Chapter 1
ISABELLA
“I’msorry,Princess.Ididn’t mean to wake you.”
It’shim.
He’s here.
He’s back.
No, no, no, this is wrong. This is all wrong.
He left me, and he didn’t say goodbye. He promised me that we would always be together, andhe left. What is he doing here? Why is he here? Why—
Bile lurches up my throat as I spot the crimson splatter crawling up the wall, pooling on the wooden floor and painting his skin with the poisonous color. I’ve seen him stained with red, smelling like iron and danger, but never like this. Not with drops freckling around his steel eyes and dripping from his dark hair.
The liquid glistening from his black gloves and matting his shirt is a haunting contrast to the bloody knife in one hand and, in the other, a mask with bright red crosses through the eyes that watch my every move. Stitched lips stuck in a taunting smile dare me to make a sound.
I wish I had never come down from my room and ignored the cries of terror.
A scream catches in my throat, choking me, but I can’t look away from the mutilated fingers spread across the dining table. Or the pink concoction trailing down the side of Greg’s face, coloring the duct tape over his mouth.
Or the welts marring his body.
Long, angry red lines, two inches wide, crisscross over his arms and legs, some breaking skin. I would recognize those marks anywhere. I know how much each slash would have hurt.
This was done with a belt.Greg’sfavorite belt.
The same belt that’s wrapped around his throat, turning his face a deadly shade of purple.
Hedid this.
Roman did this.
Greg was a piece of shit who deserved whatever was coming for him, but notthis. The man who housed me for the past four years is—was—a functioning alcoholic who had no issues with tormenting his foster child, and letting his son, Marcus, play along in abusing me.
Slowly—so slowly, Roman sheaths the knife to his thigh and places the mask on the table, as if I am a frightened animal that might spook at a sudden movement.
“Go back upstairs. I’ll come to get you once I’m done.”
The deep timbre of his voice vibrates through every crevice of my being, commanding my attention. I slap a hand over my mouth to suppress a sob as I stagger back.
He’s real.
He’s actuallyreal.
This isn’t some deranged dream. It takes everything in me not to retch. He was never meant to come back after he tore my heart from my chest and handed me to the wolves to feast on.
After twenty years, I’ve finally proven to myself that I can live without him. He’s shown me that he was nothing more than a tortured soul I grew up with because, in the end, he left.
Three years ago, to the day, he showed me that I was no one. That’s what hurts the most, because he wasn’t just anyone; he was everything to me. He was every smile that curved my lips, every laugh that rattled my chest, every dream that didn’t end in tears.
Everything meant nothing when compared to him.
But to him,Iwas nothing.
Roman sidesteps to block my view, but there’s no unseeing the damage he’s done to Greg… And Marcus.Oh God.
