Chapter 39 Who Are You
Isabella’s POV
His eyes sharpened suddenly, like pieces of a puzzle had just clicked into place in his mind.
Understanding flashed across his face.
Followed immediately by something darker.
Suspicion.
“Oh,” he said slowly.
The word came out almost thoughtful.
“I see it now.”
A chill ran through my entire body.
“You actually work for them.”
I froze.
“You’re here to finish what they started.”
My heart dropped into my stomach.
“What?” I whispered.
His expression twisted into something ugly.
“You’re sleeping beside me,” he continued, voice rising with fury, “pretending to be innocent while you feed them information.”
He leaned closer, the knife lifting slightly.
“You think I wouldn’t figure it out eventually?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I cried.
“You’re just like him,” he said through clenched teeth.
My mind spun.
“Like who? I don’t know what you are talking about!”
“You think this is a game?” he snapped.
His fist suddenly slammed into the metal table beside us.
The loud crash echoed through the room.
I flinched violently.
“Answer the fucking question,” he roared.
The knife lifted higher.
“Or I swear to God I’ll start peeling your skin off piece by piece until you decide to tell me the truth.”
Terror flooded through me.
“I’m not working for anyone!” I sobbed desperately. “I don’t know what your really talking about!”
My wrists twisted helplessly against the straps.
“Please,” I cried. “Please don’t kill me!”
But the look on his face told me something horrifying.
He believed what he was saying.
And right now—
Nothing I said was reaching him. His eyes burned with unshakeable conviction, a fanatic’s fire that no plea could extinguish. And right now, nothing I said was reaching him. It was like screaming into a void, my words swallowed by the abyss of his fractured mind.
Slowly, deliberately, he lifted the knife, the serrated edge glinting under the harsh light, promising agony in its jagged teeth. The blade hovered near my arm, so close I could feel the whisper of its cold steel against my sweat-slicked skin.
My breath caught in my throat, ragged and shallow. A broken whimper slipped from my lips as I jerked helplessly against the straps, the leather biting deep into my wrists, drawing beads of blood where it chafed raw flesh.
“Please—”
Before I could finish, the cold edge of the blade touched my forearm, pressing with deliberate weight.
A second later—sharp, searing pain sliced through my skin as he dragged it downward, the serrations tearing rather than cutting clean.
Flesh parted like wet paper, exposing the raw, pulsing layers beneath.
I screamed—a guttural, animal howl that ripped from my core, echoing off the walls like a death knell.
Alexander didn’t even flinch. His grip on the knife was steady, his face a mask of cold detachment.
“You think tears fix this?” he said quietly, his voice dropping into something dark and distant, laced with venomous certainty. His eyes never left mine, boring into my soul like drills.
“You think they reach me?”
The blade dragged again, slower this time, twisting slightly to widen the wound. Burning agony exploded outward, nerves firing in white-hot bursts as blood welled up in thick rivulets, hot and sticky, soaking my sleeve.
“They don’t.”
His jaw tightened, a vein pulsing in his temple like a ticking bomb.
“They only make it worse. Now tell me the truth, did you come to finish what he started?”
My chest heaved in violent spasms, tears blurring my vision into a haze of red and shadow.
“I don’t know, please am telling you the truth, I don’t know what you are talking about,” I begged, my voice shaking uncontrollably, cracking on the edge of hysteria.
“Why are you doing this? I don’t understand—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
The word came out low and dangerous, a predator’s growl that sent ice through my veins.
The knife pressed harder, the tip digging in just above the first cut, piercing deeper. Pain flared like lightning, radiating up my arm and into my shoulder, making my fingers twitch involuntarily.
“You don’t need to understand,” he said coldly, his breath steady as he leaned closer, the metallic tang of blood filling the air between us. “You need to learn, and you need to tell me the truth.”
The blade moved again—slow, deliberate, carving a deliberate path.
Cold metal scraping across my skin, grating against my skin as he pushed harder.
A thin red line appeared first, superficial and mocking.
Then suddenly the cut went deeper, the serrated edge sawing through the tendon with a sickening, wet grind.
Flesh tore audibly, a ripping sound that turned my stomach, exposing tissue.
Pain exploded through my arm in a supernova of torment, every nerve screaming in unison.
I screamed again, my voice hoarse and raw, body convulsing violently in the chair as blood gushed freely now, spurting in arterial pulses that painted the floor in crimson splatters.
The metallic scent thickened, cloying and nauseating, mingling with the acrid bite of my own sweat and fear.
Alexander’s face remained unreadable, a stone idol presiding over this ritual of horror. But his hand—his hand trembled, just slightly, a faint quiver betraying the monster beneath the conviction. Yet it didn’t stop him; if anything, it fueled the frenzy, his belief armor against any doubt.
“You did this to yourself, Isabella,” he said, his voice a chilling whisper as he twisted the blade slightly, grinding it into the wound to elicit fresh waves of agony.
“I didn’t!” I cried, my voice breaking into sobs that wracked my frame, snot and tears mixing on my face. “You did this to me!”
Blood was running down my arm in torrents now, pooling on the floor in a sticky puddle that reflected the light like oil. My vision blurred, black spots dancing at the edges as shock set in, the room spinning in a dizzying whirl.
For a terrifying moment, I thought I might pass out—or worse, bleed out right there, my life draining away under his unyielding gaze.
Alexander lifted the knife again, blood-smeared and glistening, angling it toward my other arm now, his eyes alight with that terrifying, unwavering faith. The psychological weight crushed me—the knowledge that he saw this as justice, as necessary, that my screams only confirmed his delusions.
I screamed before the blade even touched me, a preemptive wail of pure terror that clawed at my throat. “Please don’t!” I cried desperately, my mind fracturing under the onslaught. “This isn’t you, Alexander! Please—this isn’t you! You’re killing me!—please, God, stop!”
Something in my voice—a raw, primal edge of impending death—must have pierced the veil at last.
Because suddenly—he froze.
His eyes lifted slowly to mine, the knife hovering mid-air, dripping blood onto my lap.
And just like that—the anger vanished.
Confusion flashed across his face, a storm cloud parting.
Then horror—raw, gut-wrenching horror as reality crashed in.
The knife slipped from his hand and clattered loudly against the floor, skittering through the pooling blood.
He stepped back like he had just woken from a nightmare, his hands—stained red—held up as if burned. Like he didn’t recognize the carnage, the monster he’d become.
His eyes dropped to my arm, to the gaping wound where flesh hung in tatters, blood still pumping weakly.
Then back to my face, pale and tear-streaked.
Shame flickered in his expression, twisting his features into something broken and haunted.
Without a word, he reached forward and quickly unstrapped my wrists from the chair, his fingers slipping in the slick blood.
The leather restraints fell away, leaving deep, bruised gouges that wept their own red tears.
I didn’t say anything.
I didn’t even look at him.
I just grabbed my injured arm, pressing my hand over the wound—feeling the warm, squelching give of ruined flesh beneath my palm—trying desperately to stem the flow, though blood seeped relentlessly through my fingers, hot and viscous.
Then I staggered to my feet and ran, my legs wobbling like a newborn fawn, leaving bloody footprints in my wake.
“Isabella—”
His voice followed behind me, cracked and pleading for the first time.
I barely heard it over the roar in my ears.
He caught my uninjured arm lightly as I reached the hallway, his touch sending fresh jolts of terror through me.
“Isabella—I—”
I ripped my arm away from him with a snarl, the motion reopening the wound, sending a fresh gush of blood down my side.
“Don’t,” I snapped, my voice a venomous hiss laced with raw fear and betrayal. “Don’t fucking touch me. You’re a monster.”
For the first time since I had known him—Alexander Kingsley looked completely speechless, his face ashen, eyes wide with the dawning realization of the abyss he’d dragged us into.
I turned and stumbled away from him without looking back, each step a battle against the dizziness threatening to pull me under.
I didn’t stop until I found one of the guest rooms down the hall, collapsing against the door as I slammed it shut and fumbled with the lock, my blood-smeared hands slipping repeatedly.
The moment it clicked, I pressed my back against the wood, sliding down to the floor in a heap, breathing in ragged gasps that bordered on hyperventilation.
My arm throbbed with infernal pain, the wound a pulsating horror.
But the physical agony wasn’t what terrified me most—it paled against the psychological scar, the emotional chasm he’d carved into my soul.
The realization settled in my chest like a lead weight, suffocating and final: I could never sleep beside him again.
Because next time—he might not stop. Next time, the knife might find my throat, my heart, driven by that same unshakeable belief.
And in that moment, as blood continued to ooze and my vision faded at the edges, I knew the real danger wasn’t the blade—it was the man who wielded it, and the terrifying certainty that he could do it all again.