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“From the moment I saw you wanting to jump, I fell and I’ve been falling ever since. I’m sorry for being a coward, for refusing to acknowledge it. I truly am. I thought that if I didn’t name it, it wouldn’t become what my parents had. I didn’t want to be my father, and I didn’t want you to end up like… my mother.”

My voice breaks and I notice another tear rolling down my cheeks and I quickly wipe it.

“I…I lo-ve you, Elara. I have only ever loved you.”

FORTY-FIVE

Sergei

“Do you wanna know what I did to her?” Anthony chuckles, his head falling back with laughter. “Or her?” he tilts his head to look at Roman but it’s Alec who replies with a punch.

“I’m going to kill you.” All three of us roar in unison and Anthony lets out another mocking howl.

The sound grating on our nerves and Alec punches him again and again, taking years of wrath out.

“She cried every time I fucked her, but her screams were the loudest when she bled on my cock.” His chuckles turn into a cough as I swing my leg and hit him squarely in the face.

“Her screams were loud enough to shatter walls, but her parents were deaf to them. No one wanted to believe that a man mourning his wife and children could be capable of something so vile.”

“You know…” Roman cuts in, his voice quiet, almost amused. “I’ll decide what counts as loud when I bleed you dry.” A slow, sadistic smile spreads across his face.

“Ah, Roman. You’re quite the man, aren’t you?” Anthony adds. “When I learned what you and your friend did to Viktor, well it was horrible—”

“It was? I don’t know, he couldn’t speak once I chopped his tongue off.” Roman chuckles, lacking all the humour.

Anthony turns to me. “How did it feel to fuck a pussy that I ruined?”

His words are mushy as I kick him in the chest and his body flies, hitting the wall behind him, breaking the wooden chair he was tied too and the ropes around him comes undone.

“It was me who hid her from you, who erased every trace of you meeting my Ela on that bridge.” Rage churns violently within me, my fists clenching so hard my knuckles ache.

“It was so fun toying with you, Sergei.” He laughs again. “You couldn’t track her, you couldn’t even track her phone. Could you?”

I don’t give him a leeway and charge forward, my fist landing on his already bruised cheek as I keep on hitting him.

“Stop talking.” I shout; my hands lift, forming a fist before I slam both my elbows on his chest. I hear a loud sickening crack from him yet it doesn’t dull my rage.

I unleash myself on him, hitting him with my bare hands with the need to kill him.

“Had you…” I hit him in the face, “…not escaped,” another punch, “you’d be the one I’d have fucked, pretty boy.” He completes finally but he’s unable to open his eyes.

“Stop.” Hit. “Fucking.” Hit. “Talking.”

His voice breaks with each blow, turning into nothing but hoarse, ragged sounds, the need to end him claws inside me, forcing me to follow.

I wrench the knife free from my bicep and drive it into his chest.

“Does it hurt?” I growl.

He’s barely conscious so I drag the knife down, forcing his eyes open before they dim again.

“Does. It. Hurt?” I ask again and tear his stomach open. The impact makes him puke blood and he chokes on it.

The wounds leaking and spraying all over my hair, my face, yet I keep landing punch after punch, until I feel multiple cracks as if bones are being crushed into powder.

The agape wound, wide enough to see his insides pleases me. Throwing the knife away, my hand shoots forward and bones that weren’t meant to yield fall into small cracks of crushed powder as my fist feels a faint beat before I rip it out with a violent jerk.

His eyes pop open and stay like that as life leaves his body with his heart in my fist.