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Macayla
Tears pooled in my eyes and I forced them back.
No. I wouldn’t give him that. Never. He’d assaulted me. He made me feel dirty and disgusted. I’d blamed myself for years.
He sighed, shaking his head. “No. That’s a crude act for the weak and pathetic.”
He pivoted and walked to the center of the platform. He clasped the back of the chair and dragged it across the mat toward me.
My heart skipped beats and my belly tightened. That sound. It was different, but there was something familiar about it. I shook my head. The chair. He’d sat in the chair in the dark. Dark eyes watching.
My stomach lurched. I was going to be sick. I fell to my hands at the edge of the platform and dry heaved. Oh God. He’d been there. No. This couldn’t be happening.
When my stomach stopped revolting, I turned to look at him. “You were there.”
He sat in the chair and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Then he placed the tips of his fingers together.
“Yes. As it happened.”
“No.” I couldn’t stop the word from ripping from my throat. He’d watched me being raped? He’d been there in the room? Why? Why would anyone do that?
He leaned closer. “Oh, look at that scar. Well, you can’t look, and I didn’t bring a mirror with me. But trust me, it’s perfect. I bet you don’t remember how you got it.”
I swallowed the bile in my throat. This couldn’t be happening. Why was this happening?
“You were stumbling around like a newborn fawn trying to get to the door. You fell right into the corner of the dresser. I’d have helped you, but he grabbed you and threw you on the bed.”
Oh my God. He watched. He watched another man sexually assault me and did nothing. “Why were you there? Who are you?” I didn’t understand anything, and I felt as if I was reaching for answers that were sinking into an endless black hole.
“It was your birthday. Of course I was there.” My heart lodged in my throat. “But why wasn’t Vic there? I waited for him, you know, and he never came.”
Vic. He’d been waiting for Vic.
“It was perfect. Killing you on your birthday and Ethan finding you. Blood all over the place. And Vic watching. What would he have done, do you think? Screamed and come running? And your brother—he’d have been covered in your blood as he held you and cried. Oh God, the beauty in it all.”
He’d been there to kill me. He was in my bedroom, waiting for me.
The chair creaked as he sat back and hitched one leg over the other. “But I couldn’t do it if Vic wasn’t there. I mean, he’s the one who tortured me. He had to be there. And then that boy came in your room, stumbling around drunk. He had no idea I was there, and I really didn’t think he’d ever leave.”
Bile rose in my throat, and I swallowed several times.
My mind scrambled to connect the pieces, but it was like jamming broken fragments together. Nothing would fit. Was he someone Vic had hunted? Was this revenge? But he wanted my brother to suffer too.
“I had to kill him, of course. It wasn’t my favorite kill. I mean, it was good, but I don’t like when they drool and get all snotty and shit as they beg. Do you know how much his liver went for?”
I gasped, eyes widening with horror.
He slapped his knee and laughed. “Just kidding. I had to get out of that business. Logistics. But I couldn’t let him live after what he did to you. That wasn’t right.” He uncrossed his leg and his foot smacked onto the mat. “Can you imagine if Vic Gate had got his hands on him? He’d have screamed like a tortured puppy, and I couldn’t let Vic have that satisfaction.
“Oh, oh—I saw your little boy,” he added suddenly. “How sweet. He looks to be what, about six or seven? Don’t tell me he’s the result of that night?”
I lurched forward. “Don’t you dare touch him,” I shouted.
The manacles cut into my wrists as I jerked on them. I felt the fresh drops of blood trickle down my wrists, but I didn’t feel anything except terror at the thought of this man getting anywhere near Jackson.
He waited, watching me struggle against the restraints.
I stopped, my chest rising and falling rapidly. I raised my chin, glaring up at him. It was pathetic, really. I was chained, trembling, and weak as a newborn kitten from the drugs. “Don’t you dare fuckin’ touch him.”
