Alec had been put to bed and Violet found herself standing in Olaf's office, watching as he shut the door behind them and turned with a serious expression. She'd have thought he was luring her upstairs for more of his untoward behavior, except he had seemed grim when he told her they needed to have a discussion.
"Olaf?" she asked quietly, not knowing what to expect.
He nodded toward the loveseat. "Sit," he ordered. Violet's eyes glassed over and she took a seat, for some reason feeling nervous.
Olaf crossed to his desk and removed the topper from the decanter, pouring them each a glass. He crossed over, handing her one before taking a seat next to her.
"Do you remember the caterer from the party or were you too tired at that point?" he asked.
Violet had not been sure what to expect from his sudden grim countenance, especially after they'd all shared such a lighthearted evening, but it certainly wasn't that.
"The woman?" she asked, brow tucked in thought. Then her mouth popped open. "Oh, yes, the woman who danced with us. She…was she a Volunteer?"
That felt right in her mind, but everything from her time without sleep seemed muddy. How had she forgotten such a thing?
Olaf nodded, watching Violet carefully. "And do you remember what she told you?"
Violet stared toward the floor, brow furrowed further as she tried to recall any snippet of information from that evening. "I-," she said, cutting off and looking up with an apologetic expression. "I don't."
Olaf nodded and took a long drink. Violet followed suit, unsure what to do with herself. He mulled his words over for a moment, then finally spoke.
"She told you Klaus was coming to rescue you," he said, watching her expression carefully. This would be the true test of the new orders he'd given her in the safehouse.
Olaf watched her face harden, her entire body tense, and simultaneously felt both relief and satisfaction.
"I don't need to be rescued," she said hotly under her breath. "Why would he even care?"
Olaf had to force the edges of his mouth from curling upward. His Violet. He'd finally made her perfect.
"He is still your brother," he said, trying to act as the voice of reason although all he wanted was to hear her argue against Klaus even more, to sate his ego that he had done this to her, that he had won. "He still cares for you."
Her mouth twisted down, eyes growing heated. "I don't even like to think about him," she hissed, angry reds blotching across her cheeks. "He didn't care when my entire world was falling apart. He didn't care when I felt like I would rather die than keep going."
Olaf moved closer to her, his thigh pressed against her knee, and reached out to tuck that stubborn piece of hair behind her ear. He said nothing, letting his hand linger near the curve of her neck until his silence seemed to fill her with something and she looked up at him, eyes full of fear.
"Are you going to let them take me?"
He looked down at her, fingers curling around the nape of her neck, thumb trailing to the hollow of her throat.
He studied her for a moment. Though he already knew the answer, he wanted to hear her say it. "Do you want to go?" he asked.
There was the smallest shake of her head before his question was even out. "No," she said, the word rushed. "I can't - I…I can't feel like that again."
Olaf tipped his head to the side. "Feel like what?"
Violet looked up at him, eyes uncertain as she searched his face for something. She opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again.
"Violet?" he prodded, watching her mouth tip down at the corners as she looked away from him. But as soon as she started speaking, it was as if a dam had been opened.
"I…I wanted to die, Olaf. And I don't mean that in some dramatic exaggeration. I wanted to die. I thought about it all the time, sometimes I thought that was the only way to make everything stop hurting. And then I was alone and it was worse. And then you came and Alec and…and it got a little better. And a little more. And I didn't even realize it had gone away until you got angry with me over Oswald and I thought I had ruined everything and - and -"
Her eyes had filled to the brim with tears. One fell, running down her cheek and meeting his hand resting lightly on her throat.
"Everything started to hurt again," she whispered, looking up at him. Olaf's fingers pressed into her skin, possessive. Her face was stricken, more open and raw than he had ever seen her before. He hadn't expected this, had known she was depressed when he found her but not that she would have ever felt such things, hadn't thought she would ever tell him. Violet had wanted to die. And her brother had stood by and done nothing. Klaus had let her leave like some criminal in the night and done nothing. An unexpected rage was building in his gut. She lowered her gaze, shoulders dipping protectively around her. "I don't want to feel like that again," she said, words barely audible. "I'm afraid that if I did, I would…I would do it. I would die."
Ice curled from his chest, down his hands at just the thought of her feeling so damned alone that she would end her own life. As unexpected as the rage he felt was the fear of her doing such a thing. His hand left her neck, wrapping instead around her shoulder and pulling her against his chest.
"Do not ever think that way again," he said, teeth grit. "That is an order. You will not ever even entertain the idea of ending your life, Violet, do you understand me?"
He was holding her so tightly against him that he expected her to squeak out in pain. Instead he just felt her head, nodding against his chest. He lowered his mouth to the crown of her head, kissing into her hair.
"Even if you beg me, I will never let them see you again," he promised, face stern and determined, buried in her dark locks. "Do you hear me? Never. Of course I'm not going to let them take you, Violet. I didn't care what your damn answer was. They were never going to take you."
"Okay," he heard her say weakly, then could feel the hiccuping bobs of her shoulders as she began to cry into his chest. "I-I'm sorry, I don't know why I told you that."
Because he had ordered her to trust him more than anyone else and she didn't even remember. Was that what that uncertainty was in her eye before she barreled on with the things she'd been hiding?
He shushed into her hair, pulling her somehow tighter against him, unsure if he would ever let her go. Her admission scared him, a thing he did not often feel, and he wasn't sure he would ever let her out of his sight again.
"Do you trust me?" he muttered against her scalp.
He felt her nod against his mouth. "Yes," she said quietly, taken by another shuddering sob.
She could not see the villainous gleam of possession that sparked in his eye. All she could feel was the way his fingers dug tighter into her arms. And…and it made her feel safe.
"We'll leave first thing in the morning," he said, lifting his head away from the top of hers. He felt her stiffen in his arms and she twisted her head backward, looking up at him through swollen eyes. All he could focus on were the mere inches between their mouths.
"Leave?" she asked, brow tucked.
"Before they come to take you," he said, eyes trained on her lips. "I'm working on a new place. A better one. But we'll have to go to a safe house in the meantime."
She blinked and lifted her head away from him, staring at nothing. "I've…Alec and I have worked so hard," she said. "We've done so much here."
She had. They both had. This had been the closest thing to a livable home Olaf had had since his parents were killed.
"I know," he said, disliking the frown tugging at her mouth. "Violet, look at me." She laid her head back on his chest and twisted her face up to his again. Despite the worry etched on her features, her body felt relaxed against his. "We will make the next one better, I promise."
She stared up at him, not moving an inch, but her brow was still worried. Her dark eyes searched his, a question there, unspoken. "Olaf," she said quietly. "What did you do to me that I can't remember?"
He froze, arms locked around her. "What do you mean?" he asked, knowing exactly what she meant and trying to puzzle out what she was deducing on her own.
"I would have never told you that," she whispered. "I would have never told anyone about how I felt during that time."
He was silent, his face stony. She was too clever. She knew something was off, she'd questioned it earlier.
"I-," she started, her eyes dipping down to his mouth and then back up, cheeks reddening as if she'd been caught. "I trust you," she said. "I just want to know how you made everything feel better."
He could not tell her. Not when she said she trusted him. He wouldn't dare tell her she only felt that way because he'd ordered her to.
"Don't question it," he said tightly, watching her eyes glass over with the order. "Don't think about it, just accept that you trust me now. Accept that you feel comfortable telling me your secrets, accept that you trust me more than anyone else."
When her eyes unglazed, her brow tucked. "Olaf?"
"Forget this conversation," he said in a hurry. "Forget that you ever asked me."
Once more her eyes glazed and then she blinked, the crook in her brow gone, but a puzzled look on her face.
"What?" she said, looking rather through him but not at him, as if trying to recall the last string of their conversation. "I'm sorry, I must have -"
"Sleep, Violet," he commanded, trying to swallow the thick knot in his throat. She was too clever for her own damn good and it was all he could think to do to keep her from unraveling his plot further.
She sunk against him instantly, eyes fluttering shut as her head rolled into his shoulder. Olaf held her tight against him, just looking at her - at her peaceful expression, at the curve of her face, at her long lashes resting on her cheek. He tried to imagine his perfect Violet buried under six feet of soil.
He moved toward her, letting her weight fall into the arm around her shoulders and gently laid her down on the loveseat. His arm was pinned beneath her and…and this wasn't like when she'd slept so soundly next to him at the safehouse. He was hovering above her, their chests pressed against one another, his free hand bracing himself on the edge of the couch. It was…providing him with visuals he'd only ever fantasized about.
He was a bad man. He knew this. She knew this.
Violet had said she wanted to die. And what if she had? What if she had flung herself from that tall apartment building before he had ever found her? His fingers clenched against her back, but she did not stir beneath him. What if he had never gotten to touch her, to have her so prone and vulnerable beneath him again?
He was a bad man, he was a bad man, he was a bad man.
He looked over his shoulder at the closed office door. How was this any different than what he had planned to do the night of The Marvelous Marriage? The sedatives had been hiding in his bedside drawer that night. Funny how he'd had her unconscious next to him in bed, how he'd told her he wouldn't do anything untoward while she was in that state, that he wanted to see all of her crumple around him. But he had not known she had wanted to die, he had not been afraid of her existence blinking out eternally.
He would die himself if he never got to have her.
Bad man, bad man, bad man -
He shifted, pulling his knee up onto the couch beneath him. Violet's legs still draped over the edge of the loveseat. He used his leverage to pull his hand free from her back, leaning over her, hands digging into the couch and pinning her in. There was no need to pin her. She slept, entirely unaware of his beastly motives. But the thought of her life slipping through his fingers made the action of creating a cage necessary.
Olaf's mouth drifted down to the curve of her jaw, sliding along her skin.
Bad, bad, bad -
He slid her mouth to hers, gentle, starting at one edge of her lips and moving across to the other. What if she had died? What if he had not known the feel of her mouth under his? Had not heard the rare sound of her laugh?
His hand, fisted onto the crossbeam at the front of the couch, moved to her waist. She did not stir. Nor did she as his touch moved upward, roving along her ribcage, up and up until he had a handful of her breast. He pulled his mouth away from her, breath shaking, as if surprised even he would be so dastardly. He rose, putting space between them, but not removing his hand. He brushed his thumb across her breast and felt a peak stiffen under his ministrations. There was a pressure building at the base of his spine and he shifted, trying to sate the sudden tightness in his trousers.
He massaged his thumb against the fabric of her dress, rolling her between his thumb and forefinger. She was soft. Unspeakably so. Soft enough that he wanted to bury his face in the valley between her breasts. Balanced on his knee, he let his free hand mirror his other, kneading her other breast in tandem while his stiffness pressed against her hip. She offered him more than a handful, spilling out at the sides of his hands. And she hid it all under her ill-fitting clothing.
Olaf watched her brow give the slightest tuck, her pretty lips parting slightly. A noise - more a huff of air than not - fled her. He stopped, watching and waiting to see if she stirred. When she didn't, he removed one of his hands and carefully slid up the skirts of her dress, gathering it at her knees. His palm was greedy in its exploration, feeling every inch of her naked thigh as it slid up the outside of her leg, up, up, up until it rested on her hip.
Her naked hip.
Her naked hip that had not offered a stitch of clothing under his touch.
Violet Baudelaire really didn't wear undergarments.
What if he had never gotten to touch her like this? Had never known the sensation of her smooth skin under his palm?
She could have died and no one would have known, she would have been buried somewhere for people who were unclaimed by loved ones, written down in some record book under some name that wasn't hers.
His hand gripped into the fleshy mound of her hip, just trying to feel her, to convince himself she was really there.
His hand itched to move a few mere inches, to bury itself in the curls at the apex of her thighs. What if she died and he never got to feel her in the way he ached to? How easy it would be to position himself between her legs and take her right there on the loveseat. He could make her forget if she woke. Could force her back to sleep, make her think it was all a dream.
And then he would have had her and the mere thought of her dying would not possess him like this again. But when he tried to move his hand to find those curls, he could not.
Olaf swallowed thickly, then released his grip on her hip and fisted his hand, pulling it out from under her skirts. She trusted him. She trusted him. And no amount of hypnosis in his favor would undo what he wanted to do.
He sat up, crossing his arms over his chest, just watching her. Making sure one breath bled into another.
"Damn it," he said, standing and turning his back to her. It took several very long, very painful minutes for his manhood to calm. Only then did he turn around and watch her again, her legs still hanging off the edge of the loveseat. He crossed over to her and knelt, picking up her legs and gently lifting them onto the couch, then settled at her side and just stared at her.
"Damn you," he whispered, lowering his forehead to rest on her temple. "Damn you, Violet."
Because he had realized something far more scary than the thought of her dead. He realized why he couldn't make his hand move farther, why he couldn't touch her the way his body begged him to. Something that would cut into him, ruin what little bit of normalcy he had patched together in his life. Something so utterly catastrophic and painful, so terrifying that he wanted to rip himself away from her, storm through the house, grab his keys and go and never turn back.
He loved her.