Page 38 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Air stops moving in and out of my lungs like it’s frozen in place. I blink at Bastian, replaying his words, trying to figure out if I heard him wrong.

…first him, then me…

“What—”

He speaks right over me. “Fine, Miss Lee. You’re so adamant you deserve this, who the fuck am I to crash your pity party?”

That puts a lump in my throat, but I swallow it down with force. “I’m glad we have an understanding.”

“It’s a free world.” He shrugs, scanning me with dead eyes, like I didn’t just take the fight out of him, but the life too. “People should be able to strangle anyone they want, right? With enough provocation ?”

“Okay, yeah,” I mutter, pursing my lips, nodding as I cross my arms tight over my chest. “Figured you wouldn’t understand.”

I charge for the front door. Professor Rooke turns to watch, but he stays where he is, simply raising his voice to reach me.

“Is that all he did, Haven?”

My feet are rooted to the spot. I stare at Bastian over my shoulder. “What?”

“The shower would have washed most of the evidence away, but you can still do a rape kit. He could serve time.”

“He didn’t—“ I cut off, swallowing hard when I realize he’s baiting me.

Fucking asshole .

“I’m not a victim,” I say through gritted teeth. “There was no crime. ”

Now there are tears in my eyes, and God, that pisses me off. Not sure what I expected, showing him the marks, but I sure as hell don’t need his protection.

Or do I?

My face goes slack. I blink away my tears.

Professor Rooke eyes me, a faint sneer on his mouth. “Go on. Leave. You’re obviously eager to get back to your car.”

My startled blink has nothing to do with keeping back tears. “Excuse me?”

He lifts his eyebrows. “Where you sleep?”

The room flickers through my suddenly trembling lashes. My face is hot from the shower, from the anger, but a wave of cold soaks through me like I just came in from the rain.

“Kai told you?” I whisper furiously.

Bastian frowns. “I haven’t spoken to Kai today.” His eyes go to my neck. “We were both busy.”

Fuck.

He fucking knows it was Kai who strangled me. Guess someone as smart as him could easily come to the right conclusion. But I’ll be damned if I admit it. Screw Riversider code.

I refuse to make anything easy for this man.

“Then how the fuck did you know?” I whisper.

“Became obvious when I visited your address in Ashwood Crossing, and you weren’t there,” he says dryly.

The blood drains from my face, and it leaves behind a rush of icy prickles.

“You did what?” I mumble.

He carefully reaches for me, and I’m so fucked in the head, I let him hold on to my wrist. As cautious as if he’s handling a newborn lamb, he backs up, tugging at my arm until I follow.

“Did you really think I’d award someone a grant without doing a background check on them first?”

The words ring in my ears like a slap.

Background check.

“The lovely Korean family who live at the address you supplied on your application claim they don’t know any Lees. Haven, or otherwise.”

He’s leading me into his bedroom.

I don’t resist.

“I should have flagged your application. But your essay showed more promise than those candidates with stable housing situations.”

Ever so gently, he turns my back to the bed, and then slowly pushes down on my shoulders.

And I let him.

I fucking let him.

My head is spinning too much. No air in my lungs. As if I really did jump off that cliff at Lookout Point and only now—after falling for hours—have I hit the ground.

“My thesis advisor picked up a discrepancy in my application, too. Instead of reporting me, he gave me a chance to prove myself. So I broke the rules and decided to pay it forward, hoping to God I’d made the right choice.”

He curls a finger under my chin, lifting it so I’m forced to look up at him.

Again, I don’t fight him.

“We all have secrets, Haven. Things we’d rather keep hidden. I respected your privacy and risked my career. So while I’ll accept that you don’t trust me enough to talk to me, don’t think for a second I’ve forgotten about our agreement.”

Somehow, despite the panic screaming through my skull like a fucking hurricane, I whisper, “ Quid pro quo .”

He told me a secret. Now he expects one in return.

And if I don’t give him one…then that discrepancy on my paperwork might get flagged, after all.

“Smart girl.” His eyes flicker to the marks on my throat, and then he disappears into the bathroom. Light pools into the bedroom when he turns on the light, and I hear the cabinet doors opening, closing.

Pressure keeps building behind my eyes the longer I sit there, my mind marinating in everything he’s told me. I want nothing more than to bolt out his front door, but my knees are too weak to carry me. The weight of his words is too heavy, keeping me pinned where I sit.

…we all have secrets…

He returns with a first-aid kit that he handles with reverential care as he lays it on the bed beside me.

Bastian takes out a salve, leaning aside so his shadow doesn’t block out the light from the bathroom as he gently applies it to the sides of my neck.

“Kai wasn’t responsible for this,” I whisper.

He screws the lid back on the tube and tosses it into the kit, staring narrow-eyed at me like he doesn’t believe a word of it.

“Neither were you, Haven.”

Heat flushes up my neck at the intensity of his gaze. I don’t want to break eye contact, don’t want to give him the victory, but my insides are shivering with nerves.

It feels like defeat when I look down at my hands twisting in my lap.

Bastian rifles through the first-aid kit again and takes out a bottle of pills. Shakes one out. Then two. Three.

“For the pain.”

I blink at him. “I’m not in pain.”

“You will be once the endorphins wear off. And judging from the severity of the injuries you’ve shown me, you’ve got a lot more to look forward to than a headache.”

His emphasis on ‘the injuries you’ve shown me’ makes it clear he knows there are more.

Guess he’s had many, many years learning how to read people.

If he really had a private practice, then he’s had ample opportunity to build a library of tells.

No wonder it’s so easy for him to know when I’m lying… or keeping something hidden.

I could tell him everything. Fuck him up so royally with his condescending quid pro quo that even his children would owe me their fucking secrets.

Tears brim in my eyes. I blink them back without allowing a single one to fall .

Fuck him. Fuck Kai. Fuck everyone. I refuse to die on this hill tonight.

“That’s too many?—”

“Let me take care of you, Haven.”

Something is setting my teeth on edge. It’s not him. Every inch of Bastian radiates frustrated concern. It’s like there’s someone else in the room with us, but no matter how fast I turn my head, they disappear before I can spot them.

I should leave. Make him call me an Uber. Fuck, get him to drive me back to Lookout Point, if I must.

“What are they?”

“Does it matter?” He strokes my cheek, voice gentle. Soothing. “Be a good girl and take your medicine.”

My lips part, stars glittering in my eyes as I peer up at him through tear-studded lashes. He puts the pills on my tongue and hands me a bottle of water to wash them down.

They’ve barely hit my stomach before I want to puke them out again.

“Bastian,” I whisper, forcing the rest of the words. “I can’t stay. I have to leave.”

He touches my face, fingers tracing my jawline. I should pull away. Should ask why he’s looking at me like that. But I’m so tired, so fucking exhausted, and his touch feels so warm, so safe, so gentle.

“Get some rest, girl.”

And for some fucked up reason, that’s all it takes to ignore the part of my brain that’s screaming at me to run.

Because nothing, nothing about this is safe. Nothing about this is sane.

Especially his smile.

That smile promises me every bit of pain and pleasure and suffering I’ve silently been begging for.

It’s the most beautiful, terrible thing I’ve ever seen.