Joseph Fallen (The Estate Series) (6 page)

Her lips parted, her breath stolen by the beat of his body
against hers.
 
A disjointed whisper,
she responded, “You, Joseph…I belong to you.”
 

A final assault inside her and they both screamed out their
release, the water cascading around them, the steam of its heat coloring their
skin.
 
His forehead fell down on
hers once more when he peeked at her from underneath his water soaked lashes.

“Yes, Arianna – and you must never forget it.”

Three years passed since Arianna and Joseph had moved into
the mansion that quickly became not only their home, but a popular gathering
place for the elite members of society.
 
Balls and other parties were held in their home every week, and Joseph
and Arianna became the wealthiest couple within their social circle.
 
Joseph was now twenty-nine years old and
had become even more powerful within the community of criminals and thieves
whose crimes secretly funded his business.

However, Joseph was a man who obsessed over power; one who
could not sit idly by as other men managed the dealings of the networks that
fed his wealth.
 
Curiosity and the
need to rule eventual led Joseph further into the activities of the crime
networks of which he’d become a part.
 
Drugs, weapons, murder, espionage and prostitution…it didn’t matter, as
long as his pockets were lined, Joseph was able to shake off the loss of
morality that came with his position.
 
When he’d learned the trade well enough, he systematically secured
control over the different networks, discovering that enough money could buy
the quiet death of an associate; and, naturally, once that associate had been
destroyed, the men that worked underneath him would then swear allegiance to
Joseph. Never having the actual blood on his hands, Joseph was able to convince
himself that what he did was done to support his wife, to provide her with
wealth beyond comprehension, rather than as a result of his driving need to rule.

He ran his network utilizing the same skills required to
take over Estate Acquisitions when he’d been younger, taking over different
criminal organizations and consolidating them into multiple areas of crime
specialties and subdividing those specialties into units.
  
Referring to the network, simply
as “The Estate,” Joseph then demanded that those units work together to
continuously increase profit and take over larger areas within the country.
 
Joseph was nothing if not a genius in
business, legitimate or otherwise; and eventually, he’d organized a system of
crime so sophisticated, the few authorities who questioned his activities were
quickly paid off to remain quiet, or killed before they could cause
problems.
 
Within a year, Joseph had
most of the police force and other government agencies on his payroll, securing
the ability for his men to operate without concern of being caught.

A typical consequence of Joseph’s status within the shady
dealings of the criminal networks he’d grown to control was the bitter and
sometimes violent rivalries between Joseph’s network and other networks whose
businesses
were being run to
ground.
 
He’d recruited one man in
particular who he trusted above all else to oversee a security detail around
the grounds of the mansion.
 
Connor
was not only an intelligent man who reminded Joseph of himself, but was also a
savage fighter, one Joseph knew could control the lesser criminals within the
network.
  
Without Arianna’s
knowledge, Connor was always on the grounds, living in the west wing and
supervising the operations of the network while Joseph was off tending to his
wife.

Ever protective of Arianna, Joseph kept to his promise of
limiting his business dealings to the west wing.
 
When they’d first moved in, he’d allowed
her to enter the wing in order to decorate the rooms; but, eventually he’d
demanded that she never enter that wing for fear that she’d learn the truth of
the men who worked for him and served him.
  
She was allowed as far as the
ballroom, but was restricted from traveling beyond that large, domed room.
 
Keeping her separate from his business
was not easy and he lied often; however, the building was so large that Arianna
never noticed the men who came and went; the private entrances practically
ensuring there would never be a chance that she would answer a door or run into
his associates in the halls.

In their suite, the small office that Joseph had spent many
hours in at first, eventually came to rest under a thin layer of dust from its
lack of use.
 
It took two years for
Arianna to finally complete her changes to the mansion, but when she’d
finished, she found herself succumbing to a depressive ennui as a result of the
solitude brought about by her and Joseph’s long hours apart.

Still without a child, Arianna spent her days wandering the
right wing of the mansion.
 
She’d
turned a smaller suite into a music room and spent most of her waking hours in
that room composing music that she’d play for Joseph during the late evening
hours when he returned to her side.
 
He’d always appear haggard at first, the smell of smoke and alcohol
often clinging to his clothes, and the more time that passed, the longer it
would take for her to coax him back into the normal demeanor of the man that
she’d married.
 
She knew how his
mind worked, his obsessive need for more power, more wealth, more…control.
 
It had been subtle in the beginning, but
the longer she lived with him, the more she noticed the instability of his
moods and his fitful nights spent pacing the floors when he was unable to shut
down his thoughts to sleep.
 

Their relationship had become strained through the years and
Arianna resented the man who appeared to only want to spend time with her when
he had needs to be met.
 
She was a
body for his pleasure, a trophy to be polished and shown off during the parties
and balls he’d demanded be held in their home.
 
His love of her had turned obsessive at
times, throwing him into fits of rage if he entered the right wing in search of
her and couldn’t find her as easily as he would’ve liked.
 
It was a gradual process, but one that
brushed across her thoughts every night her husband returned to their suite.

On one particular morning, while sitting at the keyboard of
the shining, black grand piano that Joseph had bought to be a centerpiece of
her music room, Arianna toyed with the keys, her boredom affecting her ability
to connect with even her music that morning.
  
Standing up, she moved fluidly to
the large bay window of the room, her eyes looking out over the woods that
surrounded the house.
 
It was still
early enough that a dense fog clung to the ground, appearing like a swirling
pool of mist over the leaves and small plants spread across the forest
floor.
 
She admired the thin
splinters of light that broke through the thick canopies of the trees and she
decided to explore the grounds around the perimeter of the house.
 
She returned to her quarters and
selected a coat that would be thick enough to guard her against the chill in
the air.
 

When she’d finally traveled the long distance to the side
doors of the corridor, she pushed out into the open air, breathing deeply, the
feeling of ice blanketing her chest and lungs.
 
The steam of her breath billowed out in
front of her as she walked a path into the interior of the forest.
 
She walked for half an hour, noticing
that the path traveled parallel to the house, rather than leading her out deep
into the woods.
 
The serenity and
peace of her surroundings soothed her tired spirit, energy seeping into her
heart and mind from the lack of walls surrounding her.

Walking leisurely, she listened to the bird songs and the
wind as it forced its way through the heavy boughs of the trees.
 
If ever there was Heaven on Earth,
Arianna thought she had found it in that moment and it had been her husband
who’d given it to her.
 
She smiled a
sad smile.
 
Their love was
bittersweet because, when they were together, nothing else in the world
mattered; but when they were apart, she couldn’t help but feel terrified that
Joseph wouldn’t return the same man that he’d been when he left her in the
morning.

A loud snap sounded behind her and Arianna turned suddenly,
the clear blue of her eyes deliberately traveling over the distant trees and
shrubs, seeking out the cause for the noise.
 
Although the sun should have been higher
in the sky, it seemed the fog had grown even more dense during the passing
morning, effectively diminishing her vision to within fifty feet of her on
either side.
 
Another soft rustle
and her eyes shot to her left, scanning intently seeking out the source of the
sound.
  
Her heart rate slowly
sped in her chest, and her billowed breath appeared before her at a more
frequent rate.
 
She’d walked such a
distance that she was unsure where on the property she stood, but she was
comforted to find that, in the distance, she could still make out the lights of
the mansion.
 
The next snap that she
heard had her eyes shooting back in the direction from which she’d
traveled.
 
She stepped backwards,
unsure of where to run if an animal was sneaking up to attack her.

An eerie silence fell over the forest, her eyes moving
desperately to locate the cause of the sounds she’d heard.
 
When another soft wisp echoed through
the trees, she looked out again, her eyes finally settling on the blonde fur of
a distant deer.
 
She laughed, her
hand going to her chest in an attempt to settle the pounding beat of her
heart.
 
She watched as the deer bent
down to eat plants on the ground. The animal’s beauty was breathtaking.
 
Majestically, it moved through the
trees, its large antlers casting shadow when it traveled through the sparse
bits of light that leaked through the thick canopies.
 
Fascinated by its presence, she watched
silently as it moved through the fog, but eventually it moved so deep into the
woods that she could no longer make out its form.

Spinning on her heel, she turned to go back to the house but
suddenly found herself locked within the thick arms of a strange man.
 
His hand covered her mouth when he
brought his mouth down to her ear.
 
“And what do we have here?
 
You appear to be lost, little one.”
 

Forcing her off the path, he dragged her into a dark area
where light could not penetrate.
  
She felt the rough bark of a tree when he pressed her against it, his
hand quickly moving to reach under her jacket and shirt.
 
When his fingers brushed across the
bottom of her breast, she opened her mouth to draw in one of his fingers,
biting down hard enough to break the skin, her mouth instantly filling with the
bitter, metallic taste of his blood.

The man pulled away as soon as she bit him, but brought the
back of his hand across her cheek with such force, her head was knocked
sideways against the rough surface of the tree.
 
She slid down against the tree, her skin
scraping across the bark and the taste of her own blood now mixing with that of
the man she’d bitten.

“You like to play rough, do you?”
 
Kneeling down he grasped her by the
collar of her jacket pulling her up so that his face was nose to nose with
hers.
 
“I can play rough too.”
 
His breath smelt of cigarette smoke and
liquor and when she went to scream again he covered her mouth with his yellowed
fingers, careful to put enough pressure against her lips to prevent her from
biting him again.
 
His large body
pressed down over her, his other hand pulled at the material of her jacket,
eventually working its way towards the button of her pants.
 
She brought her knee up, connecting
weakly with his crotch, alerting him to the fact that she was intent on
fighting against him.

Easily flipping her over, he used his hand to push her face down
into the sodden ground, pulling at the waist of her pants and exposing her bare
ass to the chilled air.
 
She cried
when his hand slipped beneath her panties, tearing the fabric in his rush to
violate her.

She could barely breath, the dirt from the ground filling
her nostrils and throat from her rapid inhalation of air.
  
The skin of her cheek stung from
where it had been scratched open against the trunk of the tree and then forced
into the earth. Tears fell from her eyes leaving muddied trails through the
dirt that now covered her face.
 
His
large hands undoubtedly bruised her skin and when he finally had her stripped
off her pants, he lifted her hips towards him, letting go only briefly so that
he could free himself of his pants as well.

Taking the split second of opportunity, Arianna turned her
head to the side and screamed with every bit of breath she had left in
her.
 
The man instantly corrected
his error, grabbing her by the hair before he forced her face back into the
damp ground to silence her cries.
 
Her mouth filled quickly with mud and her body fought against the
barrier preventing her ability to breathe.
 
Just as the man had positioned himself to force himself inside, her body
tensed in her last defense against the violent intrusion.
 
When it was clear she would be raped,
Arianna heard a loud and unexpected crack above her just before the man’s
weight disappeared from her back.
 
Turning her head, she spit out the mud that filled her mouth, exhaling
from her nose forcefully to clear her nasal passages.