20
Amara
I opened my eyes and knew my nightmare wasn’t over yet. My head pounded, my body ached, and the metallic taste of blood coated my tongue. The rope burned my skin, binding my hands behind a wooden chair—my dining room chair, the same that Enzo used to chain Mark. The air was thick and stale, suffocating, polluted with the sharp stench of sweat and cigarettes.
Mark sat across from me, his lip curled into something that wasn’t exactly a smile but not entirely a grimace. His once familiar eyes were cold and hollow, eaten away by something disgusting and insatiable.
His legs were spread in a lazy sprawl, the gun twirling between his fingers. He looked pleased, like the cat who finally ate the canary.
“Rise and shine, sweetie,” he announced in a fake affectionate voice, making my skin crawl.
Pain clawed up my throat, and I winced, trying my best to hide the hard pounding in my chest.
“You sleep too much,” he muttered, his voice dripping bitterness and resentment. His fingers toyed with his pistol, the silver barrel gleaming in the dim light. “You were out for a bit,” he continued. “But I want you awake for this next part, so I’ll try not to hit you too hard.”
My breath quickened, and I swallowed against the nausea churning my stomach.
“I didn’t think you’d go this far. Harassment charges, divorce? After everything I did for you?” His voice sharpened and became rough and dark, his knuckles going white around the gun. “I worked hard every day and paid for the roof over your head, clothes on your back, and food on my table. You’d think you’d show some fucking gratitude.”
Breathe.
It was the mantra I made, and I repeated it to myself. Something simple for me to focus on while I tried to survive the horrors that surrounded me.
Breathe.
“Answer me, bitch!” Mark screamed. “Why did you have to fuck everything up? Why couldn’t you just be a good fucking wife?”
Terror slammed against my ribs. “I—” my voice cracked, my throat raw from screaming and crying. “Mark,” I rasped. “I—"
Mark reached for me, gripping my chin hard enough to bruise. He tilted my face, studying me like some germs he observed under a microscope.
“You used to be so fucking demure,” he cooed, his thumb running over my split lip. “So obedient, but now? You think you can just walk away?”
I jerked my head back, my stomach rolling as the odor of his breath washed over me; cigarettes, whisky, and demented rage.
“We’re beyond that now. You don’t get to leave me, ever,” he laughed.
A shiver of raw dread crawled up my spine.
“I found out why you weren’t getting pregnant,” Mark snarled, taking my phone and shoving it in my face. “All those appointments to the fucking doctor every three months? You were on the fucking birth control shot, weren’t you?”
I didn’t answer. Even if I tried, I knew that my voice was gone. I’d screamed until it went hoarse and burned.
“You fucking lying whore,” he spat. “You destroyed our marriage. Y ou did. If you had gotten pregnant, I wouldn’t have needed to cheat on you to get my daughter. But no, you always need to make things so difficult, don’t you?”
I sat silently, but my heart sank for his child. He’d always wanted a boy, but his secretary was expecting a little girl? He would belittle her and abuse her just like he did with me, and the poor thing would grow up traumatized. She’d think that was what love was, and Erin was too infatuated with him to leave.
Mark would destroy another innocent life, just like he ruined mine and was tainting Erin’s.
His hand shot out, fingers tangling in my hair as he yanked my head back. A sharp gasp ripped from my lips as pain radiated in my skull.
“You gave me time to think,” he muttered, his breath hot against my cheek. “About all those little games you like to play. The charges, the divorce, the birth control, and moving out. You really thought you could escape me?”
I clenched my jaw, refusing to reply. That’s what Mark wanted: me to goad him and give him an excuse to lash out.
Mark sighed, dragging his fingers down my neck in a caress. “That’s what I used to love about you,” he admitted. “That fire, just so I could snuff it out.”
His knuckles brushed over my collarbone, the touch so light it sent a sick shiver of revulsion down my spine. I bit my tongue, trying not to recoil. I knew how he was; he wanted a reaction and fed off my fear.
“I always liked you best when you were soft for me,” he whispered, dragging the gun up my thigh slowly, making me squirm. The barrel pressed against the inside of my thigh, just above the hem of my shirt, stretched out in the front where he grabbed and pulled at it to force me close to him.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
“That’s the thing about you, Amara,” he confessed. “You act all strong, but I know the real you.” His free hand trailed over my belly, ribs, and breasts, testing. “You’re a broken little doll, unable to function without me. You used to beg for my touch.”
A tremor of disgust rolled through me.
“You used to love me.”
“Not anymore,” I snapped, the venom evident in my hoarse voice.
Mark went still, and his gun pressed into my thigh, enough to leave a bruise. “We’ll see.”
He leaned in, brushing his lips over mine, mocking me. I snapped my teeth at him, and he recoiled, and my stomach twisted as bile burned in my throat. “I’m going to remind you who you belong to, sweetheart.”
Terror wrapped around my ribs like a snake because I knew Mark and that he always made good on his threats.
Mark backed away from the chair, rolling his shoulders like this was a tense meeting at work. “I could just end your miserable, worthless existence,” he informed, gesturing to his gun. “But not before I have a little fun with you first.”
My stomach turned to ice.
He crouched before me, brushing a stray lock of hair behind my ear with a sickening, foreign gentleness. “You don’t know what pain is yet, sweetie.”
Tears burned at the edges of my vision, but I refused to let them fall; I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. It would only fuel him to do more and drive him to be crueler.
His smile widened, something gleeful lighting his gaze. “But don’t worry,” he promised, slowly and deliberately dragging the cold steel up the inside of my thigh. “I’ll show you.”
A sob escaped, my chest caving with fright. The ropes bit into my skin as I struggled uselessly, and Mark’s laughter echoed through the bedroom.
I was stuck and vulnerable, and Mark would relish every second of it.
Mark took a knife, and I recognized it from my kitchen. He sliced at the skin just mid-thigh, and I whimpered, fighting the ropes.
He smirked, pressing his finger in the wound, digging under my skin as I screamed. He laughed, lifting his bloodied finger to my clit, stroking it, lubing me up with my own blood.
“I’m going to force you to come on your own blood,” he grinned, swirling his other fingers through the blood as he shoved them between my thighs. “You’re going to fucking love it.”
My thigh and hole throbbed with pain, and I bit my lip, trying to hold back my screams of agony as he relentlessly assaulted me. His caresses grew sickeningly tender, stroking me in practiced, routine ways, just like he did when we were still married.
Just like he stopped doing years ago, only caring about his own pleasure.
The fact that he remembered infuriated me. I told myself that he forgot, and that’s why he didn’t pleasure me anymore in our marriage bed. This was proof that he knew, but he just didn’t care. He only wanted to hurt me, and this proved it.
My pleasure was a weapon he could use against me now, so he wielded it.
He rubbed my clit furiously, pausing to dip his finger back in my trickling blood before he continued. With the nonstop stimulation, my body had no choice, and when I contracted around his fingers, his depraved laugh made me gag as the treacherous pleasure flooded over me.
“Now you’re nice and wet for me,” he groaned, pressing his prick against me.
I tried to stay strong. But as he slid into me, the aftershocks of my forced pleasure still simmering, tears slid from my eyes as the robes chafed against my skin. He continued his stubborn movements, getting off to my body’s betrayal as he jammed in me and rubbed me so hard he could start a fire on my sensitive nub.
I contracted around him, shuddering in revulsion as forbidden satisfaction buzzed in my pelvis, and I sobbed as he laughed at me, enjoying my torment.
I broke.