AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m the one who looks stupid as fuck.
Recognition lights up Lucius’s eyes. “That’s what I thought. Still a coward. A real piece of trash. If you won’t leave by choice, then I’ll have to do what I’ve wanted to since the moment you were born. You’redead.”
I’m in a daze as Lucius turns around and walks off. His laugh follows him on his way out, an invisible presence, growing louder and crueler. The last fucking laugh just like always.
I’d flip out and destroy everything in my office if I wasn’t so confused. I never care about what he says—why the hell did it affect me so much now? It’s been years since I’ve let him throw me off like that. I was aboywhen he used to make me freeze up.
Another moment passes before I’m fully coherent. I snap out of my daze and dart to the window. I’ve been gone for a while. Has Delphine been okay waiting on me?
I look out in time to watch Lucius and his men file into their cars parked along the curb. Delphine is nowhere in sight.
Fuck!
As if my nerves aren’t shot enough already after my strange and unexpected encounter with Lucius. My pulse hasn’t even slowed before it’s ticking up again. If anything has happened to her since we’ve stopped at the club—
I turn away from the window, about to rush out of the room. I stop altogether when I realize I don’t need to go and search for her.
Delphine stands in the doorway, her helmet at her side, balanced on her hip. In the leather jacket and gloves I’ve put on her, she looks sexy as hell. I’d be turned on right now if I wasn’t still thrown by the recent turn of events.
“You look... upset,” she says slowly. “I saw your father leaving. Is everything okay?”
I slide my fingers into my hair, slicking it back more. “Just a family reunion.”
“And those scrapes on my knees were from falling in the tub.”
Only she could get away with calling me out on my bullshit.
We’re both liars, covering up bad things that have happened to us. Even if she doesn’t press me on mine, she knows this.
And so do I.
I sling my arm around her hips as we fall into step leaving the office. “Looks like we have more in common than you like to think, Phi.”
15. delphine
“Please,take my purse. I’ll give you the code to my bank card. You can have it all. Just please don’t... ahhh!”
“Shut up, bitch.”
He roughly shoves me into the ground. The side of my face scrapes against the wet gravel. I grind my teeth together as I bear the sharp pain. His heavy, coarse hands slide between my legs. Thick fingers paw and poke at me—he feels me up like I’m a piece of meat he’s selecting at the market.
I might as well be.
The crass sound of hawked spit meets my ears. His fingers return wet and slick, even more probing than before. Bile rises up my throat at the feel of his digits slipping in and out. I clench my eyes shut and will myself to concentrate on anything else.
Any distraction possible.
When he enters me for real, my body flinches of its own accord, bracing for the harmful impact. He weighs down on me, an anchor I can’t escape, pressing me into the cold earth. It feels like time stops altogether. Every drag of his hips as he rams himself deeper is its own eternity.
Forever trapped under him and his brutal assault.
I can do nothing but stare fixedly at his hands. Calloused and dirty. His nails chewed.
On his ring finger is a braided silver band with a sapphire gemstone. The ring that’s haunted me ever since—
“Delphine! Delphine, wake up!”
I’m being shaken as the nightmare vanishes. The four walls of Salvatore’s guest bedroom return. My eyes pop open to the bleary sight of him in front of me. He’s gripping me by the shoulders, giving me a hard shake. His face stands out against the pale blue light from the TV and the deep shadows occupying the rest of the room.
