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“You can’t. Don’t you understand that? I will never allow you to breathe without me.” His grip tightens on my wrist, and I look back at this face, my own twisting from pain. Even with his blank expression and empty eyes, I can feel the betrayal like we’re directly connected through a wire. “Do you think I’m stupid? Taking all that money? You were going to run.”
“Please, don’t hurt me.”
“You can’t even tell me I’m wrong.” Something breaks in his voice, and it fissures my heart. “Can you?”
My silence is a death sentence, but I can’t get myself to lie to him again. And I sure as hell am not telling him where I was going. He can torture me, kill me. He’ll never know.
“You’re lucky I’m not doing it on your fucking face,” he growls, palpable anger making his voice tremble.
“Do what?” I cry out. “What are you—”
A fire sears my finger, and I turn to face the hand he’s forcing flat on the table.
It takes me a few seconds to comprehend what is going on.
The knife, it’s tearing through my skin. He’s marking me in the same way he did on my ass, carving into my flesh. Except this time, it’s on my ring finger. Not even where the rings should have been—no, he wouldn’t want them to hide it. It’s below my nail, between the middle and top knuckle.
“No! No, please!” I wriggle, but he lets go for a second, bringing the knife to my neck. “Stay still and I won’t do it to every single one of your fingers. The longer you make this last, the longer I make it hurt, do you understand?”
“Nate,” I whimper. The realization sets in that every single step we have taken forward together has been erased. We’re back to square one, fear consuming me, fury blinding him.
There is nothing connecting us, only possession and terror.
The N is the most painful, and it takes everything in my power to not cry and beg for mercy.
I swallow the tears like I’ve always done, and I close my eyes.
I’m numb by the time he gets to the W. Physically, I am, but inside, I mourn the freedom I almost had. I was so close to seeing my girls again. Worse, I mourn the man I got to meet, the one who made me feel safe and worshiped. He’s gone, and everything inside me hurts, dying to get him back.
“Ah, despair,” he spits. “It’s back on your face. How fucking lovely.”
And from those sarcastic words only, I understand he’s mourning that man too, blaming me for making him disappear.
“For a split second—” he chuckles as he keeps carving into me—“I thought something happened to you when the bank called. I thought, what if someone robbed her? What if she’s in trouble?”
Blood covers my hand, creating a small puddle on the table, and I know he’s going deep so it’ll scar. He said it the first time he did it.
“But then I remembered you’re Kayla King.” He emphasizes my last name, taking his back and breaking my heart in the process. I thought I hated his last name, so why don’t I now? “No one would fucking dare rob you. No one would dare go against you.”
“I’m sorry,” I rasp. And I think I truly am, because I already miss us and what we’d made of our crazy situation. “I am, Nate. I’m sorry.”
“I know you are, little sunflower.” He’s finished, throwing the knife to the side and pushing the hair away from my face. “You really are.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and nod against the table.
“Because you can’t live without me,” he snarls dangerously, fisting my hair again. “A sunflower can’t live without its sun, can it?”
“No.” The truth bubbles out of my mouth. “I can’t.”
“I know. And you will keep on being sorry, believe me.”
He pulls me off the table, dragging me with him as I hold my bloody hand to my chest, and he walks us back to the living room.
“Where are they?” he says in my ear. “The rings.”
I shake my head. “In-in here. I’m not sure where.”
“Not sure?”
