I got my body up on the side again, backing up to the wall as Danny destroyed the home I spent years building for my kids.
“You think you’re better than me now?” Danny snarled, flipping the kitchen table over into the wall, the catastrophic noise echoing through the silent house as I screamed against my gag. “Parading around with those big-shot heroes, like they can give you something I didn’t? You forget who made you, Frankie! You forget who taught you how to use your body for a man.Whose name you wore before you fucked anyone else with a body that belongs to me!”
He ripped the tape off my face, and I screamed from the sharp pain, even as I stared him down, letting go of my fear thanks to my anger. “I didn’t forget!” I rasped, throat burning from screaming into the rag, “I survived!”
He grabbed me by my hair and turned me over onto my back, twisting my legs and arms into a painful angle as he wrapped his hand around my throat, his smile stretching into that sick mocking grin I hated, “Survived? No. You belonged, baby. You still do. To me. Those kids? They’re mine. You? Mine. You’ve just been playing house, and you’ve got the whole town fooled, but I see you. I know you.”
“Let me go, Danny?—”
“You don’t tell me what to do!” His voice cracked, rage bubbling through. “You spread your legs for them. Both of them.” He stood up, chest heaving, “Right here on this fucking couch.” He grabbed a knife from his pocket, and my blood ran cold as the metal flashed, “I watched you through the fucking sliding door as you let them fuck you like a dirty cheap whore. I watched you throw your head back and pretend you liked their touch on your body.” He swung the knife around as he walked to the couch, stabbing it into the cushion and ripping it wide open. “But I know the truth, baby. You only like it when you have to fight. You only come when you’re screaming and fighting me off. I know the truth.”
My stomach turned, but I forced the words through my shaking lips, trying to help Travis find me, praying the call was still connected. “So what? Why bring me here if you hate my house so much?”
His angry glare came back to me, and I instantly regretted speaking at all. But if I had a prayer of getting free, I had to help Travis find me. I had to get help.
“To erase it.” He sneered, stomping back over to me. He cut the tie between my ankles and wrists, but my limbs were still bound to each other as he pulled me up to my feet. “To erase every single touch. Every kiss. Every fuck. You belong to me!”
The slap came sharp and fast, the sound ringing in my skull as I staggered on my bound feet, but he yanked me upright again, laughter spilling harsh from his throat.
“There she is.” He sneered, “The fighter. The cunt who knows how to take a hit and come back swinging. I missed that part of you. It almost makes my dick harder than when you go back to breaking for me.” He groaned, leaning in and biting my ear as I shook, trying to get him off me, “I love it when you cry for me, Frankie. I love when you beg.”
“Fuck you!” I sneered, refusing to give him my fear if that was what he liked best. “I hate you! You’re pathetic!”
He laughed, the sound was sick and twisted as he shoved me down onto the floor again, standing over me. “You’ll break for me again. Just like before. I’ll strip you down until there’s nothing left but the girl who begged me to love her.”
“Never.” I spat, tasting blood on my tongue from his hits. “I never begged you.”
His laugh was raw and cruel. “Oh, you did. For those fucking kids of yours you did.” My heart seized in my chest as he cocked his head to the side with a sneer, “And when I get the girl back, I’ll use her against you just like I used to until you’re on your knees for me again.”
He walked away from me, going from room to room, destroying what was left and I inched my way across the floor, trying to get to the door with my hands and ankles tied behind me.
Suddenly, his sick, twisted laugh came from the kitchen, and I dared to look over my shoulder at him as he pulled something out from under the sink, walking back over to me.
He held a can of lighter fluid, shaking it like a prize. “New house, new men, new life—you thought you could erase me. But I’ll erase you. If I can’t have you, then no one will. I’ll burn it all down until there’s nothing left but me.”
My blood froze.
“Danny—don’t.”
His eyes gleamed, fever-bright. “This is what it takes, Frankie! Wipe the slate clean. I have to burn the lies, burn their fingerprints off you, burn their touch from this place. When it’s ash, it’ll just be you and me again.”
He opened the cap and sloshed it across the counter, the sharp chemical stink stinging my eyes as he coated the kitchen. It dripped down the cabinets, puddled on the floor, soaking into the papers under his boots.
I went back to fighting to get out of the house, crawling across the floor toward the front door, flopping from side to side as the fear of burning alive fueled my adrenaline.
He worked behind me, spraying it over every surface of the downstairs, trapping me in the ring of death as he went on with his threats. “You’ll watch it all burn, and then you’ll thank me when I take you from this place. If you’re a good girl, I’ll leave those fucking cock-twits alive when I take you and our girl from here. I’ll let them live their pathetic lives, taking care of your stupid son. I should take him too, just to ruin you completely, but I hate the idea of you having any other man to love. I’ll rip them all away from you until you only have me.”
I jumped to my knees, bracing my shoulder against the front door as I climbed to my feet, and then I heard it.
The strike of the match.
I looked over my shoulder as the tiny flame flared in the dark, reflected in his eyes like madness itself.
“No—” My voice broke, raw with panic.
He grinned, “Yes. Finally.” He moaned, taking a step toward me. “There’s that fear I crave.”
Then he dropped the match.
