Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
A whimper escapes her throat. Small. Choked off almost immediately.
She's trying so hard to be good.
More wax.
Crack.
The opposite cheek. Symmetry matters.
Another whimper. Louder this time.
I let the wax pool along the wick for a moment, bending down to get it close to her skin, then let it drip. Emmaleen is biting her lip, stifling screams. Tears are running down her cheeks.
I pause, studying the pattern of marks forming across her skin. The way her fingers curl into fists. The tremor running through her legs.
And that's when I hear it.
The voice.
My voice—but not mine. Deeper. Colder. Something that lives in the space between my ribs where my heart should be.
She can take more. You know she can. She wants to prove herself. Let her.
I close my eyes for a split second, willing the voice away.
It doesn't leave.
It never does.
You've been too gentle. She'll think you're weak. Show her what you really are.
My grip tightens on the crop until the leather bites into my palm.
No.
I'm in control here. Not the thing inside me. Not the monster that was forged in a warehouse basement twenty-four years ago, tied to a post, starving, waiting to die.
You are me, the voice whispers. I am you. We are the same.
Crack.
The crop comes down harder this time. Hard enough that Emmaleen cries out—a full-throated sound of pain that she can't suppress.
The mark blooms darker. Angrier.
The candle slips from my hand, sputters and then goes out. Fuck.
That was too much.
I kneel beside her, setting the crop down, reaching out to touch the welt forming on her skin.
She flinches away from my hand.
"I'm sorry," I murmur. "Too hard. I—"
Don't apologize. You're teaching her. She needs to learn.
"Shut up," I mutter.
Emmaleen's head turns slightly, confusion flickering across her tear-stained face. "Sir?"
"Not you. Never you."
I press my palm flat against the worst mark, feeling the heat radiating from her skin. Checking for broken capillaries. Signs of bruising that goes too deep.
It's fine. She's fine.
But I'm not.
The monster is clawing its way up my throat, demanding to be acknowledged. Demanding to be fed.
I stand abruptly, stepping back from her.
She's still restrained. Still waiting. Are you going to leave her like this? Unfinished?
No.
Yes.
I don't fucking know.
I press the heel of my hand against my forehead, trying to push back the memory that's surfacing. The one that always comes when the monster gets too loud.
The warehouse.
Cold concrete beneath my bare feet.
Rope cutting into my wrists.
I was eight years old, and I'd been there for seven days already. Maybe eight. Time blurred after the third day without food.
Rico had been there earlier. I'd recognized his voice even through the hood they'd put over my head.
He was laughing.
Laughing while someone hit me. While I gasped and choked and tried not to cry because crying made it worse.
And then the men were talking.
Voices I didn't recognize. Deep. Rough. Smoking cigarettes that made the air thick and choking.
"The old man confirmed it," one of them said. "No ransom. We're supposed to finish this."
"Salvatore's just gonna let us kill his kid?"
"It's the Bavga way, isn't it? Blood for blood. The aunt fucked Luca over, so now Salvatore gives us the runt. Evens the scales."
A match struck. The smell of sulfur and tobacco.
"Poor bastard probably thinks Daddy's coming to save him."
More laughter.
And that's when I understood.
No one was coming.
My father had given me to them. Offered me up like a lamb to slaughter to settle a debt I didn't even understand.
The hood came off on day ten.
I saw Rico's face clearly for the first time. Saw the cruelty in his eyes. The pleasure he took in watching me suffer.
I saw the gun on the table.
And I knew—with absolute certainty—that if I didn't save myself, I was going to die in that warehouse.
So I dislocated my thumb.
Slipped the ropes.
Shot a man in the hip with his own weapon and ran.
The monster was born in that moment.
The part of me that understands survival requires violence. That trusts no one. That learns to inflict pain before it can be inflicted on me.
The part that my father beat out of me when the police brought me home—because I'd complicated things. Because I'd ruined his precious deal with the LaRiccias.
You survived because of me, the voice reminds me. Because you learned the rules. The real ones. Not the bullshit they teach you in school or church.
Power is the only thing that matters. Control is the only safety.
I open my eyes and look at Emmaleen.
She's still bound. Still waiting. Her body tense with anticipation and fear.
And she's mine now.
Mine to protect.
Mine to keep safe from men like Rico. From families like the LaRiccias who would gut her and dump her body in the river without a second thought.
Mine to punish when she breaks the rules that will keep her alive.
The monster shifts inside my chest, settling into place like a key turning in a lock.