Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 115400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Clenching my jaw, my mind immediately takes me back to the surveillance footage I saw from Chiara’s room, of Sergiu making himself welcome and violating her. While I know that pales in comparison to what happened to her here, he was the root of this. Monica doesn’t have the brains or connections to pull this off, but she will still die for her part in it. Sergiu, however, he’s going to wish he never crossed me, never put his hands on my girl or orchestrated her abduction.
He’s going to wish he were already dead.
“I promise you, Chiara. Sergiu and Monica will pay for what they’ve put you through,” I tell her. “I already have a team working on their location.”
“Good,” she finally says, allowing the exhaustion to claim her. “Then take me home. I need a bath, and after that, I intend to spend the rest of my life in your arms,” she tells me. “I belong with you, Killian. Right here at your side, and I don’t care how many times you try to push me away for my own wellbeing, I’m not going anywhere. You can’t make me. I love you, and though I know we didn’t make vows or have some elaborate wedding, it changes nothing. I’m your wife, and I fully intend to keep being your wife.”
“I’m not pushing you away, Chiara. I’m taking you home to my bed, and that’s where you’re going to stay.”
“About time,” she says, and with that, she slips into the back of my SUV and curls up on the seat, more than ready to live the rest of her life as the only woman I’ve ever seen.
34
CHIARA
The sweet sound of Ezekiel’s screams is like music to my ears as I watch my husband take his fingers one by one. “You should have heeded Chiara’s warning,” Killian chides, snapping the garden clippers closed and watching as his pinky finger falls to the ground. “When a woman tells you she is married to the most powerful man in the country, only a fool would assume that is an invitation to fuck her.”
Ezekiel cries out, sobbing so much that snot falls into his mouth, and I cringe, wondering why I was so afraid of him. Next to Killian, I’ve never seen such a pathetic little man, and yet, this misery of a man held power over me. But never again.
“Please,” Ezekiel begs as blood pours from his hand, pooling on the ground beneath. “I swear, I didn’t know. I never would have touched her.”
Using the garden clippers, Killian backhands him, and I watch as teeth fly from Ezekiel’s mouth, shattering against the wall of the cell. “Are you calling my wife a liar?”
“No. NO!” he panics, his eyes desperately flicking between me and Killian. “I knew. She told me, and I—”
“You what, Ezekiel?” Killian prompts in a tone that makes my skin crawl, but fuck, I love it so much. “And I suggest you be honest with me, otherwise, I’ll keep you here for years, replaying the same torture over and over again.”
Ezekiel frets, his whole body shaking as blood dribbles from the corner of his mouth. “She told me she was yours and that you’d kill me when you found out she was being sold again, and I said—” he pauses, and knowing exactly what he said, I can’t blame him for his hesitation. Once those words are out of his mouth, he’s a fucking goner. “I said that if you were gonna kill me anyway, I might as well get something out of it.”
Killian moves like lightning. One minute the clippers are in his hand, angling toward the next finger, and the next, the handles are protruding from Ezekiel’s stomach, the tip buried so deep I can’t even tell what type of tool it is.
Ezekiel roars in agony, the sound of his pain mirroring the cries of his guards coming from the adjoining cells, and I’m not going to lie, most of the brutality I’ve seen today has had me nodding along in excitement, but even this one has me cringing.
“Damnnnnnn,” I groan.
Killian turns and meets my stare, his brow raising as a stupid grin stretches across his face, and for the first time since meeting him in that terrifying auction house, he’s giving me golden retriever vibes. “You like that one, Angel?”
I can’t help but grin back at him. “That was messed up, even for you,” I tell him. “Just one more inch and he would have swallowed it whole.”
“That’s what I was going for, but my hand was in the way,” he says as Ezekiel groans behind him. “You’re welcome to give it a go if you think you can do better.”
My gaze shifts to Ezekiel, taking a moment to consider what kind of revenge I would find the sweetest, but when it comes down to it, I’ve always been an eye-for-an-eye kind of girl. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as though I’m going to violently ram a dildo up his ass for an hour straight. The more brutal punishments I’m happy to leave for Killian, but everything else . . . I don’t see why I shouldn’t enjoy taking part.