The Annihilator (Dark Verse #5)(29)

‘How do you like your home?’

Lyla blinked, reading the words again. Her home? No, he must’ve meant ‘my’ home and misspelled it.
Wondering what time it was and how long she’d been slumbering, how she hadn’t heard him enter and leave the rose and the note, she walked out of the room, only to come to a halt at two females—a young girl and an older woman—in the area.
Immediately, her guards went up, making her realize how low she’d actually let them go within a day of being there. She wanted to demand who they were and what they were doing there, but her throat locked up. She couldn’t talk to people anymore; strangers scared her. It was different when she was working—she knew what was expected of her then—but she didn’t know what was expected of her now, and she didn’t know how to react.
Without a word, she slowly started to retreat back into her room when the older woman glanced up at her, her face showing surprise.
“Good morning, Mrs. Blackthorne!”
She froze. What the fuck?
Startled at the address, she stared at the older lady in wonder. She didn’t know if he had told them she was his wife or they had simply assumed, but for some reason, she did not correct her.
“P... please call me Lyla,” she offered in return, stumbling but catching herself, the woman’s warm smile making her feel strange.
“Yes, Lyla,” the older woman accepted. “I’m Bessie, and this one here—” she pointed to the younger girl “—is Nikki.”
Not really sure what the polite response was to small talk, since this was probably the first conversation she was having like this, she just gave them a small smile. It felt odd on her face, the sides lifting slightly, the muscles unused for so long. An awkward silence filled the space, before Bessie, blessed woman that she was, looked at her rose, her smile splitting her cheeks.
“I see Mr. Blackthorne has been using the garden. Have you seen it yet?”
Lyla shook her head, and the older woman, maybe intuitive, maybe perceptive, didn’t make any comment on her lack of reactions. She beckoned her forward with one hand, leaving aside the vacuum cleaner that she had been holding—the source of the noise. Hesitantly, Lyla walked forward, glancing at Nikki who stared at her with slightly cool eyes like the girls in the complex had.
“We hadn’t even known he was married until a few days ago,” Bessie kept talking, drawing her attention back. “He was always here alone, and we all just thought he was one of them bachelors, you know?”
“Who all?” Lyla asked, following Bessie as she led her to the main double doors of the house.
“The villagers mainly. When he bought this land and started building the house, gave lots of us jobs. I take care of the house. My husband takes care of the green, and Nikki takes care of the kitchen.”
The calm, comforting way Bessie talked made Lyla relax a bit. “How many people...?”
“Work here?”
She nodded.
“About six,” the older woman opened the door. “We’re all day staff since the village is just a few minutes away. At night, there’s only security at the main gate and those were brought from the outside by Mr. Blackthorne.”
Fascinating.
The kind of man he’d always seemed, a lone wolf, she hadn’t ever imagined him as having people working under him. But it fit him. He was commanding.
“Does he stay here all the time?”
The odd look Bessie gave her made her realize she’d slipped. If she were his wife, she’d know this already. Biting her tongue when the urge to overcorrect herself came, she turned to look outside and stopped short. A long porch wrapped around the house, stairs leading down to a pathway. One side of the pathway, the side that dipped down into the cliff, was completely paved with cement, a large honest-to-god black helicopter sitting there. A helicopter. 
Mouth agape, she looked to the other side of the pathway, green lush grass beginning to span the slope, her eyes coming to rest on a glass shed a little way down.
“That’s the greenhouse.”
Of course, he had a greenhouse. She wouldn’t be surprised if the next door she opened led to a throne room made of gold.
Surprised at her own sarcastic thought, she pulled up short, shaking her head. Sarcasm wasn’t familiar to her, but it felt nice.
"Dr. Manson will be here tomorrow to see you."
Lyla blinked. "Who's Dr. Manson?"
Bessie gave her a warm smile as she led them to the greenhouse. "I'm sure Mr. Blackthorne must have told you."
He hadn't, but she bit her tongue not to give anything away.
And that was how her morning passed. Taking a tour of the greenhouse as Bessie introduced her to an older gentleman working there—her husband—and showed her where the property line was, quite far away from the house. The property was fenced with barbed wires, and she wondered for a moment if that’s where he got the barbed wire from when he strangled Two and Three.
The dark thought was a good reminder that no matter how much finesse he showed to the world, how convinced Bessie and the staff were that he was a wonderful man—oh, he had them fooled—he was still the devil, and this was still her prison.
***
Bessie showed her where the tea was and showed her how to operate the tablet to look up anything she wanted. ‘Mr. Blackthorne is so thoughtful.’
That he was. He thought of everything and that’s what made him so good. The staff was eating out of his hands, and Nikki wanted to fuck him. Had she fucked him? The thought unsettled her.
That was what she’d perceived in a day of being there.