AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And who exactly would you be with?”
“Not you.” I reached for my robe and shrugged it on. “Are we done, or do I need you to take a pill to make it work?”
He stalked toward me, grabbed me by the throat, and lifted me off the ground.
I clutched at his hand, raking my fingers across his flesh, drawing blood as he blocked all air from entering my lungs. My mind clouded as my consciousness waned at the edges.
Andraius brought me toward his face, his alcohol-laced breath coasting over me. “I hate you even more than you hate me. All I want is a child, and then we don’t have to see each other again.”
He threw me on the floor, and I instinctively rolled to the side, ready to avoid a kick. The whole time, I gasped and coughed.
“You don’t even know the meaning of hate,” I choked out through labored breaths. “And you’re the problem, not me. Ask the doctors you love so much.”
“If that’s the way you want it. Have it your way. I’m going to prove you a fucking liar. And while we’re at it, let them do everything. This way, I don’t have to touch you. The last thing I want to do is fuck a venom-filled whore. How you got any man to fuck you in the first place is beyond me.”
I kept my mouth shut even though I wanted to taunt him more, say all kinds of things that had built in me for years. But, thankfully, through some warped luck of fate, he’d washed his hands of me.
His dream of fertility treatments would never come to fruition. They took time and patience. I’d make sure to draw everything out by months and months.
He wouldn’t touch me anymore. The bastard wouldn’t touch me anymore. Dizziness engulfed my head as nausea flooded my gut.
Pushing to my feet, I rushed to the bathroom and barely reached the toilet before I let everything empty from my stomach. I grabbed a towel, wiped my mouth, and leaned against a wall.
Tilting my head up, I gasped up at the decorative ceiling through wet eyes. I wiped at them and realized more tears streamed down my cheeks, now flowing free as if a dam had broken.
A sob escaped my lips, and I covered my face with my hands as the heartache and pain of the last few years flooded over me in pounding, overwhelming waves. I’d refused to cry for so long that my body needed to purge everything once I freed them.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat on the floor. I only knew that my lungs burned, and I couldn’t allow myself to lock away my emotions to this level ever again. It only gave Andraius more power over me.
After a quick shower and a change of clothes, I went back into my room and glanced at the now closed door of Andraius’s room. Suddenly, laughter bubbled up from my chest.
I’d let that bastard break me. But it looked as if I’d fucked him up, too.
In my defeat, in my not giving a fuck about anything, I’d chipped away at that man’s biggest flaw.
His ego.
I took a deep, almost relieving breath for the first time in a long time. A wave of something settled over me. Determination? Or was it just a certainty that I would get out of this?
Moving to the windows overlooking the front of the house, I pushed back the curtains just in time to see a fleet of four cars as they drove away from the property.
Most heads of families preferred anonymity when out and about, knowing the less attention they received, the safer. Andraius obviously missed that directive. But, then again, if he allowed himself to become a target, we were all free of him.
Baby steps, Nerine. At least he won’t touch you again. Hopefully.
Maybe he’d have better luck rising to the occasion with one of his special lady friends. I turned on my heel, went to my closet, grabbed a thick robe, belted it around myself, and then slipped on plush slippers. Then I moved to the wall next to the fireplace housing the hidden panel for the passageway leading to the library.
I had some studying to do. Online classes and self-learning worked when I’d had no choice, but having one-on-one instruction hands-down was no comparison. The system Lilly had created for me blew away my mind and pushed me to a level I never thought I’d reach.
I still couldn’t believe that for the past year and a half, I’d had Lilly as my mentor and hadn’t a clue. Then again, over the last few weeks, I’d learned that one of Lilly’s aliases was on the most-wanted lists of six continents.
She was such a badass. All the women were.
They were also ultra-feminists and a bit unconventional when it came to getting me up to speed on what they called “fighting the patriarchy.” No matter how often I told them I had no plans to take over the family, they insisted I do the crash course they dubbed Syndicate 101. And with Lilly as the primary teacher, there was no getting out of loads of homework assignments.
She wanted me prepared for every possible situation, and her mock trials, as I like to call them, were sometimes over-the-top and harshly realistic.
She’d gone as far as having me reevaluate the coup from five years ago and how I’d handle the situation now.
