Page 80 of Razor

He shrugs. “You are probably right, but for some reason we have unfinished business. You escaped during school, but I brought you home. Now we will make plans for our future, and you will love every second of it.”

I highly doubt that, but I’m not about to prod the beast because it became evident very early on that he is batshit crazy.

His mood can change on a stiff breeze, and one minute like this he is loving, pledging great things, then the next he strikes me hard across the face and tells me I’m a whore.

I don’t know what side of him I’m getting, and it’s exhausting to try to second-guess his mood.

“I have a nice surprise for you, my darling.”

He appears animated and claps his hands like a child.

“We are going on a date tomorrow night.”

Now I’m listening.

He grabs my ankles suddenly, dragging me down the bed, my wrist snapping against the bedpost as I reach the end of the short line.

Tears blind me as he pulls my legs apart, his hands all over my body, pinching me, slapping me, kissing me. It hurts, and yet I don’t cry out. I did that once, and he took that as his cue to punish me, using me as a punching bag all the time, screaming, “STOP, STOP, STOP, STOP!”

Every blow he inflicted accompanied that word, and I soon learned to remain silent.

I’ve learned these attacks don’t last long. So, I bite my lip, taking it, clinging on to the fact that I have a chance to escape if we are heading out on a date.

His breathing is ragged, sweat forming on his silk shirt, and soon he is panting and admiring his handiwork as he casts his gaze on my bruised body.

“Look what you made me do.”

He shakes his head. “You are such a bad girl, Josephine. I am so loving toward you, and you can’t stop fighting me.”

I push back the tears because I am locked in hell with a monster, and nothing I do or say will change the outcome of his current mood.

He stands, reaching for my hair, grabs it hard, pulling my head sharply and then banging it back against the mattressseveral times over. All the time chanting, “We’re going on a date. We’re going on a date.”

I swear I’m getting whiplash and then he stops. Jumping up as if he can’t bear to touch me and his eyes narrow.

“Look at you, you’re a disgrace. Now I must clean you up.”

I am trying so hard not to cry as he rips yet another nightdress off my body and heads outside the room to bring back the usual bucket of cold water and a scrubbing brush.

I know the routine; this is how it happens every single time, and when he returns, he leers.

“Let me care for you, my darling.”

He scrubs my skin with the stiff brush, over and over again as he sings to me, his voice way out of tune and rather creepy. The brush bashes against my skin. Making it so sore, aggravating the wounds he already inflicted, searing through my body, reminding me I’m in hell.

It takes one hour. I know that because he counts every second down. He is meticulous to the second, and it’s as if time stands still.

I count down in my mind to the end because then he leaves and is replaced with that woman, and she merely replaces the nightgown and brings four small bottles of water.

I am unchained and then left to sleep, not that it comes easily to me now. I am haunted by him, my past and the memory of the time I had everything I wanted but as it turned out, they didn’t want me.

CHAPTER 41

RAZOR

As operations go, this one is unique. Apart from when I played the part of a wedding guest to help Blade save Delilah, who, as it turned out, goes by her real name of Aspen now.

The entire mission was a lesson in liberation, and now we are here to do the same for Sunday. I’m not convinced we will have the same happy ever after as my brother, but I will die trying.