“No,” I whisper, sickness balling in my stomach, reminding me of all the terrible things that’ve happened.
“Denying it?” When I don’t reply, he catches a handful of my shirt and pulls me off the couch. “Answer me.”
My stomach flips upside down, and fear takes over as he glares down at me. “Please, Milton. He was going to—”
“Don’t beg,” he rumbles. “Begging will get you nowhere with me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Always the victim. Don’t you get tired of listening to yourself?”
It angers me when hot tears splash down my face. My arms pathetically flail in an attempt to push him away, but his grip on my shirt only tightens.
I give up. “Do you think I care what you’re going to do?”
“You should.” Letting go, he grabs my wrist and tugs me over to a different door. I pull against him, not knowing what to think as he shoves me inside a small room with just enough space for a double bed. There are no blankets or pillows, only a mattress covered with a black sheet.
Black candles light up the room, and as shadows flicker across the stone walls, everything inside of me screams that it’s time to run.
“Sit,” he orders, flinging me toward the bed. I cry out, my stomach colliding with the mattress. He’s never been so rough with me, and my insides hurt at his malice. He stands at the mouth of the door, thunder in his eyes, like when he killed that man at the restaurant. “Revenge sounds too sudden. You fucked me over, so it would only be fair to fuck with you.”
“You know how bad Nick was getting. He was going to kill Nicole if I told the truth. That he was—”
“Unbelievable.” He shakes his head. “You saved a sister who not only locked you in a cage but threw away the key herself. You can’t get any more pathetic than that.”
“I know you wouldn’t understand. I bet you haven’t a single person you care about in your life. You only saw a half of what Blake and Nick did to me. You have no idea all I’ve been through.”
“I know, alright.”
“No, you don’t. You’re a man,” I spit venomously. “Nothing ever destroys a man.”
“Oh, but men can be destroyed,” he says, jaw hardening. “Then again, I expected as much given we both know how self-centered you are. A poor, fucking princess.”
“I’m…I’m not.” I glance down at my lap, losing the defiance. The fight. Just get it over with.
Stepping forward, he grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. I avoid eye contact, not wanting to see his anger toward me anymore. “You care too much about the people who don’t give a shit about you.”
This time, my eyes flicker up to his, and my belly stupidly flutters at his fingers beneath my chin. But they die when he grabs my wrist and pushes me back onto the bed.
Climbing over me, he picks up something I can’t see until he’s wrapping it around my wrist. That’s when my eyes bulge at the leather cuff he’s strapping me down with. One that’s attached to the bed with a thick metal chain.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” I reach over to fight him, but he grabs me quickly and closes another cuff around my other wrist, trapping me in. “Milton. Take them off!” I pull against them, but it only hurts, and it seems like the heat in the room has intensified. “I can’t… I can’t breathe.”
“That’s better,” he says, getting off me just before I can kick him in his groin.
“Let me out. I’m going to…” I’m going to faint. The coldness of unconsciousness threatens to drag me under, settling on the back of my tongue.
“But seeing you like this pleases me. Given I almost had what I was looking for until you ruined it, years’ worth of work destroyed, and now you’ll pay for it.”
He stops by a table, and leaning over, blows out multiple candles at once. My heart explodes in a frenzy of harsh beats as he blows out more candles. Then another. Two more. He’s doing it slowly, dramatically, because he knows I hate the dark. The bastard knows.
“Milton, please… You know how it was in there. I didn’t think they’d send you to the Hill.”
“Bullshit.” He puts out another candle, and I pull against the restraints, twisting my wrists, yelping with pain when they cut me.
Another flame dies, smoky wax filling the air around me, smothering me. I choke on my tears as he blows out two more candles. With each candle he distinguishes, the room darkens, the shadows creeping in. Tears pour down the sides of my face, despair seeping in like poison. “It’s true. How can I prove that to you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t feel like letting you out.” Another candle goes out, and he’s down to the last few. “It’s not just what you did. The problem that lies between you and me is a different entity altogether, and you fucking know it.”
My bottom lip shakes. “Don’t leave me in the dark.”
“Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t?” He lingers by the last few lit candles that shroud half his face in shadow.
“You know I hate the dark.”
“I know.” He blows out the last candles, and I’m plunged into absolute darkness.
“Milton!” I scream as the door opens brief enough for me to see him leave. He doesn’t look back as he walks out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Leaving me alone in the darkness I hate.
Hours tick by. I don’t know how many to be sure, but I know I’ve been here for a long time. As Milton walked away, I screamed and yelled and begged him to let me out.
He didn’t come back, not even
