“Well, around one year ago, Kai was found lying dead on the kitchen floor of his dad’s mansion,” he explains sternly. “After his throat was sliced, his cock and balls were stuffed down his fucking throat.”
My brows pinch with confusion, almost ready to confront him until suddenly a flashback enters my mind. I stand in Kyro’s kitchen, staring down at Kai on the floor, blood soaking my white nightdress and hands.
I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut when he mentions his name. “No,” I whisper before another dream-like sequence rushes through my thoughts.
“We need to get you out of here…” Arabella pleads, her words ringing in my ears from behind me.
When my eyes ping open, reality hits me, and I spin around, running out the door. I bolt up the steep stairs, hearing Hell hot on my tail, and as I stumble over the wet grass, I weep, desperate to get away.
“HARLEY!” He shouts my real name, his angry voice booming through the open space, and I come to a sudden stop.
The name hits me like a sledgehammer, reverberating through my mind as soon as it rolled off his tongue.
Harley. The name now feels alien, like a ghost from the past. I struggle to breathe, images of the day we fled becoming clearer, the murder we left behind, and I whirl around to face Hell, my eyes broad with dread.
My body is rigid as he takes a few slow steps over the grass. “You’re Harley?” he asks, his finger pointed in my direction.
I sob uncontrollably and shake my head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I can’t remember. I don’t…”
He unexpectedly storms toward me with murder in his eyes, and I spin around to run from him. He catches up with me so quickly that I let out a high-pitched scream when he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder as if I weigh nothing. As he carries me through the woods, all I can do is cry and beg for him not to kill me as I sag in defeat. I can feel the anger and hurt radiating from him with each step, but he doesn’t let me go.
The name Harley echoes in my mind, a haunting reminder of a past I’ve tried to forget. What the fuck have I done? The questions swirl around me, suffocating me, as Hell’s griptightens. I realize that everything has finally caught up with me and in the worst possible way. The man I have fallen so deeply for is related to Kyro.
His uncle.He isn’t going to forgive me for this.
As we enter The Hollow’s trailer, I catch a glimpse of Soul and Wrath behind my hair, still in the kitchen. Hell jogs with me up the stairs until we’re in his bedroom, and he kicks the door shut behind us, locking it. Before I know it, I am being tossed onto the mattress, but I scramble back, kicking my feet over the bedding to get away from him. With no emotion in his eyes, he kneels on it, grabbing my leg and yanking me back down beneath him with force. I press on his chest with my palms, my body shivering, trying to create some distance.
“Tell me,” he growls, but not in a way that would usually rumble to my core. This growl is vicious. I stay silent, my eyes wide, my chest expanding as I hyperventilate.
“TELL ME!” he shouts in my face, and my body tightens.
“I can’t remember...” I whisper through a sob.
“Just like you’re completely oblivious to the fact you called me a fucking abuser the other night when you slit your arms.”
I shake my head. “What?”
“You said I was just like “them,” he declares before his jaw tenses. “Just like you told me you will never be owned AGAIN!”
Tears streak down from my eyes, and I turn my face aside, but he snatches it, forcing me to look into his swirling, furious depths.
“Stop fucking lying to me. You have one chance to tell me why and what, or I won’t ever hear you out again.”
“What do you want to know?” I croak.
“Fucking everything.”
“I... I don’t even know where to start.”
“Kyro.” The name rolls off Hell's tongue like a venomous river, and I feel sick to my stomach.
“My stepfather,” I whisper.
“What?” I sense the confusion and shock in his tone as he slowly releases my face.
“He was married to my mom before she died.”
He stays silent, his face painted with bewilderment before he finally answers. “But I don’t know you. Why the fuck wouldn’t I know you?”
