Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller
Chapter 27
Droppingmy head into my hands, I dig the heels of my palms into my eye sockets, creating kaleidoscopes of color spotting across my vision.
A vein in my temple throbs painfully, maniacally, as I pore over the list of possible IP addresses of the flash drive culprit, growing more agitated with Ivers International’s incompetence at finding the person.
Earlier this morning, a third flash drive appeared, that same grainy footage not attributed to my state-of-the-art security, but filmed with an outside party’s camera.
Marcelline brought it in with the mail, and when I plugged it into my desktop, I was met with the black and white evidence of me baring my soul to my wife, both of us stark naked in the ocean.
Somehow, compared to the others which caught us in the middle of lascivious acts, this one felt more intimate. More exposing.
More purposeful.
I just can’t figure out why they’re appearing in the first place.
If it was about exposing me to the press, for any number of the crimes I’ve had expunged from my record over the years, most likely they would’ve been leaked already.
If it were Rafe’s doing, I have a difficult time imagining why he’d agree to give me Elena, effectively terminating his contract with Bollente Media, and fucking up the mediocre criminal empire he’s built.
Even though his name doesn’t hold as much weight in Boston as it once did, I still don’t see him resorting to self-sabotage, and then still trying to extort me in the process.
Leaning back in my desk chair, I stare up at the vaulted ceiling, losing myself in thought for several minutes. The house is silent tonight, Elena having turned in with a new copy of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own she bought at the only bookstore on the island.
For the first time in a long time, I reach beneath my dresser, my hand smoothing past the pistol secured just above my thigh, and tear off the Polaroid taped to the underside.
Unlike the crumpled, worn one I keep on hand of Violet, this one is so infrequently handled that it’s still in mint condition; the edges remain straight, the colors on the picture itself only slightly warped due to the passage of time. Otherwise, it’s as if the photo’s just popped out of its camera.
My mother sits up in a hospital bed, a pink bandana pulled tight over her head, because she’d just begun losing her hair after restarting chemotherapy treatments.
She’s spooning chocolate pudding out of a plastic cup, staring at whoever’s behind the camera, but her smile points at me. Even as she sits there, her body devouring itself from the inside out, she’s trying to reassure me that everything is okay.
That it will all be okay.
‘That’s the love of a mother,’nurses would sometimes say, because keeping in high spirits while trying to fight off a terminal illness isn’t something everyone can do, year after year, day after day. And yet, she made it a point to, always trying to get me to see the brighter side of things.
That big, toothy grin of hers stirs an ache within me that I haven’t allowed myself to feel in years, and a fresh dose of shame injects itself into my veins, because I can’t stop thinking of how disappointed she’d be in the way my life turned out.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Elena’s voice yanks me from my introspection, and I jolt up, straightening my spine as she enters the office. She makes her way over to me, taking a seat on my lap before I’ve even managed to ask her to.
Like she knows it’s where she belongs.
She looks at the photo, then back at me, as if waiting to see if I’ll continue.
“My mother,” I offer, smiling softly. “She passed when I was thirteen.”
One arm slides up around my neck, slipping around my shoulders, and Elena presses her head into mine. “Cancer?”
“Invasive lobular carcinoma,” I say with a slight nod. Pain lances through my heart at the term, sawing the organ in half. “When she was first diagnosed, they just called it an abnormal growth in her left breast. I don’t think they wanted to acknowledge it was that particular form of cancer, because she was so young.”
Like being struck by lightning, a sudden, sharp pang splits my chest, shocking me to the core.
Thirty-two. My mother was thirty-two when she died.
The realization that soon I’ll have been on this planet longer than her cuts deep, prodding at a scabbed wound I once believed was healed. Yet, the way it throbs and chips away, drawing new, fresh blood, suggests otherwise.
“She’s beautiful,” Elena says quietly, pulling me gently from the downward spiral of my thoughts, without even necessarily meaning to. She stares at the picture with a soft look on her face, unaware of the existential crisis brewing in the back of my mind, content that I’m once again sharing one of the secret facets of my life.
If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t dare. Would never have even brought them back to my house to live, much less started spilling my guts.
I’m not usually a gambler. Don’t like leaving my life in the hands of fate. But something about this woman makes me want to risk everything.
“She’s the reason I got into poetry as a kid. She was always reading Shakespeare and would quote Chaucer like scripture. She would’ve loved you.”
I push some hair from her pale shoulder, leaving my next thought unspoken, hidden in the depths of my soul where it belongs. Would she have loved me?
“That’s true. I’m very lovable,” Elena giggles, and the sound pierces my chest, a dull knife being shoved through flesh and bone and arriving out the other side.
Shifting forward, I reach into my pants pocket for my wallet, retrieving the photo I keep there. It’s a small copy I stole from her high school graduation series that I kept over the years as a reminder that someone out there could have a relationship with me, even if her father wasn’t interested.
Turns out, she doesn’t want one, either.
Elena’s spine stiffens, and she leans in, peering at the picture. “Who’s that?”
Her tone is curt, significantly less playful than it was three seconds ago, and I smirk, squeezing her thigh, practically soaking up her jealousy. “My sister.”
“Your sister?” Blinking, she frowns. “That’s... the girl I met outside the Flaming Chariot.”
“You met Violet?”
“She was standing outside on the curb, and said she’d tried going in several times, but couldn’t get herself to do it.” Tilting her head to the side, she studies the picture some more, seemingly lost in thought. “I guess now I get why she acted so offended that I had no idea who she was. What kind of wife doesn’t recognize her own sister-in-law?”
“The kind who doesn’t know what she looks like?”
Pursing her lips, she slumps back against me, removing her arm from my shoulders to drop it into her lap. “Do you have other secret family members I don’t know about?”
I hesitate, the word grandfather materializing on the tip of my tongue before I swallow it down, not ready to open that can of worms. She notices my pause, narrowing her eyes, and I smirk again, trying to play off the silence as being distracted by her.
Palming her ribs, I glide my hand up, my thumb grazing the underside of her right breast through the pale blue silk pajamas she has on. “Violet has two brothers, but I don’t know them.”
Her throat works as I touch her, eyes falling to where my fingers continue their ascent, engulfing her entire breast in my hand and squeezing until she gasps.
“I know what you’re doing.”
“Enjoying my wife?” I say, dropping the photo to the desk and dipping my head to the crook of her neck, baring my teeth against her skin.
She leans into my bite but doesn’t close her eyes. “Violet said you don’t ever talk about her.”
“I don’t.” Elena tenses in my lap, her spine going rigid, and I sigh, pulling away and letting my hand fall. “The man who helped create me, if you want to call him that, had just brought home his firstborn son when he had an affair with my mom. He was married and had nothing to do with me. I thought when Violet was older, maybe it’d be easier to connect with the rest of the family, if I connected with her first. But she doesn’t want me around.”
Not that it’s stopped me from trying.
“Oh, Kal—”
Something in her tone prickles my already red-hot nerves, and I exhale sharply, reaching up to collar her throat in my hands. Her breath catches, getting stuck beneath my palm, and my cock stirs behind my jeans at the heady sensation of having someone’s pulse at my mercy.
“No pity, little one. Don’t give me that.” She shifts, rubbing over my throbbing cock, and even through the layers of clothing, I can feel how hot she is. “You want to give me something, you want to make me feel better, you give me that sweet little pussy.”
Elena’s gaze turns glassy, but I can’t tell if it’s sadness or desire pooling there. She blinks the sheen away, tilting her chin down to stare at me through hooded lashes.
“Okay,” she says, turning around so she’s straddling me, grinding into my growing erection. “Whatever you need, Kallum. Take it from me.”
Later, after I’ve pumped her full, she lies on her back atop my desk, fiddling with the torn strap of her pajama top and staring up at the ceiling.
“What are you thinking?” I ask, drawing my fingers through her sensitive flesh, smearing my cum over her skin. I’m grateful she’s on birth control now, so I can mark her like this every chance I get.
I’m standing above her, my dick hanging, drained, between my thighs, neither of us particularly eager to move from the quiet of the room.
She looks at me, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I was just thinking about Ariana and Stella. How lucky I am that I grew up close to my siblings.”
Even though I’m sure she doesn’t mean it that way, her comment slices right through the stitches barely holding me together, severing the sutures and cracking my pain wide open all over again.
“You miss them,” I note, letting my hand fall to my side.
She nods. “Always. Ari has a recital coming up soon, and it kills me that I’ll have to miss it.” She gives me a sidelong glance as if gauging my reaction. I aim for mild, at best. “Not that I don’t enjoy Aplana. Honestly, it’s been so refreshing, in the weirdest way, even though I live as a captive now.”
“You’re not—”
Giggling, she curls her legs up, shaking her head. The gesture seems fake. Forced. And it makes me uneasy. “It’s okay, I’ve already grown quite accustomed to my Stockholm Syndrome. I just miss my old life a little, too.”
Gritting my teeth, I stare at the place on an end table where the picture of her parents and I used to be, wondering if I’m really about to say what my brain wants me to. The words formulate on my tongue, ignoring all the red flags, and shoot out of my mouth before I have a chance to stop them.
“Then let’s go to Boston.”
