He swallowed. “They denied you medical care when you were bleeding. They starved you for days to weaken you. And they forced you into prolonged isolation — cutting off contact, light, and any chance of protection — so you had no one to defend you.”
Ruslan’s eyes darkened, gaze distant as if replaying the scene in his mind’s theater.
“Hearing it made me want to crawl out of my own body. I want to peel my skin away, to suffer the way you suffered. I would trade my life to undo it.”
His voice cracked. “I committed the unforgivable against you, Elena.”
“Would you like to know how I ended Harlan?” When I gave him no response — not even a flicker — he continued anyway.
“I tied that bastard with his head pulled back to his ankles, body arched in a brutal U-shape—naked, exposed, every muscle screaming in protest. His asshole glaring up like a target, vulnerable and pathetic.”
“Then I took a baton—thick, wrapped in thorns I’d harvested from the garden hedges, jagged barbs sharp enough to draw blood on touch—and forced it into his asshole. Slow at first, letting him feel every inch. The thorns ripped into him, tearing flesh with a wet, shredding sound.”
“Blood poured out in rivers—hot, sticky, mixing with mucus and shit as I thrust harder, deeper. He screamed—high-pitched,guttural howls that echoed through the chamber—like his soul was being clawed out.”
“I twisted it, pulled back only to ram it in again, over and over. His anus became a mangled ruin: tissue hanging in bloody strips, internals spilling in a grotesque slurry of gore and waste, blood spraying in arcs with each withdrawal, his body convulsing like a puppet on broken strings, veins bulging in his neck as he begged for mercy that never came.”
“It was the least of what he deserved—for every torment he inflicted on you.”
“For violating you twice: first after your mother’s death, when you were grieving and forced to live under his roof with that spineless wife of his who looked the other way. And second, when you trusted that therapist to heal your scars—only for him to betray you, slipping something into your drink, leaving you helpless as Harlan took what he wanted again.”
My chest caved inward, a hollow ache spreading like ice through my veins.
Ruslan pressed on, his tone hardening with remembered fury.
“Fucking his ass with that thorn-wrapped baton until his anus was unrecognizable—shredded beyond repair, a pulsing mass of raw meat and exposed nerves—was just the beginning.”
“The agony was drawn out, deliberate: He voided himself uncontrollably—bowels emptying in spasms of blood and filth—as his screams turned to whimpers, his body shuddering in shock.”
“In his next life, he won’t even think of sex, let alone forcing it on a woman. He’ll remember the burn, the violation, the endless torment.”
Tears welled at the corners of my eyes—hot, insistent—despite my best efforts to hold them back.
The memories collided like storm waves: twelve years of hell since turning fifteen.
Abandoned, manipulated, tortured, violated—over and over.
Streets that swallowed my youth.
A marriage built on deceit.
Prison cells that stole my voice, my hearing, my child.
“Elena...”
“I don’t need the grotesque details of how you ended Harlan,” I cut in coldly. “It changes nothing. You’re no better. Your revenge speeches don’t justify your sins.”
My voice didn’t rise — but it trembled with restrained fury.
“Hearing about his suffering won’t erase what happened to me. It won’t fix the nights I wake up screaming without making a sound — feeling phantom hands on my skin, prison walls closing in on my lungs.”
I swallowed hard. “It won’t bring back my child.”
I looked him dead in the eye. “So spare me the theatrics. Just open the fucking door... and let me see my sister.”
That was the only thing that mattered.
Ruslan’s expression didn’t shift at first. Cold. Controlled.
