Milo One Hour Earlier
Milo
One hour earlier
There is only the sound of sobs.
My hands are clenched into fists at my sides.
The girl is on the floor.
Crying.
She is trying so hard not to sob, knowing it will only worsen her fate, yet she seems unable to stop.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
I cannot do this again.
Even the strongest person would break, given enough time.
“Open your eyes,” that disgusting voice snarls.
I don’t.
The blow that follows a second later is expected. The pain is so sharp it knocks the air from my lungs, and I feel something warm slip down the side of my head.
“Watch,” he repeats, slower now. “You need to learn. Because soon you will not only stand here and observe, but you will do it yourself.”
I open my eyes.
The girl’s face is swollen, one cheek already darkening, her lip split. Her dress is torn at the shoulder, fabric hanging uselessly from her arm. She looks at me as though I can save her.
I cannot.
I know that.
I am seven years old, though after everything I have lived through, I already feel closer to eighty.
He closes the distance between himself and the girl, and she sobs harder.
I shake my head. “Please—”
That word earns me another blow, this time to my ribs, and my vision blurs, spots dancing before my eyes.
“Don’t beg,” he snaps. “It’s disgusting. How the fuck are you my son? So weak. You must have inherited your stupidity from your mother.”
He turns back to the girl, dragging her by the arm.
“Now sit there and look,” he says. “Look at what we do to them. Look at how we break them. Or perhaps you are finally ready for a turn?”
My stomach twists violently, and I cannot hold back the vomit that spills from my mouth.
The next few blows come in quick succession, to my head, my stomach, my back, my legs, and he doesn’t stop, hitting me again and again.
“Why the fuck are you so weak?” he roars.
I am not weak.
I am simply not made of the same filth as he is.
My grip on consciousness slips.
I hear the girl scream, and I understand this much.
There are different kinds of monsters.
Some are born to destroy the innocent.
Others are born to destroy monsters.
The world needs its balance.
And I will become the one it needs. I will rid the earth of vermin like him. I will tear them apart, piece by piece, and make them beg for it to end.
I jolt awake.
My chest heaves, lungs burning as though I have been held underwater. Sweat clings to my skin, my jaw locked so tightly it aches. It takes me a moment to make sense of my surroundings.
Then the ceiling comes into focus.
I get up and head straight for a cold shower.
I am in a foul mood. Where I should have dreamt of my beautiful girl, my twisted mind dragged me back into the past.
I turn on the water and step into the shower, having slept commando.
As I wash, a slow smirk tugs at my mouth when I picture her face, her smile, that body that brings me to my knees.
And I don’t mind begging, if it is for her.
She has been mine since the night she came at me like a fallen angel with murder in her eyes, her intent clear.
She didn’t hesitate, she went straight for blood.
And that’s when I realized she was made for me.
The stars, the universe, God—call it whatever you like — but Octavia Bellanti was put on this earth to be mine.
A normal person would probably hate her, or at the very least crave revenge, but I am not a normal person.
I obsess over her, I breathe her in, she runs through my veins, and when she is near the sensations tearing through my body are almost unbearable.
What was once a dead mind and a hollow soul stirred the moment I first saw her face, and even more so when she straddled my lap and pressed a blade to my neck.
A rush of emotions I can’t name floods through me.
It is strange, the way my skin prickles and my heart races so violently I am convinced I am on the verge of a heart attack, the sensation starting low in my stomach before tightening and rising into my chest until I cannot tell whether I am dying, or simply losing my mind.
It is fucking unsettling.
And it is the best thing I have ever felt.
When I see her, all I want is to keep her close, to protect her, to mark her, to claim those lips and take her apart until she forgets she ever belonged anywhere but with me.
I want her to be mine, in every sense that matters, and I want her to know it, to feel it settle into her bones the way it has settled into mine.
But all in good time.
Because for reasons I don’t yet understand, my spitfire insists on hating me.
She carries so much rage, so much hatred, and I love it, though I would rather see it turned on those who deserve it, not on me, for I am no saint, but I am utterly incapable of harming a single hair on her head, I would sooner put a bullet through my own skull.
Still, I take what I can. Even her anger is proof that she feels something for me.
My cock hardens as I replay the moment from the party, and I fist myself with a low groan.
I have lived with a permanent hard on since the twenty ninth of August, and no amount of jerking off seems to fix it.
But this is more than sex.
This is everything.
She is so… perfectly broken.
Broken in the most exquisite way.
I don’t merely want her body.
It is her soul that calls to mine.
She is damaged in the same way I am, split open, stitched wrong, left to fester, and people like us don’t heal.
I don’t want to put her back together.
No.
I want to break her further, until she stops pretending she is whole, until she stops fighting what she is, until all she feels, smells, tastes, breathes… is me.
I want to fuck her until her thoughts scatter and her eyes roll back and she forgets where she ends and I begin.
The psycho finally meets his equal.
After my shower and getting myself off, I head for my closet as my phone vibrates on the dresser.
A message from one of my men.
Port. Arrival scheduled for ten minutes from now.
Being on this island does not mean the work has paused. It only makes it more complicated, but I don’t give a shit.
She is here, and so am I.
I finish dressing in jeans and a hoodie, pull on my boots, then reach for my keys and pause.
Remembering how I found out the morning after the party that my Lamborghini was gone, my thoughts went straight to my spitfire.
She might have taken it without realising it was mine, or perhaps she did it on purpose, simply to provoke me further, but either way it only succeeded in making her occupy even more of my mind than she already did.
Because my girl and my car are an exceptionally dangerous combination.
I have a spare key, and in the days since I arrived on this miserable, rain soaked island, I have used it more than once to meet my men for business.
I step out into the cool air and take the path toward the main academy, turning right toward the parking area, and I feel it immediately.
I am being followed.
Not merely followed, followed by her.
I don’t turn, because I feel her without the need to see her, sense her in the depths of my being, and I swear that maddening trace of vanilla tangled with the warmth of her skin lingers in the air even from this distance.
I smirk slowly.
Because I am certain she is up to something.
Making good on trying to kill me, perhaps.
I reach the car and pause as I look at it, then slide inside, start the engine, and pull away while checking the rear view mirror.
The moment I exit the academy grounds I know she is following me, and I can’t help the faint curl of approval that touches my mouth, because she is good, I will give her that.
Naturally, I change my trajectory and take a turn toward town.
I stop outside a small shop and step out, rolling my shoulders as though nothing is amiss, and though I have no need for anything inside, I buy a pack of cigarettes so I don’t leave empty handed, lingering just long enough to make the stop believable.
I place an unlit cigarette between my lips and walk back to the car, sliding inside once more before pulling away, my gaze returning again and again to the mirror as the road begins to empty behind us, a deranged smirk refusing to leave my mouth.
When the road finally narrows and the trees close in on both sides, my lips curve further.
I can almost taste her decision.
Whatever she is planning, she has already committed to it, already convinced herself she has won, no longer bothering to remain invisible.
My fingers loosen on the wheel as my gaze flicks once more to the mirror, catching the faintest shift of movement behind me.
There it is.
I unclip my seat belt, ease the door open, and in the next instant the wind tears at me as I throw myself sideways, I hit the grass hard, the world spinning as my shoulder slams, my side screams, and my ribs protest while I roll and roll and roll until my body finally skids to a halt in the shallow ditch.
Three seconds later the explosion cleaves through the air. The blast booms through the forest, and the shockwave ripples through the ground beneath me.
I lie there on my back, my chest heaving as I stare up at the sky, and then I burst out laughing.
I close my eyes, breathing in smoke and adrenaline and the echo of her rage.
“Gorgeous,” I murmur. “You are going to pay for this.”