Rage

Chapter 6

Chapter Six

I t’s a funny feeling waking up and feeling like a completely different woman. One that doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about her anymore. It’s as if overnight I have a new outlook on life and finally feel like I can handle whatever is thrown at me. I no longer have the weight of worrying about impressing or appeasing anyone other than myself.

Thankfully, it’s the weekend and I get to be lazy at home until my personal training session this afternoon. Janna and I have been taking boxing lessons for the past six months, and our trainer doesn’t let us take any weekends off. He’s adamant that we stick to consistency, and even though Matthew, our coach, is a softy at heart, his trainer voice terrifies me enough to not cancel a session.

The scent of coffee pulls me in, and I throw on a nightgown with my favorite robe, making my way downstairs for some much needed food after last night’s debacle. Turning the corner, I stop cold in my tracks.

A lone chair is propped up in the hallway with a person tied to it, a black bag over their head. I begin to back up when I’m met with a hard chest to my back. I spin around to face him, searching the mask until I find the emeralds that hold zero emotion. “Coffee?” he asks, while holding out one of my favorite mugs. My brain is begging me to take it as the heavenly scent floats through the air, but my mouth is too dry to form words. Z shrugs his shoulders and places the mug on the table against the wall. “Take the bag off,” he says, with a nod in the direction of the chair. I open my mouth to protest, but his eyes flare, causing me to snap it shut.

Slowly, I pad over to the chair and remove the bag in one swift motion, letting out a gasp as I bring my hands up to cover my mouth, stumbling backwards.

“Brian?” I whisper as I survey Ross' best friend, a gag in his mouth, bucking violently to be set free. I glance at my stalker and back to Brian before walking back to him and removing the gag.

“You stupid fucking bitch. I can’t wait to tell Ross the shit you’ve caused,” he begins spewing as my stalker marches over and backhands him, snapping his head to the side. I gasp, backing up again until I feel the wall on my backside.

I watch as the man I don’t even know crouches down in front of Brian. “Apologize to her, or I’ll send your balls to your mother in a snow globe for the holidays.”

Brian’s eyes blow wide before mumbling an apology in my direction.

Z stands, pacing back a few feet. “Brian here has something he wants to tell you.”

I stare at Brian, waiting for him to speak as blood trickles down his chin from the corner of his mouth. He stares back at me with a look of disgust before flinching when Z takes a step toward him.

“It was me,” he blurts out, spitting blood on my hardwood floor.

Confusion blooms at his confession. My eyes dart over to Z, standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a stare that could burn a house down. I ask Brian to clarify, and he curls his lip before speaking again.

“The shiner under your eye. It was me,” he says before clenching his jaw and settling his gaze on Z.

A whimper leaves my lips as I press the back of my hand to my mouth. Last night when Z asked me to tell him that Ross gave me the mark under my eye, I couldn’t, because I didn’t know who did it. I went to a work party with him a week ago and woke up on my couch, unsure of how I got home.

“Continue,” Z hisses, bringing me back from the memory.

Brian runs his tongue across his bottom lip before turning his attention on me. “Ross slipped a roofie into your champagne at the dinner last week. He lost a bet with me and some of the guys and the prize was you. We thought he was joking, but he delivered you to my hotel room, and…”

Tears roll in thick streams down my cheeks as I listen to the story unravel.

“And what, Brian?” I ask through the sobs.

Brian rolls his eyes, as if annoyed that I’m crying. He glances from Z back to me before finally settling his gaze on the floor. “I had my way with you, exactly how I wanted. But you involuntarily hit me while you were unconscious, and I let my temper get the best of me. So I… I hit you back.”

I fall back into the wall and slide down, gasping into the palms of my hands.

“Get up,” Z snaps from beside me, grabbing my upper arm and pulling me to my feet. “Do not let them see you fall,” he whispers in my ear. His words have me scrambling to gain my composure, because he’s right.

“While you were asleep last night, I did some digging since you wouldn’t tell me who marked you,” Z says while casting a glance in my direction. “Thanks to a friend that doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty, I ended up finding text messages from this sorry excuse of a man to your supposed fiancé about the encounter.”

Brian spits at Z’s feet before laughing. “And what are you going to do about it? You’re so scared of us that you won’t even show your face.”

A grim laugh leaves Z as he swiftly reaches out, grabbing Brian’s face in a forceful hold. “The mask is for your protection, not mine, pretty boy,” he says before he thrusts Brian’s head back, earning a cry of pain from his victim. With an audible grunt at the sound, Z brandishes the same knife he pulled on me yesterday, along with a gun from his back pocket.

Contradictory to the smart mouth he just had; Brian now looks like he’s seen a ghost as he begins to jerk wildly in his chair.

Z places the items on the end table and grabs my face with his hand.

“I found him, but his punishment can only be decided by you,” he says, before tilting his head toward the weapons on the table. “You can let him walk out of here, or you can deal with him however you see fit, Duchess.”

My eyes skim over the weapons on the table before glancing back at Brian, who is sweating profusely and mumbling incoherently with his head hanging down.

Z gently jerks my face to focus on him again. “You’re the one building the fire, Mavis. I’m only here to provide the gasoline and other essentials to keep it going.”

“Mavis, don’t be the dumb bitch that Ross makes you out to be. Let me go and we both can act like this never happened,” Brian says from the chair, where he’s now as white as a ghost.

Act like this never happened?

“You assaulted me,” I say while glaring at him. He groans and rolls his head, “It was just pussy, Mavis. Great pussy, but pussy nonetheless. Come on, I heard you gave it up all the time in college anyway, what’s the difference?”

The flame that had begun to build in my chest yesterday was now an inferno. The thought of all the men in my life thinking I’m nothing more than a pawn to throw around sends tremors through me.

Z releases my face as a maniacal laugh escapes from the deepest part of my soul. “You’re right, Brian. It’s just pussy,” I say, picking up the knife from the table. The fear in his eyes brings my heart rate so high that I can hear the swooshing in my ears. I can see Z casually leaning on the back of the couch as he watches.

“But my pussy is my choice,” I hiss before slamming the blade of the knife into his thigh. His scream a sweet symphony to my ears as I drop my head back, taking in a deep breath. “And I wasn’t given a choice on who shoved their dick inside of me,” I say calmly, while pulling the knife from his thigh and slamming it into the other.

The blood dripping onto the floor sends my senses into overdrive as the coppery smell floats up my nostrils. I look over at Z, whose gaze is already set on me with a look of admiration and hunger. As if he can tell what I’m thinking, he chuckles, standing to his full height. “I know how to dispose of a body, Duchess,” he says confidently.

I smile, looking back at Brian who is now whimpering, the smell of urine floating in the air. The poor fuck pissed himself, after all the shit talking he did.

“Was I the only one?” I ask him while pulling the knife from his thigh, earning a guttural scream from him. I stand, throwing my fist into his jaw, blood splattering against the white wall. I make a mental note to thank Coach Matthew for all the boxing lessons and consistency.

“Yes. No… I don’t know,” he says between coughing fits.

“You don’t fucking know?” I ask, throwing another satisfying punch to his face.

“Ross and I do it frequently, but…”

The room begins to spin. My fiancé is taking advantage of other women. Ross hasn’t made a move towards me in months, but he has no problem taking advantage of unconscious women?

“Who else was there that night?” I ask, while staring at the blood splattered on the wall. It’s crimson red, a dark contrast to the bright white paint. Brian coughs before answering, and I can tell he’s stalling. “I-I’m not sure. There were a few of us in the room, but I didn’t know all of them.”

My head snaps back to look at him. A few. My fiancé let his friends defile me, and then carried on about his life like I was made to serve them. I begin to tremble violently as a single tear falls from my eye. I dart my tongue out to catch it, quickly wiping it away as I vow it to be the last time any of these fuckers get a rise out of me.

“Mavis, I’m sorry. I really am. If you let – “

I didn’t want to hear the rest of his sentence. And quite frankly, I didn’t want to hear him breathing anymore.

The visual of the blade slicing across his throat was pure bliss.

His gurgles were the icing on the cake as I watched him struggle for air.

Untying my robe, showcasing the pink silk nightgown I threw on this morning, I straddle his lap. My gaze bores into his brown eyes as I watch the life slowly fading away. I laugh as he struggles at the hand of a woman much smaller than him while I dig my hand into his hair.

I lean in closer to his face. “Letting you walk out of here to defile other women would be helping the fucking patriarchy you’re so proudly devoted to. Unfortunately for you, the old Mavis is dead,” I hiss between clenched teeth, and plunge the blade into his chest with my other hand.

Drowsily, I climb from his lap and Z reaches out to steady me.

I glance down at my clothes and robe on the floor, all covered in Brian’s blood, before looking back up at Z. Shock washes over me as I realize what I’ve done, but there are no tears. No sobbing, nor any panicked feelings consuming me.

“How do you feel?” Z asks from behind his mask.

I glance around the room and back at the dead body strapped to the chair in my house. I should feel like a murderer. I should feel like a horrible person for taking the life of a man I’ve known for years. A man that used me while I was unconscious . But I don’t feel an ounce of regret. A small chuckle escapes me as I brush my cheek, smearing blood as I look into the mirror hanging on the wall.

“Alive,” I answer as Z moves to stand behind me. Wrapping his arms around my torso, he rests his chin on my shoulder. His smell is so intoxicating that I want to beg him to fuck me right here, right now, without even knowing what he looks like. “You ready, Dutchess?” he asks, tightening his grip on me for a second before releasing me.

I know what he’s insinuating. The thought of it has my body engulfed in flames of rage and revenge. I nod my head as I turn to face him, taking note of the massive amounts of blood still pouring from Brian.

I glance down at my feet, wet from the deep red fluid that has now made its way over to us. I follow the trail from the chair and back to my feet.

A river of red, from my own hand.

Not an ounce of regret passes through me as I lean my head back to look at the masked man that provided the fuel to my hidden fire. The determination that now blooms throughout has me speaking my next words clearly and confidently.

“Let’s burn it all to the fucking ground.”