Page 151 of Corrupting Camille

The sound is satisfying, but it doesn’t stop the agony. Doesn’t numb the burning fucking void left behind.

She gutted me. Stripped my insides bare, left them exposed to the air, pulsing and bleeding, vulnerable. Camille made me soft. Made me weak. Then she sank her delicate claws into my chest and ripped out my fucking heart, tossing it aside like worthless meat.

I cross the room in a blur, breathing ragged and uneven, eyes glazed over with rage. The heavy coffee table, an immovable slab of glass and polished steel, becomes my next victim. I grab it with both hands, muscles straining until veins bulge and threaten to burst through my skin, then heave it sideways. The table flips violently, crashing to the ground with a deafening crack. Glass shatters, exploding outward, slicing shallow, burning cuts along my bare chest and arms.

Blood trickles hot and steady down my torso, staining my skin, dripping over the ridges of my abdomen. I don’t care. I want the pain. I want the wounds, the scars. Anything to overshadow the crushing betrayal splintering my fucking ribs, cutting deeper than any knife.

My vision zeroes in on the chessboard, mocking me from the corner, untouched, perfect. The pieces she held in her delicatefingers still aligned where we left them, a quiet echo of our battles, our intimacy. I seize it roughly, roaring, and hurl it against the wall with every ounce of strength left inside me. Wood splinters, ebony and ivory pieces exploding in every direction, scattering violently across the marble, cracking and breaking in ruthless carnage.

Another violent roar tears from my throat, and I charge the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. My fist collides with the thick tempered glass, reverberating painfully through every nerve ending, skin splitting further, streaking bloody smears over the pane. I hit it again, and again, leaving red streaks dripping down the smooth surface.

My chest heaves violently, lungs desperate for air they can’t seem to find. Sweat stings my eyes, mingling with the blood dripping from my knuckles. Camille’s perfume still lingers, haunting the air around me, soft, intoxicating, mocking me with the memories of her skin beneath my hands, her cries in my ears, her body trembling, pliant and utterly fucking mine.

But she chose safety. She chose lies. She chose a cage over freedom, him over me…over this brutal, twisted thing that leaves scars deeper than flesh.

“Bitch!” I scream again, voice breaking, raw, shredded. I stagger backward, muscles trembling, knees buckling beneath the weight of agony, blood and sweat dripping onto the shattered wreckage beneath my feet. "Fucking bitch." My vision blurs, chest constricting, lungs collapsing. Something inside me fractures, cracking open, spilling grief and rage and a pain so fucking deep it feels lethal.

I don’t fall in love. I don’t crave softness. I kill, I conquer, I dismantle, destroy. But Camille… Fuck, Camille crawled inside, embedded herself like shards of glass, and now she’s ripped herself free, shredding me open from the inside out.

She stood here and looked me in the fucking eye as she crushed every part of me. Like I meant nothing. Like the nights we shared, the dark truths whispered, the pleasure branded into our skin, meant nothing.

I drop heavily to my knees, agony shooting through my body, grinding shards of broken glass deeper into torn flesh. My fists slam down into the floor, cracking marble tiles beneath my bloodied hands. Hot tears burn tracks down my face, mingling shamefully with blood and sweat, betraying every bit of strength I have left. I choke on a sob, ragged and broken, choking on grief, fury, and desperation.

She walked away.

And she took everything I didn’t know I needed, everything I can’t fucking live without.

Now I’m left gutted, bleeding, howling into the darkened penthouse—nothing more than a wounded animal, utterly destroyed, entirely hers.

Chapter Fourteen

Camille

I barely clear his penthouse door before reality hits, sending me stumbling backward into the wall. My knees buckle beneath the weight of my betrayal, the ring slipping from my fingers to hit the marble floor with a sharp, echoing ping.

My breath rushes out in harsh, broken sobs, lungs seizing, air slicing like shards of glass down my throat. It hurts. God, it hurts, like my chest is splitting open, bones fracturing beneath the crushing pressure of everything I’ve just destroyed.

Sliding slowly down the cold, unforgiving wall until I’m curled into myself, shuddering violently on the polished, sterile floor of a hallway I don’t belong in. My fingers claw desperately at my chest, as if I can somehow tear out the raw ache of loss ripping its way through me.

Kane.

I see his eyes, dark, wounded, burning with hatred and betrayal, as clearly as if he’s still standing in front of me. I seethe way he broke apart beneath my cruelty, how every carefully aimed word sank into him, puncturing him like bullets from my own mouth.

My stomach twists violently, bile rising sharply, stinging at the back of my throat. Tears spill hot and relentless down my face, blurring my vision until everything dissolves into a haze of regret and anguish.

What have I done?

I chose safety over him.

Chose emptiness over truth.

Chose a cold, empty cage over the heat, the violence, the terrifying intimacy of Kane Rivera.

I chose Preston’s sterile promises over the brutal honesty of the only man who ever truly saw me.

God, I chose wrong.

I chose wrong, and it’s too fucking late.