Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
My attention drifts back to the house, and the morbid part of me considers what it must have been like to watch them burn. To imagine Lavinia writhing in pain, suffering the same blow she dealt me is almost too poetic for words. Between the three of them, I can’t imagine how they’ll ever survive such a twist of fate. They’ll have no choice now but to live with the scars they mocked me for at every turn.
“I get why you did it,” I tell Thorsen. “This is the worst thing that could ever happen to them. Now they will live the rest of their lives as ugly on the outside as they are on the inside.”
“It’s only the beginning.” He offers me a tender kiss.
“What do you mean?”
“Narcissa hasn’t carried insurance on the house in years,” he says. “It’s all gone. They’ll have nothing left. Every comfort they ever denied you, every punishment they ever doled out, they will come to know that bitter reality on an intimate level.”
“I love you.” I lean against his body and breathe him in. “For loving me enough to do something so insane and oddly sweet.”
“I love you too, min gudinne.”
He twists his fingers in my hair, and our lips come together, and I wonder if this intoxicating high will ever end. But in his eyes, I recognize the flame in his soul burning for me too, and I know that it won’t. We were always fated to be together. In this life or the next, I would have found him.
“To be continued,” he teases as he adjusts the growing erection in his pants.
I smile in agreement. “I’m already looking forward to it.”
He releases me and starts the car again. “I’ll take you to see them if that’s what you want.”
“Please.”
The drive is quiet, but I’m surprisingly calm when Thorsen parks at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London. For a while, we just sit in the parking lot, neither of us saying a thing. He waits for me to give the final word that I’m ready, and when I do, we walk hand in hand together.
Thorsen leaves me to my thoughts as he takes control of the situation and speaks with the nurse. He explains that I’m family, and she informs us that all three of the women required emergency surgery in the early morning hours. They are conscious but unable to speak.
When he asks about their prognosis, she tells him that barring any infections, they will survive. But they will be physically disfigured for the rest of their lives. Their fate is sealed, and it’s a confirmation of Thorsen’s promise. It’s hard to believe someone would go to these lengths for me, but I know I would do the same for him. When the nurse leads us down the hall to the room, and I finally see them, I don’t think justice has ever felt so romantic.
The smell of charred flesh and disinfectant burns my nostrils as I lay eyes on the blood-soaked bandages over their bodies. There isn’t a place the fire hasn’t touched, and between the lot of them, their features are no longer distinguishable. Three pairs of empty brown eyes stare back at me. The women who never had a kind word to say can’t say anything at all right now. They’re frozen in this hell. Three gasping sacks of mangled flesh.
I had so much I thought I needed to express when I came here, but I think their misery says it all. They will live and die in the wretched existence they have created for themselves. And I’m certain once I walk out of this room, I’ll never have to think of them again. I take a step closer, and then another, until finally, there can be no doubt who they are looking at or what I have to say.
“I hope you remember me,” I tell them. “Every time you look in the mirror. Every agonizing bite of pain you feel. Every horrifying stare you’ll get when the children scream and run the other way. Remember how you laughed. How you sneered. How you lived your lives with complete disregard for anyone but yourselves. And know this. I will go on with my life, and you won’t infect my mind or my heart anymore. The cord is severed, and the only thing you’ll have to keep you warm at night is the mark of shame you’ll bear for the rest of eternity.”
Thorsen wraps his arm around my waist, a steadying presence as I draw the first real breath I feel like I’ve ever taken. Because now I am free of my chains. Of my guilt. Of these awful women whose names I’ve already forgotten.
“One more thing,” Thorsen tells them, his face as cold and callous as a wintry day. “If you ever try to contact Ella again, I’ll kill you myself.”