Chapter 23 The Present
Believe it or not, I haven’t gone down to the basement once in the last two days. That one time I tormented Mark, in a very clever, very perverted way involving me, my men, and a chain, was enough to keep me satisfied for a while.
I just wanted to ride that happy wave as long as it lasted, perfectly content with his screams echoing up the stairs without needing the visuals.
Well… now that I’m here again, standing at the bottom of the steps and looking into the room, I can honestly say I’m glad I didn’t come sooner.
It’s pathetic down here.
Mark’s slumped against the far wall, sitting in a folding chair like a ghost of himself. His arms are still bound at the elbows, his legs strapped so tightly the edges bite into his skin. But he’s not struggling anymore. He’s given up.
And damn… he looks smaller than I remembered. Even smaller than last time. He seems broken. Just like I was, once.
When he sees me, his head lifts. His face softens, almost lights up, like I’m some kind of angel he’s been waiting for instead of the woman he buried.
Nathaniel stands at a steel table to my left, his back half-turned.
He’s working on something, and it takes me a second to realize he’s holding a neatly folded piece of dark cloth in one hand, polishing a small steel instrument with the other.
The movement is precise. Up the shaft, down the blade. Wipe, turn. Wipe, turn.
A crazy, sadistic doctor if I’ve ever seen one.
And normally, that kind of thing wouldn’t turn me on…
But the way he’s doing it… It’s so slow and threatening…
Yeah. It’s kind of hot.
It also makes me pity Mark more.
That churning feeling in my gut, the one that mixes the need to make him hurt with something I can’t quite name, only gets stronger.
I glance at the table beside Nathaniel. The little lineup there says more about the last forty-eight hours than any scream could:
a shallow bowl with half-melted ice, water beading around its rim;
a small amber jar with a red cap;
a roll of gauze;
two metal clips that look like they belong on a surgical tray, not wherever he actually used them;
a coil of insulated wire;
and a timer, its face turned toward him, numbers ticking down to something.
There’s even a capped syringe I know damn well wasn’t for pain relief.
Yeah… plenty of things with plenty of uses.
Not the kind of uses that would’ve ever crossed my mind, probably.
Mark swallows, the sound rough in his throat. It pulls my gaze back to him.
“Skye,” he says, and in that one broken syllable, I hear prayer, bargain, and bad nostalgia all at once. Oh yes. I’ve definitely become an angel in his eyes.
“Don’t,” I say.
His mouth shuts, trembling.
Nathaniel finishes another pass of the cloth, sets the scalpel down on a folded towel—handle perfectly parallel to the edge of the table—and finally looks at me. His sleeves are rolled past his forearms, the skin there pale as paper. His eyes are bright. Brighter than usual.
“Hey,” he says. “What brings you down here?”
“That’s a weird question. Can’t I just come by?”
“If you wanted to, you’d have done that yesterday,” Nathaniel replies easily. “Or the day before. Missed me, perhaps?”
I bite my cheek to keep the smile from breaking through. Did I miss Nathaniel the past two days? Yes. Was he the one spending the most time down here with Mark because I asked him to? Also yes.
Having three men is convenient. You have one to do the job, another to warm your bed, and the last to make you forget the world. I’m a lucky girl like that.
But that’s not why I’m here.
“Oh, it’s that, then,” Nathaniel murmurs, reading me like he always does. “So soon?”
“It started feeling wrong,” I say quietly. “Like it’s been drilling into my head. I think I’ve had enough.”
I glance at Mark. He’s staring so hard, it’s like he’s forgotten to breathe. When my last words land, his expression twists and morphs, filling with hope I don’t even want to see.
We are not talking about releasing you, you moron. We’re talking about your death.
But what else could an angel do, if not release him from his misery?
“That’s a pity,” Nathaniel says. “I was hoping to play with him a little longer.”
“Didn’t you have enough?”
I take in the scene. His setup is meticulous. Cruelly so. The water bottle with a straw sits just within reach but clearly rationed. A pulse oximeter lies nearby, the kind he’d clip on and off to make sure he didn’t lose his toy too soon. Extra straps, spattered towels, faint stains.
Forty-eight hours of controlled chaos.
“You wound me, love,” Nathaniel purrs.
He drops the cloth, the scalpel, and crosses to me. His hands are still damp from the wipe-down, a faint trace of antiseptic clinging to his skin as they slide around my waist.
The air shifts. It’s like I’ve become the center of gravity in this room, and he’s falling toward me while Mark is forgotten. He studies my face for a beat, then kisses me.
I taste the cold of stainless steel on his lips.
When he pulls back, his forehead stays pressed to mine.
“So. You came to end my offering,” he whispers.
Offering.
Not session. Not work.
Offering.
“You’re sure?” he asks.
“I’m sure,” I say.
And there it is… that faint, almost tender disappointment. Out of all three of them, Nathaniel’s the only one who actually cares about the kind of pain he inflicts. Cassian wants justice. Talon wants balance. Nathaniel wants… art.
He’s like a goddamn cat. He just wants to play with his prey.
“I asked Talon and Cassian to stay upstairs while I do it,” I whisper. “I want it quiet. I want it… mine.”
Nathaniel’s lashes lower, that cool, unreadable blue slipping toward shadow. I can feel it, he wants to tell me there are better ways to make Mark pay. That pain is a staircase, and we’ve only climbed two flights while he knows seven.
But he doesn’t say it. He just swallows it down and inclines his head.
“Then it’s yours,” he says evenly. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
A small, stunned warmth opens beneath my ribs at the simplicity of it.
He could argue, bait me into one more hour. Instead, he steps aside.
“Thank you,” I say.
He presses a soft kiss to my temple in reply, and the cat in him recedes.
When he turns away, there’s no one left to convince.
He wastes no time. He clears his table, sets each tool onto a tray, covers it with a cloth, packs it neatly away.
He unhooks two leads from a clamp, coils them, then strips off his gloves, tosses them, and washes his hands in slow circles before drying them.
Just like that, he’s ready to go.
Mark watches all of it with the focus of a trapped animal. His eyes are too large for his face now, whites filmy and red, lids raw at the edges.
“Skye,” he rasps. “Is this really—”
“Stop,” I say.
I don’t want to talk to him. Every word he says just feeds that gnawing inside me until it’s almost unbearable. I know what the feeling is, but I don’t want to admit it.
I just want to end it.
“Do you want me in the room,” Nathaniel asks, “or outside the door?”
“Outside,” I say. “Close enough to hear me if I call. Far enough that it’s… quiet.”
“Understood.” His gaze holds mine. “Skye.” My name leaves his mouth like a prayer.
“It’s been an honor to help you. When this is over…
I hope you finally rest. You deserve that.
I know Cassian and Talon kept you company, but—” a faint smile, almost regretful— “I’ll admit I envied them more than I should have.
Even if I did enjoy punishing the one who hurt you. ”
Uff. Be still my heart. Now I’ve got even more incentive to finish this.
Two men at once is already a luxury. Three? I’m a sucker for it.
“Can’t wait,” I whisper.
And just like that, he’s gone. The door shuts with a soft click. The generator’s bass thrum threads back into the silence. Overhead, a duct rattles, then stills. Somewhere, water ticks in pipes.
And then there’s just us.
“Skye,” Mark begins again, “Are you—are you here to—”
“I told you to stop,” I cut in. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to.”
“I—” He falters. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
That almost makes me laugh. “That’s new.”
He flinches like I struck him. “Please.”
God, what is he begging for? Redemption? Mercy? Can’t he see it? I’m the sum of everything he destroyed. I'm one big walking consequence. Half-supernatural, half-ruined, and all that’s left of me is the need to cut the past off at its root.
Bad deeds create ripples.
His ripple is my inability to forgive him.
The ripple of that is me fighting my own conscience.
Even the fact that I can’t stand watching him suffer any longer is a wound he put on me.
But what was I supposed to do? Just forgive and forget? Live the rest of my existence feeling like a victim?
Isn’t it better to be the villain? To acknowledge my pain, to give it somewhere to go?
“You gave me no choice,” I whisper. “Everything that’s happening here and now… It’s because of you.”
I wish I could validate myself for once without it costing me something. But that gnawing in my chest? That is the price.
“How did you live with it?” I ask, my voice cracking. “All those years… how did you just live with what you did to me?”
“I—Skye… please.”
“Don’t beg me,” I cut in. “All I ever wanted was peace.”
But he’s not listening. He never could. He’s incapable of understanding anything beyond the edge of his own despair.
“I know,” he says quietly. “I know I did bad things and—”
“Bad?” I echo. “Mark, you killed me. You condemned my soul.”
He blinks rapidly, like he’s trying to clear a film from his eyes. “Skye, listen—”
“I am.” I tilt my head. “And now you’re going to listen, because this is all I have left to say. And when I’m done, I’ll do what I came here to do.”
Maybe if I say it all—if he’s forced to hear it—maybe that’ll finally end it.
“Please don’t—” he starts.