AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The only sign of discomfort he gives when Romano runs his fingers down to his pants and hooks them into his belt is a slight twitching of his lips. I swallow hard, scratching the back of my hand until the skin bunches under my fingernails, and bloody streaks emerge in their wake. A need to partake in Micah’s pain takes over me, and the only relief I can get is self harm.
“You really did turn out fantastic,” Romano says sadistically. “Your mother would be proud of you. Of course, by now she’s so far gone that she wouldn’t recognize either you or Sade.”
Micah’s cheek twitches, his fist tightening around the stake in his hand, but he allows Romano to start unbuckling his belt. Anguish chokes me, and my stomach knots, but I can’t look away from the twisted scene unfolding in front of me. Everything in me screams to look away, but I owe this to Micah. I have to bear this, as if I could take some of his burden upon myself.
Romano pulls the belt from the loops, and slowly winds one end around his fist before he grabs the other and snaps it, testing it for vigor.
“Now, allow a dying man his last pleasures,” he says viciously. “You’re a stoic boy, you can take it like you love it. Do it for the woman of your dreams.”
Micah’s muscles ripple, but he doesn’t even flinch when the fist whip of the belt lands across his chest. I bite hard into my lower lip to refrain from screaming and drawing Romano’s attention from the welt he caused on my lover’s skin.
The vile man sticks his tongue out like he wants to lick it, then whips the belt out again, the slapping sound it makes against Micah’s skin sickening to my stomach. I flinch and bite harder, the taste of blood coating my tongue. But I don’t look away, wincing and fisting my hand around Rufus’ cell so hard that my muscles cramp. I pray to God and all the powers of the universe for Sade to send that text, but I can’t keep my wits about me long enough. Watching that belt land on Micah’s body again and again is like taking those lashes in my own flesh. I can literally feel them lacerating my heart. The lashes become increasingly vicious, and his skin splits.
“Ah, how beautiful you are, my boy,” Romano growls, and I could swear he’s close to orgasm. He’s writhing under Micah as he keeps going. “That’s it, let us crown the work of art I made out of you.”
If I know one thing about Duke Romano Royales, it’s that he’s not gay, nor bisexual, not even bi-curious. So the pleasure he’s experiencing now is far beyond sexual. It engages his senses in a way that most humans can’t fathom. And the stoicism with which Micah is taking it, without a sign of opposition, is coming from the same place. I’m pulled deeper down the dark path of how these men are forged and shaped, realizing there are parts of hell where I can’t follow, no matter how much I want to.
I’m just not equipped to wrap my head around it. I haven’t suffered enough. I haven’t been broken down to my last atom by evil forces bent on seeing inside me and then putting me back together like some kind of Frankenstein’s monster.
But there is something I can do to stop this bloody insanity.
I could throw myself at them, knock Micah off Romano, and just let the evil bastard blow us all up. I won’t be able to live without Micah anyway if this goes wrong. At least we get to die together.
But just as my mind gives out and I scramble up to my feet, the phone in my hand buzzes with an incoming text, the sound muffled against my palm. When I look down, my heart jumps so hard that my breath stutters. The text is from Sade.
It’s done. Tell Micah to shred the fucker.
The words rip out of my throat like the cry of a wounded animal.
“Micah!” When his eyes snap to meet mine and Romano’s head twists to stare at me, I hold the phone in their direction. “The bomb is disarmed.”
I look down to see horror slowly replace the sick enjoyment in the bastard’s eyes. It goes through three phases—the surprise at seeing me so close to Rufus’ body, the realization that he’s been focused on Micah for far too long, indulging in his devilish pleasures, and that he’s utterly and thoroughly fucked. The following words feel like honey on my tongue as I address them to Micah, keeping my eyes on Romano to see him understand he’s done for. “You can do whatever you want with him.”
Romano’s bloody, pummeled faced slackens with the realization that he’s lost. I never thought I’d take so much pleasure in anticipating someone’s demise.
Micah lowers his eyes to Romano, who tries to struggle beneath him. But he spent too much of his strength whipping Micah like a madman, plus all the pummeling he took before, which he enjoyed like some kind of masochistic foreplay, and now he’s got no fuel left to struggle. He slaps the belt at Micah again and again, but desperation has taken over him, and the effect is not the same.
The grin lifting up the corners of Micah’s lips could rival that of Lucifer himself. He takes the chaotic, hysterical lashes, deciding how he’s going to make the bastard suffer. But I’ve had enough. My heart can’t take another second of this horror show.
I try to walk closer, but I’ve lost my shoes somewhere in all of this madness, and I skid over Rufus’ still-warm, slick blood. I collapse to all fours, dropping the cell in the process.
“Micah, please,” I cry out, extending my hand toward him as if I were losing him to a dark vortex. “Let’s just go. He’s already finished. Sade will open that door any second now, it’s done.”
“Sade won’t open the door,” Micah says, his voice slow and methodical. Romano is struggling like a worm on a hook, but he doesn’t stand a chance against Micah’s weight as he pins him down under his knee. “He won’t take this away from me.” He flexes his leg, his knee digging deeper into Romano’s chest, and I swear I hear bone crack.
Romano folds in on himself and groans, then desperately clicks the button on the round device in an attempt to detonate it.
But Sade wouldn’t have sent that text if he wasn’t sure.
The bomb fails to go off, and Romano finally lets the device fall to the floor, opening his arms like a man on a cross. A man with nothing left but his stepson’s mercy.
“Go ahead,” he defies, holding his chin up and daring Micah to slit his throat with the stake in his hand. “Finish this. And don’t even bother to ask where your mother is, because I’d rather go to hell than tell you.”
“Oh, you’ll go to hell.” Micah turns the stake slowly in his hand, prolonging Romano’s uncertainty. The latter breathes faster, but Micah’s knee makes him choke again.
Romano is done for. There’s no way he can still hurt anyone, including me. So my secret, the one I’ve been keeping from Micah with iron determination... I could just blurt it out now.
I could tell Micah where his mother is, because I’ve known all along. My best-kept secret is tied to this knowledge—it’s how Romano and I met. But if I do talk, I’ll have to contend with more than just my lover’s wrath. I’ll have to deal with Sade’s, too. And yet their anger and betrayal isn’t even the worst part. It’s not what I’m most afraid of.
