“No, please, no.” My voice trembles as I lie there helpless.
His hand moves lower, tracing the line of my hip. When his fingers hook into the lace of my underwear, slide inside, and touch my sensitive spot in a circular motion as his other hand cups my jaw, forcing me to look at him, the last thread of my endurance snaps.
All the pretense vanishes in a wave of pure horror.
“STOP IT! GET OFF ME!” A scream tears at my throat.
“Shhh, you’ll like it.” He whispers before biting my ear. I thrash with a strength I didn’t know I had, the ropes digging into the skin.
“Get off me!” I scream.
He flinches back for a second, then his face contorts with a savage, ugly fury.
“Why?” he asks, his voice dropping an octave. “Because I’m not him? Are you still thinking of him?”
“I hate you!” I roar, the truth erupting from me like a volcanic burst. “I’m in love with him! Do you hear me? I love him! Not you. Never you! I will never love you!”
He pins me down, his hands slamming into the mattress on either side of my head, seething. His nostrils flare, his eyes turn into black pits.
“I saved you,” he says, voice shaking from anger. “I killed for you. I threw everything away for you, and you still want that motherfucker?”
I killed for you.
My stomach turns, the world momentarily freezing as a piece of the past finally slots into place.
The night of the attack.
The way the gunmen seemed to enter our home so easily.
“Killed for me?” I repeat in a terrified whisper.
I look into his eyes, searching for the lie, but I only find a dark, gleaming pride. His lips twitch to one side. “It was you. Mateo. You were the reason he was killed. You set it up.”
Julian doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t even look ashamed. He tilts his head to the right, his left hand wrapping around my throat.
“He was a distraction,” he says, “He was never going to let you go. He would have kept you hidden in that pathetic penthouse forever. I had to make sure that when the time came, you could run to me.”
“You monster,” I scream once again, the grief comes back fresh and agonizing, mixing with the terror. “You murdered him. And you let me cry in your arms!”
“I did it for us!” His voice bellows, grip tightening around my throat, slowly cutting my oxygen.
“You’re sick!” I snap, my voice cracking through the tears.
Julian’s face twists into something unrecognizable.
“You think Damiano still wants you?” he snarls. “You think he’ll find you beautiful after I’m done with you?”
I twist, I kick, I pull at the ropes until my wrists feel like they’re being flayed alive. I scream until my throat bleeds, but he doesn’t stop. He pins my head back so hard my neck feels like it will snap.
He forces his mouth onto mine in a disgusting attempt at a kiss.
I bite down—hard, until I taste his blood.
He growls, pulling back and wiping his mouth. The look in his eyes isn’t obsession anymore—just pure hatred.
“Puta,”he hisses.
Then he swings.
