Chapter Twenty-Five #2
He slapped her—hard.
The crack of his palm against her cheek echoed through the room. Her head snapped to the side, and a gasp tore from her lips as her eyes flew open—wide, dazed, and terrified.
Dominic grinned.
Xia
Xia’s vision swam. The world was a blur of pain and confusion, her skull throbbed, and her body felt heavy.
She tried to move, but something held her fast—ropes, thick, unyielding, and digging into her wrists and ankles.
She was spread with her arms and legs pulled taut against a Saint Andrew’s cross.
Her body was exposed, naked and vulnerable.
Her body turned to ice when she saw him.
Master DD.
His dark eyes gleamed with a feral and hungry look as his lips curled into a smirk. In a low voice, he purred mockingly, “About time you woke up, little Angel.”
She shivered with her breath hitching and fear coiling in her gut. The attempt to speak was torture. Her throat was too dry, and her tongue felt thick. “W-What—?”
The dark promise in DD’s chuckle sent a shiver down her spine. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun.”
He stepped closer. With rough hands, he gripped her waist, deliberately digging his fingers into her flesh. She flinched and desperately yanked on the bindings but soon realized there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.
“Master DD? What’s going on?” she finally whispered in a trembling voice.
Dominic shrugged as his touch slid upward to cup her breasts.
“We’re going to have some fun while we wait for your Master to arrive.
” She gasped as his thumbs brushed over her nipples, then he pinched, hard, twisting them cruelly until she screamed with her back arching against the cross.
“Why just sit around and count teeth, right?”
Tears pricked her eyes. This wasn’t like the scene with Rex and Cooper. This was pure evil, a desire to hurt, and to destroy. Her nipples throbbed painfully. “P-Please—”
“Please?” The sound escaping his lips was darkly delighted.
“Oh, Angel, you’re going to have to beg much better than that before I’m done with you.
” His hand slid lower, tracing the curve of her hip before dipping between her thighs.
She tried to squeeze them shut, but the ropes held her open, exposed.
Dominic tsked. “Now, now. Don’t be shy.” She jerked as his fingers brushed over her clit. A sob escaped her lips. “Rex denied me the pleasure of your hot cunt that first night here on the island.” His voice dropped to a growl. “Now, I’m going to take what I should’ve had then.”
Dominic Drake
His touch was deliberately brutal as he pinched her nipples until she screamed, twisting until tears streamed down her cheeks.
He bit her clit, his teeth sharp, and his tongue cruel as he lapped at her like she was nothing more than a cheap meal.
And when she sobbed, when she begged, when she broke—he only laughed harder.
With his fingers plunging inside her and his lips sucking her clit, he forced her to come again and again as her body betrayed her under his ministrations.
Holy shit, her cries were music to his ears, especially now when she screamed in pain and desperation.
“That’s it.” His breath was hot against her ear.
“Come for me, little slut. Over and over. Show me how much you love this.” He forced his hand deeper, watching as his entire fist disappeared inside her cunt.
He hadn’t taken his time. He had brutally forced his hand inside her.
Pushing deeper, he beamed at her terrified and painful wail.
With an evil growl, he opened his fist and spread his fingers inside her, deliberately cutting her spongy inner walls with his nails.
The thumb of his other hand pressed hard against her clit while he sucked hard on her nipples and forced the most unwanted climax from her.
She shattered, crying with broken sobs as her body convulsed. .. like that of a broken doll.
Dominic pulled back, licking his fingers clean of the blood coating them, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Ah, gods. The beauty and taste of pain... how I love it.” His chest warmed and his cock throbbed, but he didn’t touch himself. This wasn’t about his pleasure.
This was about ruin.
He leaned closer. “I wish Rex was here to see this.” His voice was a promise of destruction as her scream gave him pleasure beyond imagination when he cruelly thrust his fist back inside her cunt and punched it in and out, fucking her with cruel intent.
“To see just how much of a whore I’ve turned you into.
” Xia sobbed and trembled violently. It was crystal-clear as he stared into her eyes when her body shuddered through another unwelcome climax. .. her mind was fracturing.
Dominic smiled. “Perfect.”
Xia’s voice was a broken thread, a whisper scraped raw from screaming.
“Why...?”
The word hung between them, as fragile as glass. Dominic didn’t answer at first. He just watched her—the way her body trembled, and the tears cutting tracks down her flushed cheeks. He reveled in her breath hitching like she was drowning.
He should have felt something. Triumph, maybe. Satisfaction. Power. But there was only the hollow ache in his chest, the one that had been there for years.
Why?
The question gnawed at him as he pulled his fist out and wiped it clean. Why had he done this? Why degrade her? Why did he need to hurt her? It wasn’t even about her.
It was about them.
His fingers twitched at his sides, his gaze becoming distant and unfocused as the unwelcome but inevitable memories slithered in.
Twenty-three years ago, was when he felt the first cut...
He had been nothing when he arrived at that damn school.
A rich kid with a chip on his shoulder and a father who looked at him like he was a disappointment wrapped in skin. Dominic had been smart—too smart, some said—but it didn’t matter. Not when his last name wasn’t DuPont, Crowthorne, or Flint, or any of the others that carried weight.
Until he noticed him. Rex—the golden boy. The one everyone wanted to be. The one who could have had anything, anyone, but for some reason, he had chosen Dominic.
“You’re sharp,” Rex had said, clapping him on the shoulder like they were already friends. “You just need direction.”
And Dominic had believed him. For a while, he had worshipped him.
Rex had pulled him into study groups, had vouched for him when the others sneered, and had even defended him when the older boys tried to make him their punching bag. For the first time in his life, Dominic had felt like he mattered.
Until his father found out.
“You’ve improved,” his old man had said, flipping through his report card with something akin to disgust. “Must be that Oliver boy. I commend you for latching onto him. He’s clearly a good influence on you.”
Dominic had frozen. Good influence.
As if he hadn’t earned this. As if he hadn’t fought for every damn grade, every scrap of respect. As if he was still just some unwanted piece of shit and a project for Rex to pat himself on the back over. The resentment had taken root that day.
It festered for over twenty-three years.
Xia’s crying registered as she asked in a thin, trembling thread, “Why are you doing this to me?”
Dominic blinked, the present rushing back in. He looked at her—really looked at her—and for a second, he saw himself.
The weak one, the one who needed, and the one who begged. His jaw tightened. He didn’t answer her. Instead, he reached out, his fingers brushing over the bruises blooming on her skin and the marks he had put there. His touch was almost gentle, but there was nothing kind in it.
“Why do women always believe there is a reason behind every action?” he said at last, his voice low, almost thoughtful. “The simple truth is because I can.” He smirked. “Because no one ever says no to me. Not anymore.”
Xia flinched as her breath hitched with fear.
Dominic’s lips curled, but there was no humor in it.
Just the cold, hard truth of a man who had spent his life becoming the feared and cruel bastard he was, the direct opposite of what his father believed him to be.
Truthfully, He wasn’t really here because of a deeply festered desire to destroy old school friends.
That had been an excuse, partly an incentive to push himself harder.
No, he was here... because they had fucked him over, destroyed his reputation in the underworld. .. and for that, he had no mercy.
“And because,” he murmured, leaning in until his breath ghosted over her ear, “Rex loves you.”
“N-No... he doesn’t.” Her sob was soaked in fearful desperation.
Dominic pulled back with an evil laugh and gleaming silvery eyes. “And because I hate him.”
He turned away, leaving her trembling on the cross. He reveled in her tears dripping onto the floor like an offering.
Xia
Xia’s voice was a broken whisper scraped raw from the back of her throat.
“Please... don’t—”
Dominic laughed. It was a sound that didn’t belong in this world—wet, guttural, a noise that slithered up from the darkest pits of a man’s soul.
His lips peeled back in a grin too wide, too sharp with his teeth glinting like broken glass in the dim light.
His shoulders shook, and his breath came in ragged, delighted gasps as if her terror was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.
“Please don’t... what?” he purred, tilting his head like a predator savoring the scent of blood. “Hurt him?”
He moved. One second, he was across the room.
The next, he was on her, his hand snapping out so fast she didn’t even have time to flinch before his fingers were digging into her jaw, forcing her head back against the cold metal of the restraints.
His grip was brutal, his nails biting into her skin and drawing thin, stinging lines of blood.
Whimpering, her body jerked against the ropes, but there was no escape.
His other hand seized her. His fingers curled into the flesh of her breast like claws, squeezing with enough force to make her vision white out.
There was no escape. Her mouth opened in a silent, agonized scream.
He twisted, grinding the soft tissue beneath his palm, his thumb pressing into her nipple until she gagged on the pain, her eyes rolling back, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
“You’re begging for the wrong one, little slut,” he hissed, his voice a venomous whisper against her ear. His breath was hot, reeking of whiskey. “I don’t give a fuck about Rex’s life. Not like that. I don’t want to kill him.”
He released her breast with a slapping sound.
Her flesh throbbed like fuck in the aftermath.
His hand slid down, his fingers dragging over the trembling plane of her stomach, leaving trails of fiery scrapes in their wake.
She tried to twist away, but the ropes held her fast. Her skin prickled with cold sweat as his touch dipped lower, lower—
“No,” he continued, his voice dripping with dark amusement.
“I failed in ruining his career and causing financial failure, so now, I want him to suffer, truly suffer. Because he made a fool of me. ME! He will rot in despair. I want him to wake up every morning for the rest of his miserable fucking life and know he failed you. That he wasn’t there. That he let this happen.”
His fingers brushed the inside of her thigh, and she shrieked, her body convulsing, trying to pull away.
She couldn’t take it if he fisted her again.
God, it hurt so badly. But there was nowhere to go.
His grip on her chin tightened, forcing her to meet his gaze—his silver eyes glimmered as cold and empty as a shark’s.
“Beg for yourself,” he snarled, his voice a blade dragging across her nerves. “Because I’m going to make him watch as I fuck you. As I break you. As I carve my name into your skin so deep, he’ll still see it in his nightmares. And when I’m done?”
He leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of her ear as he whispered the vicious, unholy vow.
“Then... I’m going to kill you, Ms. Foster.”
Her breath hitched and her body trembled so violently the cross rattled.
“Slowly,” he murmured, flicking out his tongue to taste the salt of her tears.
“So slowly that he’ll hear every second of it.
Every scream. Every sob. Every plea. And when it’s over?
When you’re nothing but a corpse in his arms?
” He pulled back just enough to grin at her, his teeth too white for the darkness within.
“That’s when his real suffering begins.”
A choked sound escaped her throat. It was a hollow plea she couldn’t voice.
Dominic’s smile widened. His fingers traced the curve of her hip, then lower, his touch deliberately cruel.
“So go on,” he crooned as his hand slid between her thighs with his breath hot against her skin. “Savor these last few hours. Because tonight?” His fingers dug inside her already torn pussy. Her scream was an imploration which he ignored. “Tonight, you die.” He laughed again.
The words echoed through the room like a death knell.