Fuck it hurts so bad.
This wasn’t the first time he had beaten me over something he believed I’d done wrong, but it was one of the worst.
My reflection stared back at me, once again bruised and battered beyond recognition. A swollen cheekbone. A split lip. My eye was swollen shut. I touched it, wincing from the pain. But I realized those weren’t the only injuries I had. I reached between my legs, grimacing at the pain. I looked at my fingertips covered in blood and cum.
Another one of the things he liked to do while I was unconscious.
My breath fogged the glass. I watched as the vapor faded then came back again. Proof that I was still here even though I wished he’d killed me, so I didn’t have to go through this again. Although it was sad to say, there would be next time.
Maybe I should do it myself?
I gripped the counter tighter, trying not to fall as a wave of dizziness moved through me. My head and face throbbed. The ache in my ribs pulsed with each breath I took. The burn between my legs was unbearable. I wanted to cry. But the tears wouldn’t come.
“I’m fine,” I whispered. “I’m going to be fine.”
However, the woman staring back at me didn’t even believe me. She’d been through this too many times to believe my lies.
Since I couldn’t change anything, I shuffled to the shower, hoping the water would wash away everything. I just needed to get the blood off. Wash away the brutality of tonight.
The moment I turned the shower on, the heat from the water warmed the room. Gingerly, I stepped into the shower, but because of the excruciating pain there was no way I could stand. So, I slid down the shower wall until I was seated on the floor. The tile beneath me was cold, but I didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. I couldn’t. I felt so hollow, like I was nothing more than a shell of my former self.
The scolding hot water burned my skin, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t move so I rested my head against the shower wall with my knees drawn to my chest, and my arms wrapped around them like I could hold myself together. The dress I wore to dinner was soaked, the material stuck to me and became see-through. The bruises to my ribs throbbed with each breath but it was the loneliness that hurt more.
I couldn’t tell anyone about this. There was no one to help me. And at that moment, it didn’t matter if crying wouldn’t help. It didn’t matter that it would be painful as hell because I couldn’t stop the sob ripping from my throat.
Above me, the showerhead hissed, its steady stream creating a white noise that filled the steamy air. It masked my cries, muffled them into something I didn’t hear despite the intense pain.
My hair stuck to face in wet strands. I didn’t even bother to push them away as I stared at the drain, watching the water swirl, pink at first, then clear. My breaths came in shallow bursts, each one an intense battle. The pain was too loud, too deep. It eclipsed everything. As my vision narrowed, my body fell over until my head laid against the wet tiled floor of the shower.
All I wanted to do was sleep and never wake up again. So, I closed my eyes, praying that this was the end.
Chapter Nine
Sergio
“Dorian just left. But I think I heard screams.”Finley’s words on the other end of the phone made my blood run cold.
After their argument, then after the conversation I overheard with Phoenix, I didn’t wait. Yeah, I gave up my relationship with Rachel, but that was insignificant. I needed answers from Seraphina. And if her answers included anything like what I thought they would, fuck Dorian Drakos. I would fucking kill him, gut him like a pig, then hang up his mutilated corpse in the streets of Santorini for his entire family to see.
I made sure Kai disabled the security system before I broke into her home. Did he try to stop me? Of course he did. Kai never liked Seraphina. He always considered her a distraction from mytrue purpose—taking over the Puglisi family with him and Finley by my side. That was one of the reasons I left his ass in the States and brought Finley with me on this trip. I didn’t need to hear his constant complaints about her and my obsession with her. Finley kept his mouth closed even if he agreed with Kai at times. They both had been the only people I considered friends. And they were the only people who knew the true depths of my feelings for her. However, only Kai had the balls to say what he thought about Seraphina. You think after all these years he’d realize I didn’t give a fuck what he thought.
When I slipped through the doors of their patio on the ground floor, it was eerily quiet. Even though it was dark, I could see that everything was either crisp white, soft creams, with accents of cobalt blue or terracotta. The whitewashed walls had built in sofas with linen cushions that hugged the curves of the room and arched alcoves displayed handmade ceramics and beach themed art. It was like Gianni and Phoenix’s home and nothing like what Seraphina liked.
As I placed my hand on the cool, curved wall while climbing the stairs, the distinct sound of water cascading nearby reached my ears. As I made my way up the curved staircase, carved from pale stone, the recessed lighting created a soft ambient glow allowing me to see the way.
When I reached the landing, the space opened up. The space was large enough to have two armchairs flanking a large arched window that gave a magnificent glimpse of the night and the Aegean Sea.
The sound of water got louder, coming from a door that stood slightly open. I heard nothing other than water, so I stepped inside the room. Moonlight streamed through the arched windows, its silver glow highlighting the destroyed room.
“Motherfucker,” I mumbled as fear and rage surged through me.
A shattered ceramic lamp lay in pieces across the carpeted floor, its base smeared with something dark. The bed covers were laying on the floor at the end of the bed. And a small blood stain and a clump of hair lay not too far from the broken lamp.
“Sera?” I called out her name so I wouldn’t scare the shit out of her. “It’s Sergio.”
She’d be pissed I was in her home, but at least she would know it was me and not some random intruder looking to hurt her.
When she didn’t respond, my heart sank to my gut.
