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“No, they don’t,” her chest heaves with a soft sob, “suspect.”

I caress her tits again, gently brushing my thumbs over her newly-pierced nipples. She cries out, trying to pull away in spite of the cuffs keeping her trapped. She bucks beneath me, and I stroke my fingers down the center of her body like I’m trying to calm a wild horse. The softness sends her thrashing even harder.

“So you’re innocent?” I lightly circle my fingers around her belly button, her stud piercing catching the light.

“Yes.” She sounds so certain, I would believe her if I didn’t already know her words were false.

“But that’s not true, is it, angel?” I brush my knuckles across her hips. “Youdohave blood on these pretty hands.”

“No.” She bites down on her bottom lip so hard it breaks. With a disapproving tsk, I tug her lip free from her teeth.She’s not allowed to self-medicate with pain to escape this. I’m going to make sure she feels every agonizing second of it.

“Lying to me again, little ruin?” I growl, my touch slipping down toward her cunt.

“I’m not.” She gasps for breath when my fingers slide lower. “I’m n-not lying.” There are tears in her voice. After months of trying, my angel is finally crying, and the sound of it twists through my stomach like broken glass. But I can’t stop now. Not when she’s so close to breaking.

“Tell me one moregoddamnword that isn’t true, and I’m done. Do you understand?Fucking finished.” I pet her soft mound, rubbing my fingers over the smooth skin as she whimpers.

“Grey—I can’t.”

I slip my fingers between her folds. She’s completely dry. Not a drop of wetness to suggest she somehow enjoys this in spite of hating it. My soft strokes are more of an assault than my cuts and lashes and slaps could ever be. For her, thisistorture. Taking it one step further, I spread apart her folds and delicately trace her dry hole.

“C-caramel. Caramel.Caramel,” she begs, the last word a broken sob.

My hands are off her in an instant, moving to the cuffs to unbuckle them as quickly as I can. I release her ankles, then her wrists, and finally slide off the blindfold. I clench the black silk in my hands—it’s soaking wet. The girl who’s never given me a single tear, even when I’ve whipped her and bled her, is a weeping mess, broken by the cruelest tenderness.

“It’s okay, angel. It’s over,” I whisper, trying to calm her, but my words don’t seem to reach her.

Her chest is heaving so violently that I think she’s lost control of her body altogether. Knowing the only thing that will ground her right now, I wrap my hand around her throat and squeeze until her breathing is forced to slow. I dig my fingers into her skin,making sure she can feel the comforting ache of the bruises I’m pressing into her neck.Thisis the aftercare she needs. The kind that hurts.

“No more soft touch, angel. I promise.” I drag my fingers across her chest, leaving red, raised lines streaked across her tits like claw marks. She doesn’t even make a sound, her watery eyes dead and hollow.

“Come back to me, little ruin,” I plead. I slam my mouth against her, sucking the air from her body as I take more than I’ve ever dared. I bite down on her lips, her tongue, anything that will make her bleed, anything that will make her feel. “Comethe fuckback to me.”

As a last resort, I lift my hand and slap it across her cheek. She blinks for the first time in ages, her dark eyes flashing to mine. There’s the smallest spark of anger burning in those gold-flecked irises. Good. I slap her again, not holding back this time. The brutality of the smack leaves a red handprint painted across her left cheek. When she remains silent, I raise my hand again. In a flash, she lashes out and jerks my hand away.

“Nunca más me toques así!” she cries, so overcome that she turns to Spanish to express how she feels. “Nunca!”Fresh tears spill down her cheeks. “No quiero verte como él. No quiero temer que te guste.” She takes a shuddering breath. “I don’t want tohateyou like him.”

I should feel ashamed, but more than anything, I need to knowwhy. And it’s time she gave me the truth. “Then tell me why. No more lies, angel. I want the truth. All of it.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

ANGÉLICA

Idon’t know how I’m going to survive this. I’ve never told anyone what happened. My family gathered bits and pieces from what they saw and heard, but no one knows the entirety of the hell I endured—and the lines I crossed to end it. The truth is a death sentence, an end to the perfect life I’ve shared with Grey over the past few months. Once I say the words, there’s no going back.

“I come from a small village in Colombia. Close-knit. Everyone knows each other. Everyone trusts each other. It’s the sort of place where nothing bad ever happens. So when something does, everyone is so blinded by the normalcy of life that they can’t see it. Even when it stares them right in the face.”

Grey remains silent, his expression a stoic mask that prevents me from gauging his reaction. He squeezes my fingers in his hand, encouraging me to keep going.

“Papá had a friend that he’d known since he was a child. They’d always been inseparable, even as adults. He was in my life from the moment I was born. He was my godfather, he held me at my baptism, he watched me take my first steps, tasted my firstbatch of arepas, took my side when Mamá and Abuela weren’t being fair and letting me do what I wanted.

“I adored my honorary Tío. In a way, he was my best friend just as much as he was my father’s. I came to him with some things I didn’t trust my parents with. Boys. Sex. My dream of becoming a pastry chef. And he always understood. Always made me feel like I was important. I was so naive to think I could trust him.”

“It’s only natural to trust family, angel,” Grey argues, a heavy crease forming between his brows. “You didn’t know any better.”

“I should have sensed it. Things changed when I turned fifteen. I didn’t look like a little girl anymore, and he noticed the fuller parts of my body more than he should have. His hugs became longer, more lingering. He found excuses to bump into me in the kitchen, to brush against my ass or press against my tits. He started to call me beautiful.

“‘Mi bella señorita,’ he would whisper in my ear when my parents weren’t watching. I loved it at first—the attention. But something twisted in my stomach every time his sweet words came with caresses that didn’t feel right.”