Prologue
It’s not hell if you like the way it burns.
—Winston’s secret thoughts
Winston
“Either do it, or I blow your fucking head off.”
Still, I refused.
“Listen to me and listen to me carefully,” the man that I’d thought was my friend said, placing the gun against my temple. “Do it now, before I have to take drastic measures.”
And somehow, I knew what those drastic measures would be.
He’d been dating my sister, after all.
“Don’t.”
She was going to hate me for this.
She would never forgive me, and I’d spend the rest of my life replaying that look in her eyes as she found out what I’d done.
But it was a choice of either her or him.
And I would choose my sister every time.
“Don’t,” Pippa begged. “Please, don’t do it.”
I looked at my sister, then at my future brother-in-law, and knew.
His pleading eyes, which begged me to do it, were all I needed to see.
“You would’ve been the best brother-in-law ever,” I told him through a broken throat.
I’d been screaming for hours.
For hours, they’d tortured me, waiting for this moment.
I’d been able to resist.
I’d gone through SEALs training. I’d gone through survival training. I’d gone through torture training.
All of that training had led me to this point. I knew I could handle the torture. As long as it was only focused on me or Stanton. Which, at first, it had been.
But with his torture not working, he was going to move on to other things that he knew would work. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Pippa. At least there was that. But he would if I didn’t do what he wanted—removing the man that’d meant the world to my sister—and that time had come.
He would torture Pippa just to force me to make my move.
“Pippa.” I looked at my twin sister. “I love you.”
“Don’t,” she begged. “Please don’t. I can handle it! I can handle it! Please, please don’t. If you ever loved me…”
Sonny gave his signature smile—the smarmy one that won people over and disarmed them—and started to unbutton his pants, and I knew where this would lead.
“Do it.”
Stanton’s sharp order had me looking at him again.
