Page 44 of Beautifully Shattered (Secrets & Scars #3)

My heart pounds. I already know who it is, but there’s no need to answer because she shifts the camera until it lands on someone in the background, strung up to an overhead beam, his naked body covered in cuts and bruises as he quietly whimpers.

The notepad pops up in front of the screen again.

‘Do you wanna watch? All g if you’d rather not. ’

I don’t know why she’s there. I didn’t ask her to go, and from the look on Ringo’s face, neither did he.

Darnel was one of my rapists. Like Tim, he wasn’t as brutal as the others. Almost hesitant, like he was scared of what would happen if he refused.

But he and Tim still could have helped me. Stopped Daniel, Donny, Craig and Michael. But they didn’t. They joined in. And they must have liked it to some extent since they got hard enough to rape me.

While I want him dead, the need to do it myself isn’t as dire as it is with Daniel and Donny.

“I want to watch,” I rush out.

“Abs, you don’t wanna see that,” Ringo objects next to me, but I just shake my head.

“Yes, I really do. I need to see it. I need to know he suffered. That he’s gone.”

Dee pokes her tongue out at the camera, an obvious fuck you to Ringo, and he sighs, throwing his hands in the air.

“Whatever.”

“Don’t be like that. I promise I’ll suck your dick again afterwards.”

A strangled sound bursts from Dee as she covers her ears and stomps her foot, glaring at me before scribbling on the notepad and holding it up.

‘If you keep talking like that, I’ll hang up and do it without you watching. ’

“Meany!” I pout, but her glare dares me to give her a reason to end the call. “Fine. I’ll behave. Please proceed.” I wave a dismissive hand, and she nods before scribbling one last thing.

‘The only information he knows about Daniel and Donny is that they’re with Donny’s uncle somewhere. And that Daniel’s dad is dead and his mum is missing.’

“Okay. Thanks for that,” I announce, and she tosses the notepad aside.

Grabbing the phone, Dee carries it over to Darnel, giving me a closeup of his face and battered naked body. The bruising and cuts are far worse than I’d thought, and it’s clear that she’s been torturing him.

Propping the phone up on a stand or something, she makes sure I can see everything, and then approaches him.

Sobs spill from his lips as she unsheathes a huge knife, twirling it through her fingers like she’s been doing circus tricks with sharp blades since she was three.

Hell, maybe she has. I wouldn’t know.

Turning back to the camera, she smiles in a way that’s more disturbing than anything, and then she picks up his flaccid, shrunken dick between two gloved fingers, waggling her brows at me.

“Fucking hell. I don’t think I can watch this part,” Ringo mutters beside me, but he doesn’t move, like we are sitting here streaming a horror movie.

For a second, I think maybe she's just messing with us, but then she moves so fast the blade is a blur, and his screams crackle through the phone speaker as blood starts gushing from the short, pathetic stump where his dick used to be.

She holds the severed piece up, dangling it close to the screen, and once she’s sure I’ve seen it, she climbs onto a chair and shoves the severed appendage into his screaming mouth.

“Fucking hell,” Ringo hisses, turning away, but I keep watching, needing to see Darnel suffer.

He jerks against the chains, a choked gag tearing from him, and when Dee can’t cram it in any deeper, she slams the hilt of her knife against his stuffed mouth, over and over, so savagely that I finally have to look away.

The sounds spilling from him make me gag, and Ringo snatches the phone, yelling at my friend, who I swear I will never underestimate again.

“Get the fuck on with it, Hush!”

She stops mid-swing, glaring at the screen like he’s just ruined her fun, and for a moment, I wonder if Jared truly knows who he’s sleeping with.

With a bored shrug, Dee hops down from the chair and kicks it aside, and a second later, she plunges the knife into Darnel’s chest, dragging it downward and opening him up as his insides spill out.

She steps back quickly, dodging the ropes of intestines hitting the floor, before her eyes lift to the phone…

I swear I can’t breathe.

I can’t talk.

I can’t even move.

You think you know someone .

Moving to the phone, Dee picks it up and walks over to a door before pulling it open to reveal an unhappy-looking Jared sitting on the floor outside in the hallway.

“You done?” he snaps, and she must nod, but I can’t see it with the screen pointed in Jared’s direction.

With a huff, he stands, dusting off his arse before stepping into the room.

“Fucking hell, Dee. You just needed to kill him for her.” He sighs, taking the phone and spotting me and Ringo still on the screen.

“Uhhh, sorry about that. She kicked me out of the room and locked the fucking door. Told me rapists need to choke on their own cocks before they die, so…” His arm shoots out and gestures to what’s left of Darnel Rivers.

“She certainly did that,” Ringo croaks, his voice scratchy, and I bet his balls have shrunk all the way up after witnessing that.

I feel kinda sick, but also relieved.

Another one is dead now.

Another rapist is gone from this world, and the list is getting smaller.

That thought makes me relax.

“Dee,” I call into the phone, and she pops up behind Jared, not looking like she gives a shit about his disapproval of her methods. “Thank you. It would have been hard for me to get to Darnel. I appreciate you doing that for me.”

Peeling off her gloves, she kisses two fingers and flicks them towards the screen before Jared carries the phone out into the hall.

“You know if you even try to leave her, she’ll kill you before you even reach the door, right?” Ringo tells Jared, and the wicked smile Jared flashes the screen makes my stomach flip .

“Don’t you worry about me. I know how to handle my girl,” Jared snickers. “You just keep Abs safe.”

With a few more brief words, we end the call and sit frozen for a beat.

“I’m not gonna be able to sleep after witnessing that,” Ringo admits, and I nod in agreement.

I can’t unsee or unhear what we just saw. A part of me is disturbed by it, but perhaps even worse, another part of me remembers what I did to Karl, and I grin.

There’s just something intoxicating about getting retribution on people who use their power to commit the worst sins.

Suddenly, all thoughts of Dee’s call vanish as the adrenaline coursing through my veins turns to something else entirely.

My eyes flick to Ringo, leaning against the headboard, bare-chested and looking good enough to lick, and I wonder if maybe I’ve finally snapped.

“Stop looking at me like that, Angel. Ain’t no fucking way I can get my cock up after seeing that.”

I pout, shifting over his lap to straddle him.

It’s hard to believe my daughter died only a month ago. Each minute, each day, each week brings a tornado of emotions.

Somehow, I’ve managed to save my tears for my morning showers. I cry under the spray of water. I ask myself what I’m still doing living in a world without her. And then I remind myself that I have a job to do.

Losing Bobbi shattered me in more ways than I can count. I know I’ll never be the same. But it’s also freed me from giving a shit about what people think.

I can’t believe I let myself be ruled by that for so long.

Sure, I was conditioned to care. Now, I’ve been conditioned to stop.

The need for vengeance fuels me. Helps me shut off the tears, step out of the shower, dry myself off, and harden the hell up.

It’s also ignited a level of desire in me I never saw coming.

It’s not the hormonal neediness I had when I was pregnant.

It’s not even the twisted kink Ringo and I share.

It’s something darker. Something wicked, and I have to wonder if falling into the lap of a man from a club with the name sadist in it isn’t a coincidence.

That’s the only way to describe the heat pooling between my legs as I stare at Ringo and remember Karl’s screams as he burnt alive.

I’ve turned into a sadist, and I’m not even mad about it.

“Challenge accepted, husband,” I smirk, loving the way his fingers dig into my hips as I grind against him, and before I know it, he flips me, and his lips crash into mine.