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“Stop touching me, you monster.” Stomping on him is useless, but I won’t stop. He doesn’t even acknowledge me. “Don’t you dare tie me up. I don’t give a fuck what you say, Sage will go to the authorities.”

James goes on, closing the zip ties around my wrists. His touch is rough, yet he doesn’t hurt me.

I loathe him for it.

If he would hurt me, I could truly despise him like he deserves.

“Hmm. Let’s just say…” My shoulders strain when he lifts my hands. He isn’t pulling on them or anything; it’s me who fights and thrashes. “Stop fidgeting, Sonnet.”

“I’m not a sonnet! Let me go!”

He places a hand between my shoulder blades. “You’ll only end up hurting yourself.”

I refuse to hear the gentleness slipping into his tone. He’s an evil man, a sadistic, delusional psycho. That’s it. I have to stick to that.

I stop resisting him. For the slim chance of ever making it out alive, I need to have my shoulders intact.

“Good girl.”

“Shut up, asshole,” is all I say.

If I weren’t trapped in his hold, I’d run to the nearest wall and slam my forehead against it, again and again, until my brain spilled out. Maybe then, James would finally be gone from my head.

After that, I’d tear open my own chest and rip him out of there too.

That’s how badly I want him out of me. His praise that my pathetic soul clings to. The effect he has on me.

I need to purge him from every part of me.

But I can’t do any of it.

A watery sigh escapes me once the zip ties are finally locked around my wrists, as tight as possible without harming me.

I blink the tears back as best I can. I have to listen to him. The more he talks, the more I have a chance of figuring out exactly what I’m dealing with. How to fight it.

“Sage’s uncle”—she has one, I remember she told me about the esteemed member of the city council—“has dirty secrets caught on camera. We have them.”

My stomach dips when I realize he isn’t lying.

When I connect the dots.

She knew who I was dating all along.

She warned me off Topher in a cryptic manner.

You deserve better, Ophelia.

Don’t settle for someone who doesn’t give you any less than his everything.

There are better men out there. Lots of fish, you know? You could do so much better.

Leave him. Leave him. Leave him.

She tried as best she could.

And I didn’t listen.

“Not to mention…” James’s lips are on my cheek. Hot and alluring.