Panting, my eyes flicker around the room. My phone has fallen off the couch, landing a foot or so away. Arron squeezes my throat. “Speak up.”
My face burns where he struck me. “What… what do you want?”
The words come out pathetically small. Cloying, sticky fear crawls up my throat, my spine, keeping me still as he leans in, close to my face.
Arron’s knee presses down over my legs, keeping me in place. His fingers move up to grip my chin, twisting my head to the side as he inspects me like livestock. “Jesus Christ, look at you. You’re a fucking embarrassment, Lia. You used to have style, at least.”
Breathe. Think.
Burning behind my eyes, as his fingers dig into the scars he put on my skin.
You can fold later. Not now.
My eyes flicker past him. To the lamp on my sideboard. To my bamboo shelves, covered in trinkets.
He’s looking around too. “I mean, seriously. What the hell are these?”
His hand clamps down on my throat as he hauls me up, and I choke beneath his grip. Vision swimming, I kick and claw as he pulls me across the floor. “These are fucking weird.”
My words rasp around his touch. “You didn’t come to look at my shelves.”
He glances at me consideringly. “No. I’m engaged again, you know.”
My body locks up. “Poor woman, whoever she is.”
“Or I will be,” he corrects. “As soon as we fix this little issue. Candice Malcombe. You remember her, don’t you?”
I do. She was the head cheerleader. “Aren’t you just a walking cliché?”
He shakes me by the throat, anger breaking through the polite mask. “Shut up, you little bitch.”
I hit the floor hard.
“Do you know how much you embarrassed me?” He stalks across the floor after me as I scrabble backward. I make a lunge for my phone, but his shoe stamps down over my hand, the bone crunching as I scream.
A kick to my ribs, flipping me onto my back.
“Running away like that.” He straddles me, leaning over to look into my face. “Very inconvenient. We managed to turn it into a good story, of course. Everyone felt so sorry for me, with my cheating whore of a wife. After taking my father’s money too.”
To keep quiet.
And now he’s going to do it to someone else.
I stare up at him, panting. “Trust me, they all know exactly what an abusive asshole you are. They just say it behind your back instead.”
He hits me again. Blood floods my mouth as I turn and spit it out.
“I should drag you back,” he hisses. “But then I’d have to look at you.”
Shrill laughter bubbles out of my mouth. Stabbing pain throbs in my side. “I’m exactly what you made me. And I’d rather die than go back.”
And then I take a breath, throwing myself to the side and dislodging him. Arron lands hard on his side as I scramble to my feet and race to the kitchen, yanking open the drawers.
My shaking fingers grab for the knife—
His hands wrap around my throat as he drags me backward, cutting off my air supply. I claw at Arron’s hands as he lifts, black spots dancing across my vision.
“I know what you’ve been doing.” His tone is even as he drags me across the room. I kick my feet out, knocking into the shelves and sending things crashing to the floor. “You’ve been very busy these last few months, Lia. It wasn’t hard to find out, once I saw your photo. Sloppy, really, appearing in a florist advertisement. As if I wouldn’t be checking.”
