Chapter 48
FORTY-EIGHT
It is fitting that she faces justice in the same place my mother meets her end. Toph, no, my father, has been keeping her strung up by her wrists with very little food or water since they caught her a few nights ago.
The very men she came to rely on, the ones who betrayed my father, turned on her the moment they were offered a deal. Bought loyalty isn’t loyalty at all. It is an illusion, flimsy as paper, easily shattered by the next highest bidder.
Kiernan clears the room. Leaving just him, me, and the woman who ruined my life.
The cell smells of rust, damp concrete, and old blood.
A single bulb swings overhead, throwing shadows across the walls.
Lina hangs in the center of it all, wrists chained high enough to force her onto the balls of her feet.
Her expensive clothes are torn. Mascara streaks her face. Blood mats the roots of her hair.
For the first time since I met her, she looks small.
“You think this is over, little girl?” Lina spits at me, blood dribbling down her chin. My hand has begun to ache from how many times I’ve sunk my fist into her face. “This goes so far beyond what you can even comprehend.”
I flex my fingers, feeling the sting in my knuckles, then smile.
“Why don’t you tell me, then? And I promise to make your death less painful.”
She screams when the blade kisses her skin, the sound lighting up the deepest part of my soul.
Kiernan groans in satisfaction from where he stands in the corner of the room, broad shoulders braced against the wall, his eyes lit with a dark flame of desire as I drag the knife across her skin.
“Or you can just stay quiet.” Kiernan shrugs lazily.
My knees shake at the dark, naked lust in his voice. His eyes are molten pools. He is speaking to her but looking at me.
“I’ve found that the Iron Princess here has a thing for knives. Who knew my treasure had such a dark side.” His gaze never leaves mine. “She loves the feel of it sliding across the skin. How it just gives beneath her with ease.”
“Fuck you,” Lina hisses at him. “I’m not telling you a damn fucking thing.”
“This is going to be fun.” I cackle as I circle her like a shark scenting blood in the water.
The tip of my knife follows me, tracing the delicate skin of her neck.
I keep the pressure light enough not to cut, but enough that she knows all it would take is one wrong move and she would bleed out like an animal.
“Taking revenge for all the women you sold,” I murmur near her ear. “For the children you enslaved. They might not be here for your execution, but I’ll damn well make sure everyone knows about it.”
I come back around and lower the knife, carving several shallow grooves into her chest. She grimaces but doesn’t cry out. Prideful bitch.
I think about everything she did to me. What she planned to do to me. Besides Brittany, I only ever had one friend—her—and it was all a lie.
My entire life was a lie.
Drew. Brittany. Lina. Crowe.
The grip on my tenuous control slips as I think about all I’ve suffered at their hands. I carve into her skin again. Anywhere and everywhere the blade can reach, I cut, then watch her blood spill onto the concrete floor beneath her in dark red ribbons.
Lina hangs limply now, fat tears streaming down her bloodstained cheeks. Her breaths hitch. Her head lolls. The darkness inside me stirs at seeing her so vulnerable, so broken. Exactly what she tried to make of me.
I grip her jaw and force her face up.
“Look at me.”
She does. Barely.
“You will never take advantage of another person ever again.”
“You’re just as self-righteous as your mother was,” she hisses, venom dulled by pain and hiccupping sobs. “All she had to do was keep her fucking mouth shut about the rape, and everything would have been fine. But she had to go and be a fucking—”
She doesn’t get to finish that sentence.
I drive the new blade Kiernan gave me straight through her skull.
The impact jars my wrist. Her body jerks once. Then stills.
A sick kind of satisfaction blooms in my chest.
Definitely giving it a five-star rating on .
Silence fills the room. Thick. Final.
Then Kiernan is suddenly behind me, his heat at my back, his hands sliding over my waist.
“Such a good girl,” he purrs in my ear, sending tingles straight to my sopping wet cunt.
I spin and launch myself at him, kissing him with every ounce of passion I possess. He has been there every step of the way, relishing in my darkness instead of shrinking from it. Just like Seamus, he wants my obedience in the bedroom, but in the streets, he stands at my side as an equal.
“So perfect,” he murmurs against my mouth.
He chuckles as I rip at his shirt, buttons flying across the concrete. The fabric falls to the bloodstained floor, revealing his heavily muscled, tattooed chest.
His hands frame my face for a moment, eyes searching mine.
No fear. No regret.
Only hunger.
Then he unzips his pants, freeing himself, and pounces.
My dress tears under his hands, the top dragged down until it pools at my middle. Cool air skims my skin. His mouth is on my throat, biting, licking, soothing each sting with his tongue.
His arms wrap around my waist as he lifts me clean off the floor. My back hits the wall, leaving me breathless as he cages me there.
“So fucking hot,” he breathes in my ear, fingers sliding beneath my dress. When he meets no resistance, he pauses and tilts his head with a smirk. “Is my little whore not wearing any panties?”
I arch into him, moaning when his mouth closes over my hard, aching nipple.
“No,” I breathe.
His eyes flash.
He presses forward, and I gasp as he fills me in one hard thrust. Blood smeared across my skin transfers to his. I should be repulsed. I should feel horror.
Instead, I feel alive.
Kiernan drives into me again and again, thrusting me against the concrete wall so hard I know bruises will bloom by morning. My nails rake his shoulders. My thighs lock around his hips.
My nipples ache, begging for more of his mouth.
“I’m going to get you some nipple clamps,” he groans against my throat. “Make Seamus pull on them while I fuck your ass. Maybe attach a chain to my piercing so every time I thrust out, it pulls at your nipples.”
“Jesus,” I moan, every sensation sharpened by the adrenaline still coursing through my veins. “Kiernan.”
His name is a screamed prayer on my lips as pleasure tears through me. My body convulses in his arms, orgasm crashing over me in violent waves.
“Fuck, Bailey,” he roars. “I can feel your cunt milking my cock, baby.”
He follows with a curse, hips jerking erratically as release takes him too.
Then he slumps forward, forehead resting against the cool concrete beside my head, still holding me upright despite his exhaustion.
Our breaths mingle in the dark.
My entire life, I was lost in an unending circle of loneliness.
Until they come crashing into it, dragging me from the wretched darkness surrounding me.
Now there is no looking back.