39
FARAH
The door closed behind Prime, and I was alone with him.
Thad.
Prime’s cousin. The quiet one who never said much at family gatherings. The one who always lingered in corners, watching everyone with those flat, empty eyes. I’d been tied to this chair for what felt like days, and he had barely spoken ten words. Just sat on that cot in the corner, watching his laptop, eating takeout, occasionally glancing at me like I was furniture.
Now he was standing over me, a first aid kit in his hands, his face expressionless.
“Gotta clean that up,” he said, nodding toward the bloody hole where my ear used to be. “Prime said not to let you bleed out.”
Prime.
The name sent a fresh wave of pain through me—not from the wound, but from somewhere deeper. Somewhere I had buried all my fantasies about the man I thought I loved.
Prime wasn’t the man I thought he was.
I had spent YEARS wanting him. Obsessing over him. Doing everything I could to make him see me as more than Rashid’s daughter.
I had thrown myself at him at every opportunity. Showed up at his penthouse uninvited. Wore clothes that left nothing to the imagination. Made it clear—embarrassingly clear—that I was available. Willing. Desperate.
And he had rejected me. Every. Single. Time.
But I hadn’t given up. Couldn’t give up. Because in my mind, Prime was everything. The perfect man. Strong. Dangerous. Loyal. The kind of man who would protect me, cherish me, make me feel safe in a world that had never felt safe.
I had convinced myself that he just needed time. That eventually he would see what was right in front of him. That the connection I felt was real, even if he hadn’t acknowledged it yet.
So I did things. Desperate things. Pathetic things.
Like putting that roach in Zainab’s cinnamon rolls.
The memory made me cringe. I had snuck over to Zainab’s table at the gala, waited until she was distracted, and slipped a dead roach inside one of her cinnamon rolls. I wanted to humiliate her. Wanted Prime to see that she wasn’t good enough for him. Wasn’t clean enough, careful enough, worthy enough.
Instead,he had defended her. Comforted her. Looked at her with a tenderness I had never seen him show anyone. And the bitch slapped me!
But still I hadn’t given up.
I planted those panties in his penthouse, hoping Zainab would find them, hoping it would drive a wedge between them.
It hadn’t worked. Nothing had worked.
Because Prime didn’t want me. Had never wanted me. Would never want me.
And now?
Now he had tied me to a chair. Cut off my ear. Sent a photograph of my severed flesh to my father like I was nothing more than leverage.
The man I loved had mutilated me.
Thad pressed an alcohol-soaked gauze to the wound. I hissed at the sting, tears springing to my eyes.
“Hold still,” he muttered.
I tried to focus on the pain. On the physical sensation. Anything to distract from the emotional devastation threatening to swallow me whole.
Prime was a monster. He had always been a monster. I had just been too blinded by my obsession to see it.
