13. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
K ane
The penthouse breathes quiet. Darkness cloaks everything, the city muted and distant, almost unreal through the floor-to-ceiling glass.
Shadows drip like ink around us. Camille’s beside me, bare skin cool against mine, breathing steady, controlled, but her fingertips betray her restlessness.
They trace my tattoos, reading me like Braille, navigating scars and inked truths no one else dares to touch.
Her hand pauses just above my heart, hovering over words burned into me:
Lo que se pierde, duele más en silencio.
Every muscle in my body tightens as her fingers explore, tracing reverently every letter like a hidden scripture. It’s not idle. Not playful. It’s cautious, intimate, and dangerously vulnerable.
Her voice shivers softly in the dark, uncertain yet steady.
“What is lost hurts more in silence.”
My jaw clenches tight, heart slamming hard against my ribs.
“My father used to say that,” I admit roughly.
The confession drags out reluctantly, scraping raw edges inside me.
“Whenever he caught me shutting down. He was never gentle, couldn’t afford softness, but he understood. Knew silence was the slowest poison.”
She shifts closer, tilting her face toward mine, her eyes a gentle plea. “Tell me about him.”
The breath leaves my lungs. But I surrender the truth anyway, letting her glimpse a version of me buried so deep it hurts.
“He was Colombian. Ran cartel ports out of Miami. Brilliant. Ruthless. Everything calculated. He taught me chess, taught me how power truly works. He believed apologies were worthless. If you fucked up, you showed remorse in action, never words.”
She listens. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t soften. She simply waits, steady, unafraid, as I open veins in front of her.
“My mother,” I continue, voice scraping lower, darker, “she was white. Beautiful and breakable, like porcelain. She loved the danger, the thrill, until one day she didn’t. Left when I was ten. Vanished without a goodbye, without looking back.”
She presses her palm firmer against my chest, grounding me, holding me here in this moment, in this twisted honesty.
“My father died in front of me. Broad fucking daylight. We were stepping out of a café in Little Havana. No warning. No hiding. They emptied twenty rounds into his chest right there on the sidewalk.” My voice goes cold, detached, recounting facts etched in my bones.
“I didn’t scream. Didn’t run. I just counted.
One. Two. Three…watched every bullet tear through him, watched his blood spread across concrete. ”
Her breath hitches quietly, fingers freeze on my skin.
“Diego’s family took me in afterward,” I murmur.
“He was my father’s closest ally, a brother in everything but blood.
They gave me food, shelter, time to heal quietly.
Diego knew the code, the cost of loyalty.
On my sixteenth birthday, he didn’t ask questions.
Just handed me a knife and let me take care of unfinished business. ”
She holds her breath, waiting silently.
“I tracked down the man who gave the kill order. Found him in the back room of a Miami club, slit his throat from ear to ear. Left before his men were alerted. But I eventually came back for the rest."
Her lips part slightly. No horror. No judgment. Just quiet acceptance, her eyes wide and locked onto mine like she sees the darkest parts of me and won’t look away.
“That night was just the beginning,” I whisper.
“Of what?” she breathes, voice quiet but clear, stepping even closer.
I lean in, voice hard, relentless. “Of me. I don’t break, Camille. I don’t yield. If I want something, I take it. And once it’s mine, I never let go.”
She nods slowly, her eyes shimmering with quiet understanding flaring like fire. “I know.”
Her gaze turns darker, a shadow passes behind her eyes, and then softly, dangerously, she breathes his name:
“Douglas Everhart.”
It’s not just a name. It’s a trigger, a fucking detonation.
It tears through me, breaking bone, tearing muscle, of pure unfiltered rage roaring up inside me.
Before I realize I’ve even moved, I’m in front of her, hands cupping her face, firm, possessive, tethering her to me like she’s the only thing holding me from the edge.
My voice drops: “Tell me. Every fucking detail.”
Her throat moves delicately as she swallows, lashes flutter shut as she braces against whatever storm she thinks is coming. When her eyes finally open again, they’re raw, not wet with tears, but haunted with truths she’s kept buried far too long.
I was ten,“ she whispers. “On my family’s yacht. He was there. Everyone smiled at him. Trusted him. Worshipped him.”
“It happened more than once. The first time... he found me by the pool. I was alone. He complimented my bathing suit. Said I was beautiful. Said I was special...”
Her voice thins to a blade’s edge.
“He said I had a pretty mouth… for a little girl.”
She’s folding inward now, pulling away like it burns to speak.
“Took my hand. Sat me on his lap. I didn’t know...”
That final syllable splits her wide open. Not a confession…a hemorrhage. She pulls back sharply, like I’ve turned molten, radioactive, a threat she needs distance from. As if her truth shattered the ground beneath our feet.
Something inside me fractures. Violently. Beautifully. Not a crack, an awakening.
The monster in me doesn’t rise; it tears free, clawing its way out with teeth and nails, rabid and starving for blood.
Her voice is thin as smoke, haunted and wavering, forcing itself to finish what should’ve never begun.
“The second time,” she whispers, her words barely audible, “he crept into my room.”
Every syllable slices deeper.
“I screamed. Told him never to touch me again. Said I’d tell…” Her voice breaks sharply. She inhales, fragile, trembling. “He covered my mouth. Dragged me outside. To the edge of the yacht. And just… pushed.”
Silence bleeds into the space between us.
Heavy.
An executioner’s quiet.
My vision blurs, not from tears but rupture. Reality itself has split wide open, and I’m caught in the torrent pouring out.
Everything’s stained in shades of crimson— not poetic, not metaphorical. Real and visceral, fresh and bleeding like a split artery. My chest heaves violently; I don’t remember taking a single breath. My fists clench so tight my knuckles ache.
I’ll tear that motherfucker apart, piece by bloody piece. No hesitation. No mercy. Slow, precise brutality. I’ll savor every moment, every scream.
Not justice. Justice is sanitized, safe, sterile.
This is slaughter. Dark ritual. Sacrificial, dripping in pain, deliberate and vengeful.
She trembles in front of me, voice unraveling slowly. “I don’t know how I survived, but I did. I tried telling my parents.”
Then that bitter laugh breaks from her throat, a broken, splintered sound that punches into me like shattered glass.
“Douglas told them I slipped.” Her voice cracks, pauses, choking on itself. “They believed him. Instantly. Just like everyone else.”
I move before I realize it, closing the gap between us, fingertips finding the soft curve of her cheek. My thumb strokes carefully, reverently, like defusing something delicate, volatile. She’s shaking, fracturing under my palm.
My voice slips out dangerously soft, quivering with violent, lethal pressure, like a dam only seconds from rupturing. She’s sitting in front of me, barely holding together, trembling like the earth beneath a quake.
I give her something stronger than agony, something sharp enough for her to grip with bloodied fingertips when memory digs too deep.
Pulling her into me, forehead to forehead, breath to breath, I let my words sink bone-deep: “You weren’t meant to be believed.”
I breathe it into her like a vow carved in skin and bone. “You were meant to be feared. And they made the fatal mistake of forgetting.”
I pause, let silence stretch between us. My words slip darkly into her bloodstream, a promise sealed in blood and vengeance. “Everything Douglas took from you?”
I whisper ruthlessly, “I’m taking it back…with interest. With cruelty.”
Her eyes flicker, wet, burning, but still locked to mine. Still breathing. Still alive.
So I give her the truth. The real one. “You don’t need to be okay.” My voice goes darker. Deeper. “You don’t need to heal. You don’t need to forgive. You need a fucking monster.”
I press my hand to her chest, right over her heartbeat. “You survived him. But now I’m here.” My jaw’s clenched. My throat’s raw. “I devour. I break. I end.”
Another breath. Her breath. My voice drops to a growl. “I’m going to be the thing he fears before he dies. Your monster. Bound to you in blood and purpose.”
She exhales like her lungs forgot how. And I seal it, low and final, the words sinking into her skin like ink, like fire: “I’m going to carve the truth on every inch of Douglas Everhart’s body.
” A breath. “And when he’s screaming in the dark, choking on his own blood, he’ll know it was you who sent me. ”
She exhales again…like her lungs had been holding that breath for years. Like something just cracked loose inside her and started breathing again. Her eyes flicker, wet, burning, but still locked to mine. Still breathing. Still alive.
And now? She’s mine. Not owned. Not possessed. Chosen. I give her what seals it.
What binds the vow.
I kiss her.
Not soft. Not sweet. Deep. Consuming. Final.
Like I’m dragging her out of the grave with my mouth. Like I’m pressing every vow into her lips, her teeth, her soul so there’s no mistaking what she just summoned.
My hand stays pressed over her heart. And I feel it hammering like a war drum now, wild, chaotic, alive.
Her hands clutch at my shoulders, unsure, but gripping. Not pulling away. Not anymore. She’s not falling apart; she’s falling into something.