Chapter 9
Precision as Penance
Summer
Ididn’t sleep last night. I couldn’t. Not with the phantom weight of him pressed against me. Not with the ache between my legs—shameful, raw, unresolved. Not after what he did.
He’d hurt me when he threw me on the table.
He stripped me but didn’t fuck me. Still—some wicked, secret part of me had been thrilled.
The weight of him. The smell of bourbon and leather.
The scrape of his tongue against me. He made me want it.
Made me want more. That’s what kept me awake—not the bruises.
The wanting. The part of me that hated him for it, even as I lay there, spread wide for him, and wanted more.
Since moving here, I’d convinced myself it was only a matter of time before he took everything from me—that one day he’d push past every boundary I had left.
But he didn’t. Even when my hips raised for him, even when his name slipped out like a plea, he held that line.
My body begged, ached, pleaded for more, but he didn’t cross it.
And now shame and hunger coil together in my blood until I can’t tell them apart.
I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling until the plaster blurs, trying to breathe around him—around us.
Benny’s face keeps breaking through. His voice, his hands, the way he looked at me like I wasn’t already ruined.
Like I was still soft. Still whole. I tried to hold onto that.
But every time I thought of Benny’s hands, I felt Jacob’s.
The contrast makes my stomach turn, but it also makes my thighs clench.
I don’t want this. I don’t want to want this. And that’s why I have to leave.
I’m starting to feel things I never thought I would. My body has started craving his attention, and after last night, if I don’t get out soon, I probably never will.
He’s in my mind constantly. His features, his smile, his scowls, the strength in his jawline, the way it shifts when he clenches his teeth at the sight of me. The hatred I feel for him burns inside me, but the what-ifs are creeping in deep.
Maybe if I can get out for even an hour, I’ll prove to myself I’m not as far gone as I feel.
I creep into the kitchen at 5:30 a.m. The house is quiet. I feel like it’s watching me. My bare feet whisper across the wood, and I move through the dark. If he asks why I’m awake, I’ll lie. I’ve gotten good at lying.
My head hurts.
It’s not a lie. My scalp throbs where he banged my head onto the table. I’m certain there will be a bruise blooming under my curls. A mark that proves he owns me, even when he’s not touching me.
I set the table. Fork to the left. Knife to the right. Glass behind the plate.
It’s ritual now—precision as penance. I slice the bread. Crack the eggs. Fry the bacon low and slow. The smell curls around me like smoke—thick, domestic, unreal. I tell myself I’m surviving. But deep down, I know what this is.
I’m performing. Preparing the stage. Playing the role he wrote for me.
Once, I imagined killing him. A slow dose of poison.
A silent cup of coffee. But Sheriffs don’t die quietly.
They’d investigate. They’d dig. And they’d find out I hated him.
That I wanted out. That I’d once told a friend I felt trapped.
That my bruises weren’t accidents. That my smile didn’t reach my eyes.
They’d make me the monster. And I’d trade one prison for another.
At least here, I get the porch. A book. A few hours of sun before the storm returns.
So I won’t kill him. Because I can’t.
Upstairs, the bed creaks. A door slams and I know he’s headed to the bathroom.
I have minutes. Maybe five. Maybe less. I flip the bacon. Wipe the counter. Rehearse my lines.
Hey, I couldn’t sleep. My head’s hurting.
I lower my shoulders. Adjust my expression. Keep my lips loose. Keep my eyes empty.
The stairs creak. A warning in every echo of his footsteps. Then he’s there—leaning in the doorway, shirt half-buttoned, his jaw taut with sleep. His eyes look at me with more heaviness than usual. He knows what he did last night. He knows he broke something in me that I can’t get back.
“You’re up early.” His voice is thick. Rough. Suspicious.
I turn to face him. I always turn to face him.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I say softly. “My head’s hurting.”
He crosses the room slowly—like a tide rising whether you want it or not. I brace.
He lifts his hand, touching the side of my head—right where the bruise lives under the skin. His thumb moves in slow circles across my scalp. Too soft. Too warm. Too wrong.
“I don’t like hurting you, Summer,” he says, voice low and almost soft.
But I know it’s a lie. I can see it in his eyes—the flicker of satisfaction he tries to bury, the way he watches me fight to hide the pain he’s inflicted. Still, this is the first time anything resembling remorse has slipped past his lips—the first crack in the mask he’s so carefully worn.
He presses a kiss to the crown of my head. Not for comfort. The words don’t register as regret. They sound like a reminder. A message.
“You made me do it.”
And still—beneath the fear, the loathing, the resentment—I want.
My body is still wet from the memory of how badly I wanted him last night.
How he made me burn for him. I want to hate him and only hate him, but my heartbeat still kicks when he touches me—the pulse radiates through my core and gathers at the apex of my thighs.
I don’t know what scares me more: what he did last night or how much I wanted him to do more.
I need to remember who I was before this house, before his hands, before he made me want things I didn’t know I could hate myself for wanting.
He tosses back the rest of his coffee, leaving his breakfast barely touched.
“I’m in the office all day,” he says, voice clipped, casual—like he’s just another man with a desk job and a quiet life. “Paperwork’s crawling up my ass. If you need anything, call me.”
As he moves past, his fingers drag slowly across my shoulder before the door clicks shut behind him.
It’s 7:30 a.m. The same as every morning. But he feels different. Softer. Stranger. Like he’s trying on a mask he hasn’t worn before. Like he’s rehearsing being a doting gentleman, and I’m the little wife he’s leaving at home.
I drain the last of my coffee and slip into his leather chair—the one I’ve never dared to touch. It creaks under me, holding his shape, his scent. His throne. For a moment, it feels like defiance. For a moment, I feel like I have claws.
I think about the night he came for me—how calm he’d been as he walked into my family home to take me away.
How steady. How unshakeable. He’s overstepped a hundred lines since then, crossed boundaries until I didn’t know where mine ended and his began.
But last night—he didn’t go further. He didn’t take the last thing.
Why?
I press my palms to my thighs, fingers digging into the bruises he left, grounding myself.
I need help. I need someone to talk to. But Mama and Papa won’t listen.
I think, deep down, they already know what Jacob is—and how deep his obsession with me goes.
They also know he’s safer than Jackson’s men.
I’ve thought about trying to run again, but the reality is, I have nowhere to go. I understand that now.
At least not until Blackwood opens. I’m stuck here. Six more months. Six months of performing. Six months of surviving. I just have to stay sane long enough to leave.
Tears prick my eyes, sending a burning sensation to the back of my nose. I am so totally lost—totally confused—that I don’t even know who I am anymore.
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.
Get a fucking grip, Summer.
I set the empty mug down and head upstairs.
In the mirror, the old bruises on my wrists have shifted to a sickly yellow—fading but still ugly.
I turn to check my thighs. The sight makes me flinch—the bruise he caused at Dogwood is the shape of his large hand, finger marks deep purple.
My fingers brush over them and a flash of memory sparks—the dance with Benny.
I dig through the wardrobe until I find a pair of black joggers and a gray tee. I scrape my hair into a messy bun, as if changing the way I look will change what I am.
I lean over the basin, brushing the coffee and the morning out of my mouth. When I straighten up, the mirror is still there, still holding the stranger who looks like me. I try to imagine what I would tell another woman standing where I am. What advice I’d give. The only answer that comes is blank:
I don’t know.
This knot is too tight for anyone to untangle. If I can’t pick my own lock, what chance does anyone else have?
My lips part and I hear myself whisper it, like an incantation:
I’m going to see Constance and Adelaide.
Jacob won’t like it. But then, he rarely likes anything I do. Seeing my girls—seeing the pieces of my old self reflected back at me—is worth the punishment. Worth the risk. Worth whatever he does after.
Maybe he’ll go easy. Maybe not. If last night proved anything, it’s that he’s capable of restraint—but restraint can be another kind of cruelty.
I head downstairs and slide my feet into my sneakers, the laces biting into my fingers as I tie them.
I pull on one of Jacob’s hoodies. It’s huge on me, but it protects me from the cold bite in the air.
A small, reckless smile threatens my lips at the thought of stepping outside alone, wearing something that belongs to him.
If one of his deputies stops me, I already know my script: I’m going to see my friends.
Jacob wouldn’t risk his mask slipping too much. He wouldn’t order his men to drag me back from something so harmless—surely. For that, he’d have to come himself. And on what grounds?
I open the door. Step onto the porch.