Page 140 of Cain

Oh, but I do, baby. I know exactly where this is heading, and you just made it fucking worse.

“Why would I know anything about it?”

“She said …”

“Of course she said.” I cut her off with a grin. “She can say whatever the fuck she wants. I’ve got her locked in my house like a fucking pet. She cooks, she cleans, and she flinches when I walk into the room. And just so she doesn’t forget who’s really in charge, I’ve got a few people watching her family real close. One wrong move from her and someone she loves gets a bullet to the skull.”

She gasps. “What?”

I lean in slowly. “Yeah. That’s me showing mercy. You see, I let her live. I let her breathe. I give her a roof, food, and a reason to keep dragging her pathetic feetaround my house instead of rotting in a ditch. That’s what kindness looks like from me.”

I flick the ash from my cigarette into the ashtray without tearing my eyes off hers.

“She let them hurt me. She covered for them. She smiled while they broke me. She and the rest of those spineless fucks turned their backs while I screamed and bled and begged. She didn’t protect me. She protected monsters. And now she gets to live with the monster she allowed them to create. She gets to feel it every second of every day, serving the boy she helped destroy.”

“I didn’t know that,” she says so quietly I can almost hear her.

“Keeping her locked up is the easy part. The real punishment is knowing I’m the one holding the keys, and I’m not fucking done yet. So, think again before you decide to believe a pathetic cockroach I let live instead of exterminating it the moment I had the chance.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” she asks, her bright eyes rising to meet mine again.

“Would you believe me?”

She doesn’t reply. Of course she doesn’t. What did I expect? Her reaction only disappoints me. It actually hurts me.

“You didn’t believe me when I told you that everything I do, I do it for you, either.” She remains silent, but that only starts to enrage me. “Would you believe me if I told you that I love you?”

Her head snaps up. “What did you just say?”

“I said I fucking love you,” I repeat, slower this time, without moving a muscle other than my lips.

She glares at me like I’m some kind of animal. Maybe I am. Perhaps that’s what happens when you love someone so much it rots your brain. When you’d rip out your own heart if they asked, but they still act like you’re the devil breathing down their neck. I don’t care if she hates me. I don’t care if she screams or runs. I’ll keep showing up. I’ll keep loving her until there’s nothing left of either of us. She can call me a villain all she wants. She can cry, she can beg, but none of it matters. She is meant to be mine, and I am meant to break her, if that’s what it takes to keep her.

Why does this make me feel weak and vulnerable? Why the fuck am I scared of losing her?

I was never meant to feel like this. When I first brought her here, it wasn’t love. It was an obsession. My possession. A sin I wore proudly.

She was mine, nothing more.

Now, it tears me apart when I see her eyes filled with tears. It fucking hurts me when she pulls back, like I’m the monster under her bed instead of the man who’d slaughter the whole world just to hear her laugh a single time.

Sometimes, I think about cutting this sickness out of me, ripping out every filthy piece until I’m clean enough for her. But I can’t. I don’t want to. Because this is love.Mylove. Twisted, decaying, all consuming, and without it—without her—I’m nothing.

“I made my will,” I say bluntly, dragging my smoke.

Her arched brows narrow. “I’m sorry, but I think my English is not very good. What do you mean?”

“I need to settle a few things in case … you know.” I click my tongue. “Things go sideways with me.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“In case I die, little rose.” I sip my scotch.

Her pale blue eyes widen. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

I drag in a slow breath and crush the cigarette into the glass ashtray without looking at it.

I push off the chair and walk around the desk, stopping in front of her. I can’t take my eyes off her. She seems vulnerable. Exposed.