Page 150 of Corrupting Camille

He doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, but something devastating fractures behind his eyes, like ice splintering beneath the weight of my truth. The silence is terrifying, endless. I can’t breathe, can barely think.

“Say it again,” he rasps, voice a broken, dangerous whisper.

“I’m going back,” I repeat louder, crueler, cutting deeper into the raw nerve of everything we’ve built. “Back to Preston. Back to the life I’m supposed to have. The life I deserve.”

His entire body goes rigid, muscles straining against barely restrained fury. He steps toward me, closing the space between us, his presence swallowing me whole. “The life you deserve?” he echoes softly, deadly calm. “The life where you suffocate beneath their rules? Where you wear masks and fake smiles until you can’t even remember what’s real?”

I choke out a brittle laugh, harsh and hollow. “Yes. Exactly that life. Because at least it’s clean, Kane. At least it’s predictable. At least it isn’t you.”

Deliberately, slowly, I lift Preston’s ring, slipping it back onto my finger in front of Kane, the diamond cold and cruel against my skin. His gaze snaps to the motion, the pain of that action slamming into him, slicing deeper than any blade.

I watch the moment my cruelty sinks in, sharp, merciless daggers piercing through flesh, bone, heart. His jaw clenches so violently I swear I hear teeth crack. Still, he doesn’t pull back. He presses closer, eyes blazing with barely contained rage and something infinitely more dangerous: agony.

“Don’t fucking do this,” he growls, voice trembling with icy, controlled fury. “You don’t get to break us this way.”

But I have to. God help me, I have to wound him so deeply he’ll never forgive me. I need him to hate me, because his hatred is safer than his love.

I step closer, my breath shaking, every cell screaming in raw protest as I twist my lips into a vicious, cruel smile. “Did you really believe we’d make it? That we were some dark, fucked-up fairytale? You were just an escape, Kane. A good fuck. Nothing more.”

He flinches, and it guts me. Still, I twist the knife deeper, blood dripping from my words, tainting the air between us. “You were convenient. You were exciting…like Belize or the Maldives, the perfect little vacation. But that’s all you were…a distraction. Honestly, you meant nothing.”

He sucks in a breath like I’ve punched him, his face hardening into something lethal. “You lying little bitch,” he breathes, voice ragged, shaking, threaded with raw agony. He closes the distance completely, backing me roughly against the cold glass wall, fingers gripping my jaw mercilessly, forcing my gaze to meet his wild, furious eyes.

“You think your breaking me? You think I don’t see exactly what you’re doing?” His grip tightens, just shy of bruising. “You’re terrified, Camille. Terrified because you feel everything. Run back to your sterile, empty life. Smile pretty for your cameras and choke on that fucking ring. But when you wake up desperate and hollow, begging someone to remind you how to breathe, remember this…”

He leans impossibly closer, his breath mingling with mine, warm, brutal, devastating. “I wouldn’t touch you again if you crawled back here bleeding.”

I force another cruel laugh, heart fracturing as I lift my chin defiantly. “Good. I wouldn’t lower myself again anyway. You’re honestly beneath me, Kane. Nothing but tattoos, a violent streak, and a hard dick. And don’t worry…thanks to you, maybe I can finally teach Preston how to fuck me right.”

His eyes widen, disbelief, hurt, and rage flashing in rapid succession. I know I’ve finally struck bone-deep. His lips twist cruelly, heartbreakingly, his voice breaking, full of anguish disguised as disgust.

“Now I see you exactly as you are,” he snarls, cold fury overtaking the devastation. “Pathetic. Spineless. Empty. You’re right, Camille…I am beneath you, but not because of who I am.”He pulls back sharply, pain and fury colliding in his expression, words splintering like shattered glass. “Because I’d never sink low enough to beg a coward to stay.”

Kane releases me suddenly, stepping back, features shuttering like impenetrable armor. The ruthless man I’ve feared all along reappears, harder and colder than ever. When he speaks again, his voice is pure ice, devoid of warmth or passion.

“Get the fuck out.”

The silence that follows is deafening, unbearable, broken only by my ragged breathing and the brutal beat of my heart. And even as I move toward the door, every step agony, every breath a betrayal, I know I’ve succeeded.

I’ve destroyed us.

And somehow, I already know I’ll never forgive myself for it.

Kane

The door crashes shut, rattling through the walls like a fucking executioner’s gunshot, and I lose it.

A deafening roar rips from my throat, raw, savage, tearing itself from the marrow of my bones. I lunge forward, every muscle coiled tight enough to snap as I slam my fists into the nearest wall. Plaster buckles beneath the force, shattering, leaving a gaping hole stained with blood and splinters of wood.

Pain explodes up my arm, knuckles shredded and split open, blood slick and hot against my skin. I barely feel it…barely register anything but the red haze of fury blinding me, swallowing every rational thought. Every fucking sense.

She left.

She fucking left me.

I slam my fist into the wall again, and again, each punch landing harder, deeper, cracking drywall, splattering my blood in chaotic patterns across the pristine white paint. I feel bonesfracture, skin tearing wider, my own blood dripping in thick rivulets down my wrist, pooling at my feet. But it’s nothing compared to the gaping, raw emptiness carved deep into my chest.

“Fuck!” I bellow, voice shredded, guttural, animalistic, reverberating off the walls as I whip around, stumbling into the living room. Glass gleams in the fading light, taunting me with its polished surface, perfect and untouched, mocking my chaos. I sweep my arm across the sleek black sideboard, crystal tumblers and bottles exploding violently against the marble floors in a brutal symphony of destruction.