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Hot tears roll down my face, the pain too much—fuckingsearing, like he tore through to the bone. “Screw you,” I hiss, willing to stand between this monster and Pace. The man who killed for me. The man who, I know, will kill for our son. “No wonder my mother never wanted you to know about me.”

The response I get is the sound of the whip slicing through the air, the third lash both lesser and worse. The pain of it blends with the others into an inferno that tears a gnashed cry from my throat. My cheeks must be wet, but I can’t feel it. I can’t feel anything that isn’t the pain and sting.

“Your mother was a whore,” he barks.

My body quakes when I scream, the sound wet and twisted. “And my father was a pathetic rapist!”

I brace for the fourth strike—surely the worst to come—but instead hear a resounding bang. My mind rushes to the thought of Pace escaping Thad’s restraints, and when I hear the whip meet a target, I flinch instinctively.

But it doesn’t land on me.

The grunt that follows is deep and familiar.

Turning my head, I see a flash of auburn hair, and then a hand wrapped around the handle of the whip, battling his father for control. His amber eyes are murderous pits of black, lips pulled back in an animalistic snarl, and when he raises his fist at Ashby, some part of me recognizes it as protection.

The next crack isn’t the whip at all.

It’s Lex’s knuckles, connecting with Ashby’s jaw.

24

Lex

It’s beena while since I punched someone.

No one with my ambitions would risk their hands—an instrument of the finest precision—but the sight of the whip slicing into her flesh wipes all logic from my mind.

I see red as I rush across the room, my vision zeroed in on his shadowed face. I’ve been in that same position she is now, doubled over, body swelling with a sound I refuse to make, only now that I find myself outside of it, everything comes as naturally as breathing.

I barrel at him like a frenzied, wild thing.

There’s acrack, and then the shock of fire as my metacarpals absorb the force. Pain radiates up my forearm, rattling my ulna, but I don’t really feel it.

Father’s head snaps to the side, which has to be why he loosens his grip on the whip. I rip it away, tossing it aside and raising my fist again. I slam it right into his nose, not even allowing him to regain his footing. Behind me, there’s a scuffle, but I don’t pay it much mind. With an arm shoved into his chest, I sweep Father in my furious momentum until I have him pressed up against the fireplace, his head smashed into the mantle.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” I roar.

He clutches my wrist, and through a hot, belligerent glare, growls, “Hit me again, and I’ll take this hand off.”

“She’s pregnant!” I snap, grinding my arm into his chest. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”

“Have you?” he roars back.

In all my life, I’ve never seen Father so unhinged as he is right now. His hair, always immaculately combed, looks tattered and limp. His eyes are bulging like a maniac, the tendons in his throat strung taut. It doesn’t bother me to know I look the same.

Except for one detail.

In one swift move, I have a knife pressed into his throat. “I haven’t lost my mind. Actually, I think I just found it.” The laughter that slips from his mouth is ragged and full of menace. “Something funny?” I sneer.

A trail of blood trickles from his nose. “Look at you, all puffed up like a lion. I’ve been trying to inspire this in you since you were a child, but you just kept taking it, and taking it, and taking it...” His lips curl, the blood dripping over them. “Bit of a waste, wasn’t it? All the social workers swore you were wrong. Empty.Evil. Imagine my disappointment.” Casually, he reaches up to wipe the blood away, a vicious smear over his cheek. “In the end, you’re just a man. A slave to your prick.”

“Boss?” Thad’s voice rings out sharply, but Father flicks his gaze to him, shaking his head.

“This is a family matter.”

“Verity,” I call, not taking my eyes off Father’s bruising face. “Are you okay?”

Her breaths sound ragged, but carefully measured. “It—it stings.”