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“I didn’t do anything,” she shrieks.
“Oh, you did plenty.” Dom takes hold of her chin and forces her to look at him. “You threatened me. Blackmailed me. You think you know something about me. About who I am and what I do. You know nothing.”
“Dom. Let her go and give me the damn knife,” I say, my voice eerily calm.
“Not sure I want to,” he replies.
“Come on. She’s not worth it. Verity.” I turn to her, and she stares at me, her eyes pleading. “What’s going on here? Did you blackmail him?”
“I only wanted to help,” she babbles. “I found out he cuts himself, and I wanted to help.”
Dom pulls his arm back, and I think he’s going to punch her, but he punches the sofa instead.
I act in that moment and grab the knife. I throw it across the room and pull Dom up. He can punch me if he wants, but I need to get some distance between him and Verity. Cutting her hair, making her life hell, that’s one thing. We did that for our Duchess, and it humiliated Verity but didn’t do her any long-term harm. This? He looks ready to murder her, and that’s quite another level altogether.
“Why don’t you get dressed, Verity?”
“In what?” she shrieks. “My clothes are in tatters.”
“Put your jeans on, and then wear this.” I take my sweater off and hand it to her. It leaves me in just a t-shirt, but the coldness I’m feeling isn’t from the cool air on my skin. It’s from something much deeper. The sense that things are unraveling.
Ever since our little Duchess arrived, the center hasn’t held, and now it’s all splintering apart.
Kirill bursts into the room, whistling, but the sound dies like a kettle taken off the stove. I turn to him and raise my brows. He looks at Dom, Verity, then me.
“What’s the party?” he asks sardonically.
“This fucking bitch tried to blackmail me.” Dom is pacing now, shooting me death ray glares. “Tino found me about to teach her a very painful lesson.”
Verity is shaking as she dresses.
“What were you going to do to her?” Kirill asks, as if this isn’t fucked up to hell.
“Cut her. Tiny cuts. Lots of them. To show her and remind her never to try to use information against me again.” Dom puts one hand behind his back and crosses his fingers very deliberately.
I understand right away. He wasn’t going to actually cut her. He’s trying to scare her to death, is all, but she sure knows about him cutting himself.
We Devils know everything about each other. We have no secrets.
“There’s no need for that,” I say casually.
“I wasn’t trying to blackmail him,” Verity says with a soft sniff as more tears run down her face. “I tried to offer my help. He cuts himself, and I wanted to make it better, to help him with the demons he has.”
I laugh. The sound echoes cold and heartless in the room. I’ve got to front this out, though.
“Oh, Verity, darling. You thought he cut himself to, what? Take away the pain?” I rub at my eyes as if I’m crying. “That’s not why he does it.”
“W-w-why does he do it?” Verity isn’t even looking at Dom. She’s too damn scared to.
“He does it because he likes it.” I hold her gaze. “He likes to feel that knife cut deep, and the pain. He likes to see how far he can push it. And more than that, he likes to do it to other people, too.”
She gasps, her face a mask of horror and fear.
“Dom.” I turn to him. “Do you swear now that if Verity never breathes a word of this that you won’t find her one night and cut her to pretty ribbons?”
“If I must.” Dom sounds bored.
“Verity, do you promise, if you have our ongoing protection, and Dom’s word not to come after you for this betrayal of trust, that you will never utter a word?”
