I’m a fucking crime scene. My skin is a map of his ownership—purple thumbprints on my throat, red welts on my thighs, and the sticky, drying salt of his come matting the hair between my legs. I look down at the thin trail of blood snaking toward my knee and feel a wave of nausea so violent it makes my head spin.
Ihate her. I hate the way her eyes look glazed and hungry even now. I hate the way her mouth is swollen from his cock. Most of all, I hate that I’m still vibrating from the way he destroyed me.
You’re nothing, I tell the reflection. You’re just a hole for him to bury his rage in.
The silence of the room starts to scream. It hums with the memory of the wet slaps and my own pathetic, begging moans. The shame isn’t just a feeling; it’s a physical weight, a leaden sludge filling my veins until I can’t breathe.
“God, I hate you!” I shriek at the mirror.
I don’t think. I just move. I grab a heavy crystal decanter from the vanity and hurl it with every bit of shattered strength I have left.
The sound of the impact is a goddamn explosion. The mirror doesn’t just crack; it spiderwebs and bursts, sending silver-backed shards raining down like jagged snow. One piece slices across my forearm, but I don’t even flinch. I throw myself into the wreckage, collapsing onto the floor amidst the broken glass.
I’m a heap of raw meat and sobbing lungs. I curl into a ball, the glass biting into my palms and knees, but the physical pain is a relief compared to the rot in my chest. I cry until my throat is raw, great, ugly heaves that shake my entire frame. I’m surrounded by a thousand broken versions of myself, each one uglier than the last.
“Well, well. Look at this. A regular modern art installation.”
The voice is like a splash of ice water. I freeze, my breath catching in a hitching sob.
Peter is leaning against the doorframe, a fresh glass of bourbonin one hand and a bundle of black industrial zip-ties in the other. He looks immaculate, his shirt back on but unbuttoned, his eyes scanning the carnage with a lazy, razor-sharp wit.
He walks over, the glass crunching under his heavy boots—a sound like bones snapping. He kneels beside me in the shards, seemingly indifferent to the danger, and tilts his head.
“Really, Darling? The mirror?” He tuts, reaching out to catch a tear on his thumb. “A bit cliché, don’t you think? I expected more original drama from you. If you wanted to see less of yourself, you could have just turned out the lights. Or closed those big, pathetic eyes.”
“Leave me alone,” I choke out, flinching away from his touch.
“Now why would I do that when you’ve gone to all this trouble to set the stage?” He smirks, and the cruelty in it is breathtaking. “Look at you. Bleeding on the marble, surrounded by your own shattered ego. You look like a fallen angel who realised she actually likes the taste of dirt.”
He grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him. His eyes are mocking, bright with a terrifying intelligence. “You’re crying because you realised you enjoyed it, aren’t you? You’re crying because the monster didn’t just break you—he made you look. And you liked what you saw.”
“I hate you,” I whisper, the words wet and weak.
“I know. It’s the only honest thing about you.” He stands up, and before I can react, he hooks his arms under mine and hoists me up. I cry out as a shard of glass falls from my skin, leaving a fresh sting.
He doesn’t carry me gently. He hauls me toward the bedroom, my feetdragging, my body limp. He tosses me onto the massive, dark bed. The silk sheets feel like ice against my raw back.
“You’ve had your little tantrum,” he says, his voice losing its wit and turning back into that terrifying, flat command. “Now it’s time to remind you that you don’t get to break things in this house. Not even yourself. Only I get to do that.”
He grabs my wrists and yanks them above my head, pinning them against the heavy iron headboard. The cold plastic of the zip-tie brushes against my skin.
Zip.
The sound is final. He cinches it tight—too tight—cutting into my wrists. He does the same to my ankles, stretching me out until I’m a taut, vulnerable X across the bed.
He steps back, looking at his handiwork, and takes a slow sip of his bourbon.
“There,” he murmurs, his eyes roaming over my bleeding, bound, and broken form. “Now you can’t run. You can’t hide. And you definitely can’t smash any more of my property.”
He crawls onto the bed, hovering over me like a shadow.
“The night is still young, Wendy. And I haven’t even started on the parts of you that still feel like they belong to you.”
The zip-tiesbite into the bone of my wrists, a sharp, plastic reminder that my body isn’t a temple anymore—it’s a crime scene. I’m stretched so tight across the mattress that every breath feels like a struggle, my chest heaving, my ribs standing out like white bars against my skin.
Peter doesn’t say a word. He just sets his glass down on the nightstand and crawls over me, his weight settling between my pinned thighs. He looks down at the thin, red lines where the glass carved into my skin, and his eyes darken with a look that makes my blood turn to liquid lead.
“You’re a mess, Wendy,” he whispers, his voice a low, vibrating hum. “Bleeding for me. Crying for me. Breaking for me.”
