I still got out of bed at the same time, still dedicated my time to yoga. Still worked on existing contracts, began new ones. Read from the library.

  But there was one serious and world-tilting exception.

  Him.

  Still I didn’t know his name. I couldn’t find
the words to demand it again. There wasn’t enough space in the room when we ate together for words. If I didn’t eat, I could’ve cut at the quietness with my knife and fork.

  But I did eat.

  Still not a lot by many people’s standards. Especially Americans’ standards. But it was scientifically enough to keep me alive. I didn’t know this because I counted calories, I knew this because I was alive. He hadn’t killed me yet.

  Every part of my day was consumed with him now. When I wasn’t with him, I was stewing on our next interaction, or shaking off the poison from our last one. Because that’s what he was: some kind of toxin, seeping through my pores, despite all the layers I wore to protect myself.

  There was nothing I could do to protect myself.

  Even though we didn’t speak a word to each other for the week we’d been eating three meals a day together.

  There was something running underneath the silence, like an underground torrent. Unpredictable. Deadly. Some kind of dark draw I felt to him. I held no romantic illusions. I was still certain he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if the occasion arose. He would hurt me too, if he needed to. But only if he needed to. I’d spent years with a man who hurt me because he could. Because he enjoyed it. My pain. My suffering. I knew what that looked like. Felt like. Tasted like.

  This wasn’t that.

  The man I sat across from was still a monster, just a different kind than the ones I’d known.

  But then again, maybe that was the truth of it. Maybe humans weren’t humans at all. Maybe we were all just different kinds of monsters.

  “Why do you collect dead things?” I asked in the middle of cutting through a rare steak.

  The silence that followed my words—the first I’d spoken aloud in the week this strange routine had begun—settled heavier than the one that had preceded it.