“What?” he slurred.
“When I asked you before about how you’d feel if someone did that to Gracie, you didn’t answer me. Why?”
“I don’t know, babe. You can’t seriously think I would let anyone hurt her.” He turned to me briefly.
He was a big man, but right now, he was vulnerable. He’d had too much to drink and could barely keep himself upright. It was at that moment I decided I would leave nothing to chance. This was my husband, the father of my child, and he’d proven to me he was not worthy of those titles.
Those girls didn’t deserve what he did to them. They’d been stolen, abused, and tarnished for the pleasure of psychopaths like Malcolm Morgan. They didn’t have a future, so why should he have one? Why should I play along with his sick games? I was tired of living his happy-family fiasco.
He showed no remorse and no mercy.
I grabbed the stone pestle out of the mortar on the counter beside me, the cold stone heavy in my grasp. I held onto it tightly.
“We should go to bed.” He yawned.
I had to act quickly. Maybe I would scare Mal, run out of here and get Gracie from my sister’s house, and we’d flee. I could get some help. I had a lot of contacts. Before I could think things through, I slammed the heavy item onto his head.
He let out an excruciating howl. “Fuck!”
He tried to grab hold of me, but I was quicker and slammed it into his head again. He fell hard on the tiled floor. “Lis—”
“I wish I could unsee it all, Mal. But I can’t.”
He struggled, holding onto his head and gasping, trying to get words out. I straddled him, and before he could gain some strength, I slammed the stone into his head again. Blood splashed everywhere. I looked at the blood-covered pestle covered in his hair, then dropped it. The heavy stone landed with a loud thud on the floor.
I could no longer see Malcolm. In his place was the girl he’d bound and raped on the ground as she begged for her family, begged to be set free.
That girl could be Gracie if I didn’t stop this monster. That could bemy little girl. A mother out there was crying for her child while she was being tortured.
I grabbed a knife from the counter, wrapping my bloody hands around it.
“I loved you,” I shouted at him. “I gave you all I was. I trusted you.” I drove the knife deep into his chest. I felt the skin break and the bones cracking beneath my fingers. His mouth and eyes finally opened as blood spilled from his mouth. There was no sound. His eyes were fixed on me.
I saw his filthy hands on the child.
I saw Gregory as he laughed while his friend defiled her before him.
I heard her screams, and for every one of those, I slammed that knife into him over and over again until there was no life left. Then I slashed his face because I could not stand to see its perfection anymore.
When I stood, that was when the realization hit me.
There were footsteps upstairs.
I was not alone.
She’dprobably come home when we were out.
She wasn’t supposed to be here,I shouted in my head.
ChapterThirty-One
Alyssa
Present Day
He’d listened to me attentively, not interrupting me once. I told him I’d found red ribbons in Mal’s drawer and the one in Gracie’s hair was proof that it was some kind of mark of theirs. I told him about the vile recordings, the degrading acts they performed on those girls, who all wore red ribbons.
The thought of the abuse they were suffering, if they were even alive wherever they were trapped, made bile rise to my throat. Those men were monsters. They derived pleasure from the pain they inflicted on others. There was no doubt those girls were underage.
