Chapter Forty-Four Charlotte
Chapter Forty-Four
Charlotte
I wake sometime later, the pressure pounding inside my skull.
With a groan, I open my eyes. Try to lift my head. But the room is spinning and everything’s blurry.
Everything but the face of my scorned ex-husband.
My vision begins to clear, and I can make out the hateful, ugly lines of his features. I should have known it was him who sent those threatening texts. The contempt he feels for me is clear.
I can’t believe he was ever inside me.
Not that consent ever really played a key part in what he did to me.
He steps toward me. The air smells like fish and sea brine, making me think we’re on one of the city’s abandoned docks, or not far from there. Mark’s hateful expression twists to something sinister as he smiles at me like he’s pleased to see I’m awake, but he doesn’t show any kindness to me. He never has.
Him? A “righteous” man? Turn the other cheek?
Never.
“You made a fool of me,” he says, leaning down so the heat of his breath warms my face. Garlic and cheap gin. And a bit of decay I can’t help but think is his soul. “Cuckolded me, and with the fucking devil, no less.”
I stare at him, refusing to look away from his generic white face. He could be any man in the whole of Middle America. Someone’s father or brother. His eyes filled with hatred.
And I can’t stop myself from laughing then.
Laughing at how foolish and small this man once made me feel.
But this whole time, he was really the one who was afraid.
Afraid of me. Afraid of my power. Afraid of every woman who ever made him feel small or want for anything. God forbid he be held responsible for his own feelings, his own temptation.
That’s all I’ll ever be to him. And to every man like him.
I am both Madonna and whore.
And I won’t fucking let him lord power over me. Not anymore.
Not now that I see it’s always been mine to take.
My shoulders relax, and for once my breath comes easy.
“What are you going to do?” I wheeze through my laughter. At the fear in his eyes as he looks at me. “Fuck me? Rape me?” I shake my head. “You’ve already done that.”
And still, he couldn’t break me.
“So, what is it?” I ask, lifting my gaze toward him. A snake prepared to strike. “What are you going to do to me?”
He doesn’t answer.
My lips pull back, teeth bared.
“I said, what are you going to do to me?” I shriek, eyes filled with every ounce of hate I feel for him. I don’t hold any of it back. The poison. The spite that fuels me.
A gift from Lucifer.
He grips the arms of the chair he’s tied me to, leaning down toward me. “I’m going to do you one worse.” His nose wrinkles in mock disgust, but he licks his lips appreciatively as he scans me head to toe, still wanting what was never his to have, to take. “I’m going to end that vicious beast you’ve been fucking.”
I throw back my head and laugh at him then. True amusement now.
I laugh until tears fill my eyes, my senses narrowing as he starts to beat me.
I laugh at how he doesn’t realize it’s his own pride that’s already destroyed him. Long before he ever hurt me.