Dim The Circus Lights (Book 2 of Beneath The Circus Lights)

Chapter 37

    Promising to deliver Bruce Wayne and actually locating the billionaire were two different things.

  Sometimes Jerome didn't think things completely through, most of the time he did things on impulse (be it the insanity or his personality, he didn't know nor care) without further reasoning.

It was a week later after meeting up with some of the remaining loyal cultists who regrettably informed him of the rumors circling about the young Wayne heir, who had supposedly left Gotham in secret. Good old Jim didn't even know where the boy went off of once he left the island.

Fuck.

Well, there goes plan one.

Hopefully, Jeremiah would be patient enough and believe that Jerome would deliver.......

That is until he learns of Bruce's department. Then he'll really be clingy and Jerome will be forced to kill him, Elsie will be pissed at him,  Jason will cry and Jerome will end up driving a knife through his own chest to escape the endless noise.

No, he wasn't going to do that. He already died once, and he wasn't about to again any time soon...

He'd just have to figure out an alternative measure to keep Jeremiah away.

Once inside the front door, Jerome was slammed against the door, a pissed off Macy glaring at him.

  "Get a hold of your wife." she snarled and Jerome pushed her away, brushing invisible dust off of his clothes.

  "What the hell are you on about?" He sneered, jumping when a loud crash sounded from the storage room.

  "Elsie's having a sort of breakdown. She's throwing all the liquor out, even the cooking wine." Jerome blinked, and moved past the other.

He found his wife indeed in the storage room, barefooted as she smashed bottle after bottle of alcohol on the ground.

So much for the Stepford wife persona...

"El-''

   Smash.

Jerome watched her thrown down a decorative plate sitting innocently on a shelf.

Taking a cautious approach, Jerome edged around the broken glass as his wife paused in her throwing to look at him over her shoulder, shoulders heaving as she took deep breaths.

  ''Where were you?'' She asked, eyes zoning in on him and Jerome blinked, slightly taken aback by her sudden question.

  ''I was out with the boys, why are you smashing the liq-''

   ''Liar! You fucking liar! How dare you stand there and lie to my face.'' Elsie pushed Jerome away, grabbing a bottle and hurling it at his head, the redhead smart enough to doge before it made contact with his skull.

  'What the fuck Elsie!'' Jerome frowned, the scent of spilled alcohol even more prominent in the room.

  ''You promised me, you promised me it was going to stop!'' She snarled, going for another bottle, only to find the room vacant.

  ''What the hell are you on about woman?!'' Jerome snarled, taking a step forward, only to pause in his steps as his wife growled, actually growled threateningly at him.

  ''We agreed, for the sake of our children, that this constant battle with your brother was over!'' Elsie clenched her fists.

  ''I don't know what you're talking about, have you been smoking the weed without me again?'' Jerome crossed his arms ''there better be some left.''

''Shut up! You're hunting for Bruce,'' She watched Jerome's posture stiffen somewhat ''Aren't you?"

''..... Who told ya?"

  ''Like you, I've got eyes all over this city and before you attempt to lie to me again, let me save you the stupid excuse of you being 'bored and wanting to play with your favorite billionaire'. You know Jeremiah is just as obsessed, if not more about Bruce than you are and when he's occupied by Bruce, he leaves us alone. You were going to barter Bruce to Jeremiah weren't you?'' Her eyes dared him to disagree and he was wasn't ashamed to admit he was turned on by her anger.

   Jerome loved how intelligent Elsie was, her cleverness made him proud to call her his wife, however, it was moments like these that made him aware of how dangerous it was to try to sneak past her.

  ''What else was I supposed to do Elle...... He's just so fucking annoying.... and I don't like seeing what his presence does to ya....'' Jerome avoided her eye, he hated to sound like a chick around her, mushy romantic shit was Jeremiah's thing.

He was a decent actor, he'd played the grieving son role long enough to buy him some time before Gordon found him out, hopefully his skills had improved.

  The sound of crunching glass was all he heard before he felt a pair of slender arms wrap around his waist and her rest on his shoulder.

  ''You need to stop worrying about me Jerome, I'm not the same little girl you met at the circus and I can handle your brother just fine.'' She smiled up at him, put off as Jerome simply stared at her, cupping her cheek.

She felt his thumb brush over the scar on her cheek that she received from one of her first hunts since her return to the city.

  ''I've always had to share everything with him...I didn't share you then and I won't now.'' He tightened his hold on her and she shushed him, kissing the scars on his mouth.

  ''Forget about him right now. Just focus on us," she leaned up to press a chaste kiss to the former of his scarred mouth "Let's go take a bath hmmm? Take your mind off of everything..." She coaxed him out of the room.

As they walked, Jerome winced at the cuts on her feet, despite knowing they would heal in a matter of hours didn't comfort him in the fact that his girl was hurt.

Only he was allowed to hurt her (when she was kind enough to allow knifeplay, which wasn't as often as Jerome liked).

So maybe Jeremiah wasn't the reason for his wife's sudden mood swings.....Christ if she was pregnant again he swore he was going to drag himself and Jeremiah to a doctor to get vasectomies.

But she hadn't been exhibiting any of her previous symptoms so it couldn't be that...

Fuck why did being married have to make life so goddamn difficult?