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Mary bit her lip hard when it started to tremble.
Why, God, why?
Why did she keep letting this man deceive and hurt her again and again?
Rathe could feel himself growing numb as he watched Mary stumble out of the front doors, and for a long, long time, he simply stayed where he was, a part of himself unable to believe that Mary was once again out of his life.
Why couldn't she just sign it, dammit?
Had she been lying when she told him she loved him?
Rathe forced himself to check his email so he could retrieve his copy of the contract. Could there be something here that was acceptable to his parents but not to Mary? His gaze skimmed the first page, and nothing unusual leapt at him. He swiped to the next page—-
Bloody, bloody hell.
Now he knew why Mary had walked out on him, but what he couldn't fucking understand was how his mother had agreed to sign a contract that essentially labeled her as nothing but a whore.
****
Not once did Mary thinkof going back to the house Rathe had bought for her. Anything that had to do with the duke made her sick at the moment, and so in the end, she had no choice but to return to the source of her nightmares.
Her spare key was still where she always hid it, and Mary's fingers shook as she unlocked her door. The air had a musty smell to it, and the room empty of most of her things. The only light came from the aquarium, and she found herself smiling despite everything when she saw that her babies were still awake.
As the piranhas chomped at her in greeting, the motion-sensing spy cam that Bartholomew had paid someone to secretly install under one of the floor planks sounded an alert for its owner, and the good pastore woke all at once.
Finally.
****
Mary wasn't sure whatwoke her up. All she knew was that terror was lodged in her throat...and as she sat up in her bed, she saw something shiny flash in the darkness—-
No, no, no.
Her stepfather didn't give her a chance to scream, with the knife already against her throat.
It was her nightmare made real again, but there was something about the crazy look in Bartholomew's eyes that told her...
This was it.
There was nothing after this.
This was where it would all end, and one of them would have to die.
****
Rathe knew there couldbe only one place for Mary to go to lick her wounds, and it killed him, knowing that he was the reason she had to seek solace in the exact same room her stepfather had almost raped her.
The duke had his team contact the police on his way to the university. He didn't give a fuck if it was overkill. That fucking dorm had been a red flag for him ever since, and terror strangled his heart when he saw the shattered glass on the steps leading up to the front doors.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
When he entered the lobby, the first thing Rathe saw was a girl lying unconscious on the floor. He knew then and there that something had happened—-
God, please.
His heart banged against his chest as he ran up the steps, and he nearly lost his mind when he saw Mary's room splattered with blood.
"R-Rathe?"
