The Ruthless Heir

Judge’s [POV]

Capital punishment is legal in the state of Louisiana, but no one has been put to death in over a decade. The last execution carried out by the state was voluntary.

The Tribunal is a different matter. Abel Moreno’s execution was one of two that took place in my lifetime. My personal beliefs don’t matter when it comes to my courtroom, but I am grateful never to have had to sentence someone to such a fate.

Abel Moreno’s death was a necessary one. Tonight, a chapter was closed. But if anyone thought they’d be dancing on the bastard’s grave, they’re mistaken. Death is still death. A human life snuffed out. And execution is not a peaceful end.

Mercedes has been in the shower for almost half an hour when I ignore her call to go away and unlock the bathroom door to enter. Steam makes it almost impossible to see, and I’m pretty sure she’s in there to muffle the sounds of her crying.

“You’re going to turn into a raisin.” Rolling up my shirtsleeve, I open the glass door and switch off the water.

“I wasn’t done.”

“Come on, little monster.” I reach for a towel, unfold it, and hold it up for her to step into. She looks different. She hasn’t lost weight exactly. Her breasts appear plumper but there’s almost a gauntness to the rest of her. Although perhaps it’s the way she’s standing with her shoulders slumped, and toes turned in, making her look smaller.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

She steps into the towel. I wrap it around her shoulders, then lift her in my arms. She’s surprised but doesn’t resist as I carry her into the bedroom, where I sit on the bed with her on my lap.

“Your clothes are going to get wet.”

“They’ll dry.”

There’s something about this moment that I want to hold on to. A softness in her yielding to me as she rests her head against my chest and sighs.

“It’s all right to be upset.”

She shrugs a shoulder.

“A man died tonight. And you witnessed it.” Although she didn’t see him hang. The women who were permitted to be present during the execution were made to turn away before the lever was pulled.

“He was horrible. He destroyed my family.”

“I know. But your family is rebuilding itself. Santiago is happy. He has a wife he loves and a child.”

She sniffles.

“And you will be happy too. I promise.”

She turns her gaze to mine. “How can you make a promise like that? It’s not realistic. There’s no way you can keep it.”

I feel tense. I know what she wants. What she still wants. And there’s a part of me that wants it too. To keep her. But it’s true what I said. I don’t know how.

Her comment from earlier comes to mind. It’s been repeating ever since she said it. Don’t be nice to me. And each time I remember how she sounded when she said it, something tightens inside me, making my chest constrict. Making it hard to breathe.

The Mercedes who first came here is a distant memory to the woman in my arms now. There are glimpses of her, to be sure, but less and less. She has grown. She is learning from her mistakes. She wants to make amends. I know what it took for her to apologize to Ivy. To ask to be included in their lives. The Mercedes of before would not have done that. Not even close.

What I don’t like is the sadness. This shadow swells ever bigger, taking up more space both inside and outside of her. And I know I am to blame for it.

Don’t be nice to me.

Because it would be easier if she hated me. And she may in some way. I’ve broken something inside her, just as she has me.

What a mess I’ve made. It’s easier when we fight. When we fuck.

Mercedes shivers, and I stand her up. She lets me dry her, her eyes on my face. My shirt is soaked, so I take it off and toss it aside. From beneath her pillow when did it become hers, when did she get a side of my bed I retrieve her pajama set. Silk shorts and a matching tank top.

“Theron did this the night you saved me from him,” she says, and for a moment, I am confused, but then she touches the small scar high on my cheekbone.

“I did worse to him.” I look her over, and see the tiny triangle of dark hair she’s let grow between her legs. I like it. I like to run my fingers through it.

“Judge?”

When I drag my gaze to her eyes, she’s watching me. I set the pajamas aside. I cup her face, my thumb brushing her lips, knuckles sliding over one taut nipple as I drop to my knees before her. She swallows and weaves the fingers of one hand in my hair when I turn my attention to that small patch of soft hair and open her. I inhale her clean scent, then run the pad of my tongue over her. She shudders, and her fingers tighten. I lick again, hearing her moan when I nip at her clit. When I lift one of her legs over my shoulder, she holds on to me for balance.

I take her slowly. I rarely make love to her. We normally fuck. We fuck hard and rough, but this is different. Tonight, she needs soft. And I give it to her first with my tongue, devouring her, her taste and her scent an aphrodisiac. And when she comes, her standing leg buckles and she leans into me, moaning, her grip on me so tight it’s like she’s pulling my hair out.

When she goes limp, I lift her thigh from my shoulder and stand, carrying her to the bed to lay her on her back. I climb between her legs and kiss her with my mouth still wet from her. Her hands come around my waist, one settling on the scar on my back as she kisses me, a deep, slow kiss. Perhaps it’s not only her who needs soft right now.

I slide easily into her, thinking the impossible as I do. Three little words that I can never utter. The only ones I can think of. I can feel it. It would be so natural. So easy to say them. But the consequence would be fatal.

So I make love to her without ever saying the words. We watch each other without speaking. We kiss, never taking our eyes off one another. Tonight is not even about reaching a climax. It’s her clinging to me and me clinging to her and possibly being the closest we’ve ever been. As close as two human beings can get without burrowing beneath the other’s skin.

I pull out before I come. I’ve been careful about that, although I know I should use a condom. I just can’t with her. I need her heat. The skin on skin, I need to feel her.

When it’s over, we lie together, her on her back, me on my side holding her. Her fingers play over the scar on my back.

“Theron,” I say.

She looks at me, and it takes her a minute to understand.

“At his twenty-fifth birthday celebration.”

Her eyes grow more alert, and she turns toward me, fingers coming to my face.

“It’s when the Montgomery men receive the first installment of our inheritance.”

She doesn’t speak, just waits.

“I’m going to tell you a secret, Mercedes. Something I’ve never told anyone.” I brush a strand of hair that’s fallen across her forehead, and for a long time, I just look at her. It’s so long she must think I’ve changed my mind and gives me an out.

“You don’t have to tell me.” She sounds disappointed but unsurprised.

“I want to.”

She waits.

“We celebrated his birthday. I already knew the truth by then, but I didn’t know what my grandfather had planned. He was a cruel man. I think that was the day I realized how cruel even after everything I had seen.”

Mercedes curls into my side. I draw the blanket up to cover her when she shivers, and although I don’t look at her, I can see her in my periphery. She’s watching me intently.

“After the meal came time for cake, and before that, Theron would sign the papers. I had done it the previous year, almost to the day. Theron was the only one at that table who was truly excited that evening. Almost buoyant. Maybe my mother and I both suspected my grandfather’s plan. His strange glee at dinner gave him away.

“Once dinner was cleared, my grandfather laid out the papers and uncapped the pen. He signed his name on the forms and then stood back and watched my brother. Watched him as he read the pages and understood what was happening.”

“What was it?” she asks after too long a pause.

I look down at her eager, open face. “He isn’t a Montgomery. Not by blood.”

“What?”

“My parents’ match was not a love match, but so few are. She had an affair. And Theron was the product of that affair. My grandfather learned the truth when Theron was fifteen. Thankfully he was away at school when all hell broke loose within the walls of the Montgomery estate.”

“What did he do?”

How much do I want to tell her? I’ve come this far. We’ve come this far.

“He punished my mother.” A long silence draws out, and I have to force the next words. My confession. “And I stood witness.”

“What do you mean?” she asks with a tremor in her voice. I’m sure she is remembering the punishment room.

“He made her strip. Made my mother strip naked in front of me. And he whipped her raw.” Mercedes’s hand flies to her mouth. “The scars go from the tops of her shoulders to the backs of her ankles.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I stood and watched. I listened to her scream and sob and beg him to stop.”

“Jesus.”

“And I did nothing.”

“Judge, you were sixteen years old. A boy.”

I shake my head. “He made her believe if she paid the price, he would accept Theron. Someone had to be punished, after all. She sacrificed herself for her son.”

“Oh…”

“She was noble once. He broke her of that, though.”

She straddles me and cups my face with both hands. It takes my eyes time to focus on her because I think I was gone for a minute there. Back in that room. Back to the sight of my mother enduring my grandfather’s wrath.

“And when Theron learned the truth the night of his birthday, the night he should have celebrated a sort of coming of age, he changed. It happened before my eyes. He asked me if I’d known, and I couldn’t answer him. I didn’t need to, though he saw it on my face. I still remember how he hugged me. And how the knife felt sliding easily into my back. The pain of it. And then not much else.”

“Jesus Christ.”

She hugs me, and I find myself clinging to her, her weight slightly on top of me, but her presence is solid and warm and so fucking necessary. And I know without a doubt that what I feel for her I have never felt for anyone before. Ever.

“It’s not your fault. You know that, right? Please tell me you know that.”

I cup her face, feeling myself harden even now, even with what I just exposed. “I do my sweet little monster. But I also know my temper. It matches his. Surpasses it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Carlisle. His rage skipped a generation and landed heavily in the next.”

“That’s what you think?”

“That’s what I know.”

“And the reason you won’t marry. Because you think you’ll repeat history. You think you’ll hurt me as he did her.”

I try to push her off and get up because this isn’t where I wanted to end up when I started this story. But she doesn’t let me go. She sets her thighs firmly on either side of me, presses her soft breasts into my chest, and kisses me.

“You’re an idiot, Lawson Montgomery,” she says, kissing me again as she sheathes herself on me.

“And you are going to be the death of me,” I tell her, wrapping my arms around her and pushing deep into her. I shift my hands to her hips to move her over me all the while kissing and biting her lips as she kisses and bites mine, her moans growing louder as my thrusts become more urgent. And when I try to pull out, she grips me tight, the muscles of her legs pressing into me, and even though I could flip her off, do the less wrong thing and not come inside her again, I don’t. I hold on tight and listen to her pant my name as I come inside her.