Total pages in book: 183
Estimated words: 178343 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 892(@200wpm)___ 713(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 178343 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 892(@200wpm)___ 713(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
“Clearly,” I say acidly.
And now she looks over her shoulder at me with an expression like I’ve slapped her.
I hold her stare and her face crumbles. “I don’t know who you are,” she whispers brokenly.
I rise to sitting, twist so I can lean in and cup her jaw with one hand, wrapping my other arm around her. Looking directly into her eyes, I say, “You know who I am, Violet. I’m the man who loves you. It’s just getting clearer.”
“Clearer?”
“Who I am deep down. You’re seeing all the parts of me no one sees. The good parts and the dark parts. You’re seeing that I’m the man who will make someone who hurts you, who hurts us… pay. You’re looking at the man who should’ve been given the chance to start something with you three years ago. I’m the man that saw what that waste of space was doing to you, so I did what I had to do to extract you from that situation. And then I made you mine because getting to know you, I know – down to my gut, baby, that you’re supposed to be mine. And that he not only cheated in a game to fuck me over, but he did that, then took the prize and did his best to ruin it. He got three years with you. Three years hurting you and thinking he had one up on me. So, yeah, I lied to you. Not to hurt you, to protect you. I tried to do things the way you wanted. But then I found out he cheated and I couldn’t let it go. No. Fuck no.” I wet my lips with my tongue. “Yeah, I could’ve let him rot in jail, but that was too good for the likes of him. I tried to let it go because it’s what you wanted and that wasn’t easy, but I tried for you. I did. Honest to God I was trying to be the man you wanted. But when you told me about those coins, Violet, you don’t know what that did to me. What it still does to me.” My body shakes with fury; it still makes me tremble with anger to think on what he got away with. “And where it took me. What kind of hellish-prison my head was until I got my hands on him.”
“Please let go of me.”
“You could’ve been mine three years ago. You could’ve avoided him and his bullshit. Imagine where we’d be by now? I’m making him pay for that.” I caress her face.
“But torture? For weeks and weeks? And rubbing his nose in our happiness? Like… think hard, Killian. Be honest with yourself about why you married me. You did it so you could show him that you could ruin his life and have me for yourself.”
“If you think that, what the fuck?”
She searches my face, eyes filled with pain. I fucking hate this.
“What have you done to him? Did the stuff he said happened really happen? What parts was he exaggerating?”
She waits, relaxing marginally in my arms.
I blow out a breath.
“Tell me. I need to know.”
“You don’t. You already know more than I ever intended.”
“I’m asking you to tell me everything. All of it.”
I drag air into my lungs.
“I have a right to know,” she whispers.
I assess her face a minute, then I do what she’s asked me to do, knowing it’ll make things worse but fuck it, she wants the truth, she can have it.
“Fine. I cracked some ribs. Gave him some bruises. A couple cuts with the tip of a blade.”
She bristles.
“Gunshot to the knee. Half drowned him.” I shrug. “Lots of punches. Slaps. Kicks.”
“Gu-gunshot? A blade?”
I nod.
“How can you be so violent? So nonchalant about that violence?”
“Nothing about that was nonchalant, baby. He’s a piece of shit who hurt you. He took you and fucked you and fucked you over, fucked you up, and-”
“Fucked me up.” A crease forms over her beautiful, sad eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fucked up all right.” She stares into space.
I put my fingertips to my temples and sigh.
“By beating him up, you undo the damage? Really? By keeping him a prisoner? By making him live in whatever filth that smell is?”
“That smell is all him. That putrid smell is the pungency of Raymond Iadanza. He likes to flip fake coins and change peoples’ fates, so I flipped some coins, played some games with him, helping decide his fate.”
“And how does that help un-fuck me? Torturing him helps me? Helps you? How can you live with that on your conscience? How can you do that and then come home to me pretending everything is normal?”
“I live with it just fine,” I say, staring directly into her eyes. “Because he’s paying for what he did. Now, instead of him making you cower when he corners you, I corner him and make him cower. He fucked me with a game? Now I fuck him over with games. He gets to play cards, gamble with dice and coins, just like he likes. Instead of money, he gets to eat or to skip a beating. Or get two beatings.” I shrug.