“I will fucking kill you!” Carlos shouts, and I briefly look at him where he is being held in his chair by one of the guards who is holding a gun. Just sitting there. Watching.
Tears fill my eyes, my body shakes violently, just as another crack hits.
“Arggghh! Stop,” I cry out. Tears stream down my face like a fast flowing river. Snot drips from my nose as I try to control my body. Control the pain. Spit pools in my mouth, the metallic taste of blood coats my tongue from where I have bitten myself. It hurts so fucking bad, my head feels light and fuzzy, the room becomes a blur just as the third brutal hit cracks across my back and I slump down flat onto the ground. I’m sweating profusely, unaware of time, as nothing is taking me away from this agony.
I want to die.
“Fuck, nobody told me how hard it is to whip someone. This thing weighs a fucking ton,” Enrico complains, but I don’t look up at him. I don’t look at anybody. I focus on a speck of blood on the ground in front of me. Putting myself in a hypnotic state, trying to find anything else to focus on that will remove me from this nightmare.
“Enough! You’ve made your fucking point, old man,” Carlos roars, but it sounds like he is far away in the distance. I hate him and what his family has done to me.
“And what point is that? Don’t ruin the moment, son. I was enjoying the show,” Gabriel mocks and the sound of his voice makes me wish I was in a room on my own with him right now.
“You want me back this badly? Then let's talk, but this shit ends, let him go,” Carlos says, and I feel relief and sadness. Within the past forty-eight hours both our lives have changed, and not for the best. Carlos has been drawn back into this world by force.
And I will never, ever trust another person to come into my life again.
I hear movement around me but I can’t move. Have I become deaf? Feet surround my face that's laying on the cold floor. Darkness around the corners of my vision creeps in until I see nothing. The pain in my back eases as my eyes close.
So I follow the darkness to where nothing hurts.
Darkness cradles me for what feels like an eternity—deep, quiet and endless. But pain is a ruthless gatekeeper. It doesn’t let you hide for long. I wake up with a violent pull back into my body.
I’m laid down on a bed on my front and I hiss when I try to move. Agony blooms across my back like wildfire—jagged, raw and unrelenting in its torment. A thousand shards of heat slice through my skin every time I so much as breathe. I try to move. I can’t. The sheets beneath me cling to blood and sweat, causing me to cry out with every shift.
I blink slowly, trying to inhale the thick air that presses down on my body. The room I’m in is dim, painted in the same shadows that put me under. Soft lights in the corner of the room grab my attention, casting long swaying shapes against the white walls, like ghosts of what happened. I’m alone. Except for the pulsing ache and pain that won’t let me go. The memories that hold me hostage.
It comes back in quick flashes.
The crack of the whip.
The sharp pain in my back.
Carlos.
Carlos.
I see his face even before I want to. The moment my gaze met his across the room, when they brought him in and he just stood there. Rigid. Silent. Watching.
This isn’t like me to be so damn emotional but I can’t contain it. My throat tightens, a sob threatening to escape, but I’m too broken to allow it. The betrayal is more than emotional—it’s physical. It poisons the wound, makes it burn deeper, worsens. He promised to protect me so many times since arriving. But he didn’t, not when I needed him. He just…let it happen. As did Lucas.
Fuck, I want to scream as loud as I can. My jaw trembles from the need, but the silence is louder than any cry. My voice has abandoned me just like he did.
Then it crashes over me like a tidal wave—the weight of then, not just now.
This isn’t the first time. Leo left me without a fight because of that old bastard Mr. Morgan. I wasn’t even worth a second look.
Everyone leaves me. Nobody fights for me. Nobody gives a fuck about me and that now includes me. Tonight I felt degraded and abandoned. Weak. Pathetic. I couldn't even defend myself.
Carlos placed himself in my life and made me have a hint of hope. Belief. But hope is cruel to people like me.
I hate him. I. Hate. Him.
But not just him, his family too. Their twisted legacy and fucked up vision. Their cruel and cold smiles and whispers dressed as charm. The way they looked at me with a hidden depth of disgust. A thing, not a person, because they knew what I had been to Carlos. Not that I knew they knew at the time.
You should never let yourself feel anything. This is what you get. This is what love looks like in my world—chains, pain and a prison dressed up as a mansion of dreams.
A tear slides down my cheek that I don’t feel until it hits the pillow beneath my face. My strength has gone. No words to speak or yell. Just a vast, echoing emptiness that wraps itself around me like a shroud. For a moment, I wonder if this is how it ends—not with death, but with disappearance. Piece by piece until there’s nothing left of who you are.
