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I don’t stick around in the bedroom when she closes the bathroom door.
I head out of the room and open the front door because I know it’s in the direct line of sight from inside the bedroom. I take a seat at the dining table and wait.
She’s going to escape. Any person with a lick of sense would. I know she’s weak. I know she knows she’s weak, but she won’t be able to resist the temptation. She’ll be closer to the open front door than I will be to her, and she’ll be willing to risk it. In her mind, I might be able to catch up with her. I know she’ll think she can draw enough attention to herself to be rescued. She’s willing to take the chance that I’d kill her for her attempt, and deep down, I think a part of her is hoping it ends that way.
I’m dead either way.
The woman has lost all hope. It takes a lot for someone to get to that point. I don’t know how I didn’t see if before. Was it my anger at the Severino family that blinded me to it? Was I so hell-bent on seeking vengeance for Ellie that I couldn’t see them hurting this woman in plain sight?
The house is so small I can hear just about everything—the flush of the toilet, the water running in the bathroom sink. It goes longer than needed to wash her hands, and I imagine her bending over and drinking from the faucet. The door opens even though I can’t see it, but she never flashes by me. She’s considering the likelihood that I’m setting a trap.
Instead of leaving the bedroom in a full sprint, I watch as she slowly comes into view. She isn’t looking around, trying to determine where danger is going to jump out from.
She walks with purpose to the front door, and my jaw hangs open as I watch her not only close the front door, but she locks it before turning around to face me, as if she knew exactly where I was the entire time.
“It isn’t going to happen that way,” she says.
“I’m not going to keep you here,” I tell her. “You’re free.”
She doesn’t look the slightest amount relieved with my words. Her pretty face is now void of makeup, her lips red from scrubbing, but no longer covered in lipstick.
“I’m not leaving.”
I have to be too tired to understand, because what person would stick around even half a second longer when they’re told they can leave?
“I’m not playing a trick on you, Madelene. You need to go.”
She shakes her head, sadness in her eyes.
“I will hurt you if you don’t go.”
She pulls out the only other chair at the tiny kitchen table, sitting right across from me.
“You said you’d hurt me if I didn’t talk.”
“You need to leave,” I growl.
“I can’t leave like this,” she says, leaning back and swiping her hands down her body.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You’re such a fucking princess that you’re expecting me to what? Buy you a new fucking outfit?”
She scoffs, her pretty lips once again turning down into a deep frown.
“You sure have formulated some opinions about me,” she says, and the disappointment in her voice hits me in a way I don’t even want to analyze right now. “I need you to hurt me.”
I shake my head immediately. “I’m not interested in your fucking kinks or whatever you and Alessio do.”
“Kinks? Not even close. There’s already a very good chance they’re going to kill me. I might be able to survive if you hurt me. Going back completely unharmed will bring too much suspicion. You took me. You have to hurt me.”
I stare at her in disbelief. Why would she think she has to go back? Freedom doesn’t mean just being free from me but being able to escape them as well. She could go anywhere. Why would she even consider going back to Chicago?
“You like it there, don’t you? Maybe, I was wrong about you. Maybe, you aren’t as abused as I—”
“Are you hard of hearing?” she snaps, interrupting me. She curls into herself a little a second later, regret snapping in her eyes.
I like the little spark of fire, and I hate the Severino family a little more, if that’s even possible, at the fear in her eyes right now.
“You’ll need to hurt me bad enough that I’m hospitalized,” she continues when I don’t get up from the table and punish her like I imagine she expected me to.
“That’s not going to happen.”
Chapter 14
Madelene
I didn’t think he’d agree to my demand, but his refusal isn’t exactly a relief either.
It’s not that I want to be hurt, I just know that anything less than being put into a coma will end with me dead at Alessio’s hands. I think the man has been itching to end me since the first time he set eyes on me as a child.
