I don’t answer. I’m still looking at the fire, still thinking—we could still do something. We could…
“I’m calling my dad,” Vince says suddenly, like that fixes it, like that ends the conversation.
“What?” My head snaps toward him.
“He’ll handle it,” he adds, already too calm. “He always does.”
The car starts moving, and I turn in my seat, watching the fire shrink behind us until it’s nothing more than light in the distance. My hands start to shake, and I press them together, trying to steady them as the thought settles in.
This is bad.
This is really, really bad.
“What if someone saw us?” I whisper, fear slipping through the words.“What if… what if they find out? Vince, we’re going to…”
“Relax,” he cuts in, like I’m overreacting. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
“We’re going to prison,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. “Oh my God, we’re actually going to prison!”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he says firmly. “Do you hear me?”
I don’t answer, still looking back, watching the fire fade behind us.
“I’ll call your dad,” Vince repeats. “He’ll fix it.”
I press my hand over my mouth, and my breathing steadies slightly as that sinks in. My dad will handle it. Nobody’s going to know it was us.
The thought settles deep in my chest, numbing something I don’t want to look at too closely. And somehow… that alone keeps me from arguing.
Pain cuts through me before the memory can finish forming—sudden and deep—dragging a scream out of my throat as my body jerks violently against the chains. The force of it pulling hard at my shoulders while something hot spreads across my abdomen.
The past crashes down all at once, hard enough to knock the rhythm from my breathing as my head drops forward before I can stop it, still trying to process what just happened until the blade touches my skin.
A quiet breath brushes near my ear, steady, controlled, completely untouched by the way I’m shaking.
“I was starting to think you weren’t coming back, kitten.” Dom’s voice drifts through the room with an absent ease, like he’s speaking more to himself than to me.
I try to focus, but the pain sits too deep now—sharp and spreading—the warmth on my skin making it impossible to ignore what he’s already done. The knife shifts, dragging along the same cut until it splits open again—slow and precise—like he’s not guessing, like he already knows exactly how far to go.
A scream tears out of me, my body pulling hard against the restraints as the sound bounces back off the walls. His hand closes around my jaw, forcing my head up, his touch controlled and patient, like nothing about this needs to be rushed.
“I tried the easy way,” he says, studying me like he’s trying to carve through every layer I’ve ever hidden behind, the blade pressing straight into the center of the pain until my breath fractures under it. “But you kept slipping.” He tilts his head, watching me with a calm that doesn’t fit what he’s doing. “So I figured…” he says quietly. “If pleasure doesn’t bring you back to reality…” he continues as the knife drags across the same cut, splitting it open again until a sharp sound tears out of me. “…pain will.”
I gather whatever’s left in me and spit straight in his face.
“Fuck you!” My breathing shakes violently around the words, but I still make sure he hears every single one. “You fucking psycho!”
His hand is on my jaw instantly, fingers digging in as he forces my head back, a dark, crooked smile spreading across his face. For a second, he just looks at me, then he leans in and drags his tongue slowly across my lips—unhurried—like he’s savoring it. He pulls back slightly until our eyes meet, that same smile still lingering on his face.
“You’ve got a mouth on you,” he says quietly, something sharp hiding under it. “Shame it wasn’t this loud when my brother was burning.”
Chapter 25
Dom
Her scream curls through the air like something alive, something made just for me, sliding under my skin and settling deep in my chest until it feels like it belongs there, like I’ve been carrying the echo of it for ten long years without even knowing what it would sound like when it finally broke free.
All that grief I buried, all that rot I let fester inside me, it isn’t quiet anymore, it’s breathing, stretching, sharpening its teeth as it rises to the surface. And I let it, I welcome it, because this moment was never meant to be merciful.
