Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 115400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Pushing off the edge of the metal bars, I stride toward Killian and watch as the curiosity flickers in his dark eyes. “Do you have a knife?”
He silently nods and pulls a switchblade from his pocket before handing it to me and backing out of the way, leaving me to take the reins. Nerves begin creeping into my veins, slowly at first until they’ve completely consumed me, and before I even start, I glance back at Killian. His simple nod of encouragement is all I need to remember who has the power here.
“As much or as little as you need, Chiara,” Killian’s soothing tone fills the cell, sending waves of confidence crashing through me.
I take a breath, and as I slowly let it out, I take one final step, settling in front of the man who abducted me twice. He sold me as a piece of meat, chained me, cuffed me, held me down and raped me. Suddenly, my morals no longer exist.
Ezekiel stares at me, his gaze narrowed to slits as I contemplate how I want to play this. “You treated me like an animal,” I say as calmly as ever. “A toy put here for your sick entertainment. You held me down. You sliced my clothes from my body and forced yourself inside of me while I sobbed in agony.”
My voice wavers, and I pause, needing a moment to find my composure before continuing. “Do you recall how many times I begged you to stop?”
Ezekiel doesn’t respond, but I didn’t expect him to.
“Thirty-six,” I say. “Thirty-fucking-six times. I counted every single one of them because it gave me something else to focus on apart from your brutal attack, but now I’m the one with the power, and it’s your turn to beg. It’s your turn to crumble at the hands of someone else, to feel every ounce of your dignity be stolen from you, even if I have to come back here every damn day to make it so. You haven’t scarred me, Ezekiel. All you’ve done is prove to me exactly what I’m capable of surviving.”
He still refuses to respond, and it’s clear that he doesn’t fear me in the way he fears Killian, but he will learn to soon enough. However, to be fair, he kinda has a pair of garden clippers hanging out of his guts, so that could be putting a damper on things.
Wanting to start out slowly, I raise the hem of my shirt and show him the slice his men made in my torso when they began cutting me out of my clothes. My cuts are stitched up now after spending the majority of the night being tended to by Killian’s doctor, but they’re still just as painful as they were when they first happened.
“You see this?” I demand. “You left a scar on my body. Twenty-three of them, in fact. And now, you will bear the same scars so when you descend into hell, even the devil will know what a pitiful, little man you are.”
And with that, I step even closer, and press the tip of the blade right to his torso before digging it deep. Ezekiel clenches his jaw and groans in agony as I simply stand back and look at my handiwork. It’s certainly much deeper than the cut that was left on my skin, but nobody said it had to be fair.
Moving on, I lift my gaze to his chest, and as I plunge the knife into his skin, the burden of his abuse begins to lift off my shoulders. Each cut takes away just a bit of the shame, and I go on and on until every last scar is mirrored on his body.
I let out a heavy breath, turning to face Killian. His deep gaze locks on me, and the pride behind those dark eyes fills me with the deepest joy. Without a second thought, I know that I will do everything within my power to see this look in his eyes every damn day for the rest of my life.
His phone is wedged between his ear and shoulder as someone speaks to him, and to be honest, I didn’t even notice his phone ring. He walks into me, his hand falling to my waist as he finishes his phone call, and the moment the phone slips away into his pocket, he lifts his other hand to my chin and leans in. Killian brushes the softest kiss upon my lips, and I savor every second of it, erasing the horrible memories and replacing them with ones like this.
“You know,” I say, barely even aware of the dying man behind me. “It’s almost comical how just a few days ago, the thought of these cells terrified me, but now . . . they seem to offer some kind of twisted justice.”