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“Presumptuous little bitch aren’t you,” I say as I get closer, picking up the sandwich and taking a huge bite.
Hatred fills her eyes as she watches me chew.
I grin when her tongue sneaks out to wet her lips. I know she’s fucking starving. The IV has been giving her just what she needs to survive, but it’s nothing compared to actual food.
“You don’t want it?”
She looks away from me as if she doesn’t have the strength to verbalize her rejection.
“If you don’t eat, I’m going to hurt you,” I threaten, delighting in the way she turns her head back in my direction, a defiant uptick of her chin.
Reading people is practically required in my line of work when you don’t have a long amount of time to determine if someone has nefarious plans for you.
It doesn’t take but a split second for me to understand she wants what I’m threatening.
I could leave it at that, pull her hair back and shove the fucking sandwich down her throat. I could force her to do anything I want. People always bend. Regardless of her declaration about being put out of her misery, there’s a reason she hasn’t done it herself.
I’m not foolish enough to think it’s because she honestly wants to live, but it takes a certain level of courage, an insanely determined person, to commit suicide. A lot of people see it as being weak, but it takes so much courage to look at one's life and decide that the unknown—or the absolute known if they’re religious—is better than what they’re facing.
Her sister wasn’t a coward. She was probably the bravest person she ever met.
I don’t have the strength to do what Liana did, and I doubt Lauren does either, or she would’ve done it already. She needs to force someone else’s hand to doing that for her.
She glances back down at the sandwich, her mouth practically watering at the sight even though it’s nothing but two pieces of bread with a thin layer of turkey. It’s dry as fuck because I’m not one to keep condiments in the house, but that’s also intentional. I need her to eat, to gain her strength for what I have planned, but I’m not going to give her gourmet food. I need it a little dry and tasteless. I want her begging for more or for a sip of water. Her discomfort is my joy, and I’ll seek it out at every fucking turn.
“How about I’ll hurt you if you do eat it,” I counter.
Her eyes widen before narrowing as if she can’t believe I’m calling her out on her desires.
She doesn’t speak, and I can’t just leave the sandwich on her lap with my warning and walk out of the room. Her arms are still tied.
Instead of trying to force the sandwich into her mouth, I sweep a soft, gentle finger over her arm before bending to press a kiss to the bruise on her shoulder.
She shudders, but not out of disgust because I’m pressing my lips to her flesh. She hates the soft, and after her drunken confessions, I have a better understanding why that is.
“Feed me the fucking sandwich,” she snarls, and I know that she’s asking more for me to stop the soft shit than her need for food.
She glares at me the entire time I lift the sandwich to her lips and as she chews.
She’s starving, but she’s also aware of her limitations. It makes my blood boil that she’s taking her time, evaluating how the sandwich is settling in her stomach before taking the next bite. She knows it doesn’t matter how hungry she is, if she eats too fast, she’s going to get sick.
It means she’s done this a time or two.
She’s put herself through a lot. I knew that when I met her in El Salvador.
The problem right now is that knowledge bugs me more now than it did back then, and I fucking cared a lot before. So much so, that I put myself between her and the men coming to hurt her.
I earned two bullets that day. It was the day I stopped caring about her safety and started dreaming of my revenge.
Yet, here I fucking am, hand feeding her a fucking sandwich.
It takes longer than I really have the patience for until the sandwich is gone.
She doesn’t thank me, but I would never expect that from her.
“Where the fuck are you going?” she snaps when I get up to walk out of the room.
I turn back to her with a raised eyebrow, and my cock thickens at the irritation on her face. I stand there, wondering if she’s even going to speak again.
