It festered for over twenty-three years.
Xia’s crying registered as she asked in a thin, trembling thread, “Why are you doing this to me?”
Dominic blinked, the present rushing back in.He looked at her—really looked at her—and for a second, he saw himself.
The weak one, the one who needed, and the one who begged.His jaw tightened.He didn’t answer her.Instead, he reached out, his fingers brushing over the bruises blooming on her skin and the marks he had put there.His touch was almost gentle, but there was nothing kind in it.
“Why do women always believe there is a reason behind every action?”he said at last, his voice low, almost thoughtful.“The simple truth is because I can.”He smirked.“Because no one ever says no to me.Not anymore.”
Xia flinched as her breath hitched with fear.
Dominic’s lips curled, but there was no humor in it.Just the cold, hard truth of a man who had spent his life becoming the feared and cruel bastard he was, the direct opposite of what his father believed him to be.Truthfully, He wasn’t really here because of a deeply festered desire to destroy old school friends.That had been an excuse, partly an incentive to push himself harder.No, he was here...because they had fucked him over, destroyed his reputation in the underworld...and for that, he had no mercy.
“And because,” he murmured, leaning in until his breath ghosted over her ear, “Rex loves you.”
“N-No...he doesn’t.”Her sob was soaked in fearful desperation.
Dominic pulled back with an evil laugh and gleaming silvery eyes.“And because I hate him.”
He turned away, leaving her trembling on the cross.He reveled in her tears dripping onto the floor like an offering.
Xia
Xia’s voice was a brokenwhisper scraped raw from the back of her throat.
“Please...don’t—”
Dominic laughed.It was a sound that didn’t belong in this world—wet, guttural, a noise that slithered up from the darkest pits of a man’s soul.His lips peeled back in a grin too wide, too sharp with his teeth glinting like broken glass in the dim light.His shoulders shook, and his breath came in ragged, delighted gasps as if her terror was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.
“Please don’t...what?”he purred, tilting his head like a predator savoring the scent of blood.“Hurt him?”
He moved.One second, he was across the room.The next, he was on her, his hand snapping out so fast she didn’t even have time to flinch before his fingers were digging into her jaw, forcing her head back against the cold metal of the restraints.His grip was brutal, his nails biting into her skin and drawing thin, stinging lines of blood.Whimpering, her body jerked against the ropes, but there was no escape.
His other hand seized her.His fingers curled into the flesh of her breast like claws, squeezing with enough force to make her vision white out.There was no escape.Her mouth opened in a silent, agonized scream.He twisted, grinding the soft tissue beneath his palm, his thumb pressing into her nipple until she gagged on the pain, her eyes rolling back, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
“You’re begging for the wrong one, little slut,” he hissed, his voice a venomous whisper against her ear.His breath was hot, reeking of whiskey.“I don’t give a fuck about Rex’s life.Not like that.I don’t want to kill him.”
He released her breast with a slapping sound.Her flesh throbbed like fuck in the aftermath.His hand slid down, his fingers dragging over the trembling plane of her stomach, leaving trails of fiery scrapes in their wake.She tried to twist away, but the ropes held her fast.Her skin prickled with cold sweat as his touch dipped lower, lower—
“No,” he continued, his voice dripping with dark amusement.“I failed in ruining his career and causing financial failure, so now, I want him to suffer, truly suffer.Because he made a fool of me.ME!He will rot in despair.I want him to wake up every morning for the rest of his miserable fucking life and know he failed you.That he wasn’t there.Thathelet this happen.”
His fingers brushed the inside of her thigh, and she shrieked, her body convulsing, trying to pull away.She couldn’t take it if he fisted her again.God, it hurt so badly.But there was nowhere to go.His grip on her chin tightened, forcing her to meet his gaze—his silver eyes glimmered as cold and empty as a shark’s.
“Beg for yourself,” he snarled, his voice a blade dragging across her nerves.“Because I’m going to make him watch as I fuck you.As I break you.As I carve my name into your skin so deep, he’ll still see it in his nightmares.And when I’m done?”
He leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of her ear as he whispered the vicious, unholy vow.
“Then...I’m going to kill you, Ms.Foster.”
Her breath hitched and her body trembled so violently the cross rattled.
“Slowly,” he murmured, flicking out his tongue to taste the salt of her tears.“So slowly that he’ll hear every second of it.Every scream.Every sob.Every plea.And when it’s over?When you’re nothing but a corpse in his arms?”He pulled back just enough to grin at her, his teeth too white for the darkness within.“That’s when his real suffering begins.”
A choked sound escaped her throat.It was a hollow plea she couldn’t voice.
Dominic’s smile widened.His fingers traced the curve of her hip, then lower, his touch deliberately cruel.
“So go on,” he crooned as his hand slid between her thighs with his breath hot against her skin.“Savor these last few hours.Because tonight?”His fingers dug inside her already torn pussy.Her scream was an imploration which he ignored.“Tonight, you die.”He laughed again.
