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Aww, did my poor husband believe that the sedatives would be enough? That I’d just lay here like a good girl and let him and his mates do whatever they wanted, as if I had no mind of my own anymore?

I let out a cackle, sounding and no doubt seeming more possessed with every passing moment.

I like the fact that I’m unnerving him, stealing the very joy from his victory.

Behind him, Irene shifts, rocking from one swollen ankle to the other, her arms crossed like she’s impatient for this all to be done and dusted. No doubt she wants to start counting her coffers.

Alexander swipes his hand like it’s some sort of signal and Sydney steps forward, grabbing hold of me before I can scramble away.

Hands. Too many hands. Touching me. Hurting me.

I shut my eyes, fight the flashback as it hits me like a ton of bricks. I can’t afford to fall apart right now. I can’t afford to be overwhelmed by my trauma. I need to be here, present. To fight them off until the moment comes when the board flips.

It’s just a few more minutes, I tell myself. Not long now.

Just stay alive. Just survive.

I can hear Rafe’s voice in my head. I can hear him trying to reassure me, to calm me, to comfort me. But there is no comfort here. There is nothing but pain.

I lash out, my hands feeling like claws, like talons. They connect with fabric, with fine costly silk shirts and expensive suits. I can feel as my fingers impale their flesh, but it doesn’t stop them. It doesn’t stop this.

I need them to stop. I need this to stop.

Only, it won’t. I know that. I knew that coming into this house, waking up in that hospital bed so many months ago. I knew exactly what was waiting for me. I knew it before Alexander got me completely drunk and technically raped me the first time. I knew who he was, who his father was.

And yet I had to do this, to be here, to place my neck on the executioner’s block, aware that it was my soul I was tarnishing, my soul I was destroying.

I had to let myself be hurt, to be used and defiled.

I had to do this. To play this part.

I had to be here today. I had to do everything, to endure everything to be here, right here, facing these three men.

I let out a scream that seems to rise up from the very pits of hell.

A hand smothers it, smothers me. Apparently, they don’t want my fight. They want my body, they want my cunt, but they don’t want disobedience.

My eyes dart from one leering, disgusting old face to the next. Do they want to pretend that I’m into them, is that it? Do they want to pretend that I want them to fuck me?

I bite down hard on the fleshy palm obstructing my protests, and a cry tells me I’ve hit home.

“Fucking bitch.” Fraser says. “She bit me.”

“She’s a rabid dog. Just like her father.” Sydney says before laughing.

Another blow to my head, a heavy one, knocks out what little sense I’ve managed to push through the drug haze.

And then Alexander is there, standing behind me. He leans down, grabbing the back of my dress and in one awful, aggressive move, he shreds it to pieces.

I’m rendered naked.

Exposed.

I scream, fighting harder, and it has no effect.

More hands grab at me. My limbs are held down, pulled in different directions. I’m stretched wide and forced flat onto my back.

As my eyes dart around in panic from one abhorrent face to the next, I see Irene standing behind them all with a glass of champagne in her hand, as if she’s getting off on this. Her lips curl as she meets my gaze, and she says the word ‘whore’ clearly enough for me to understand.

Sydney climbs on top of me, pawing at me while my dear husband and Fraser keep me in place.

He pushes into me, and I screw my face up, as if that could stop it, as if that could take away the shame and the degradation of this moment.

I can’t bear to think about the fact that this man raped my mother, that the hands holding me also raped her.

And when they were done having their fun, they’d done worse.

That act of barbarity wasn’t enough to sate them.

No, they wanted more. More violence. More revenge.

So they’d kicked her, stomped on her, beat her to death and left her body in the street like she was some piece of trash to discard and forget about.

But we didn’t forget. The Heath’s didn’t forget. My father didn’t forget.

Sydney grunts and groans as he slides in and out of me. Drool collects in the corner of his mouth and then it drops down, landing on my skin, feeling like acid burning away where it lands.

Every ram of his cock makes my back jar against the freezing cold and unforgiving floor.

I buck, screaming out and within seconds their bodyguards are there, taking over, using their brute strength to overpower me.

Fraser reaches down to pinch at my breasts. I turn my face in disgust, but then I realise it’s not me who should feel shame, not me who should feel anything close to that.

“Is that all you’ve got?” I sneer.

“The fuck did you say?” Alexander says, grabbing my face, pulling my head right up to meet his gaze.

“You think you’re all so fucking brave.” I spit. “Look at you. Is that what it takes, a whole gang of you against one of me?”

His hand comes down, smashing into my jaw, but I don’t give a fuck. I let out a laugh, even as white-hot pain explodes in my cheek. Even as I know he’s shattered my jaw. Blood and teeth fill my mouth. I spit them out, spit out my teeth and watch as a molar clatters across the floor.

Maybe that’s what it’ll take for me to get justice – me to spread my DNA all over this place, to cover it so thoroughly in my blood and guts that the police won’t be able to deny what’s really happened here.

Like hell, Alexander has almost certainly paid them off, paid the coroner too.

They’re all just waiting in the wings, waiting until the deed is done and the profits can be divvied out.

“Apparently, my slut of a wife wants more.” Alexander says before landing a kick to my ribs.

He yanks Sydney off me, shoves him back and then jerks his head for Fraser to get on board, like this is some sick merry go round.

As he drops to his knees between my spread-eagled legs, he pulls my labia apart like he wants to see if he can fit his head in there.

“Greedy little cunt.” He says before looking at my husband. “Don’t worry, if the bitch wants it then I’ll give it to her.”

He lays his entire weight on top of me, suffocating me with his mass. My hands try desperately to get loose, to slip free of the bodies holding me in place

He grabs hold of himself, angling his cock at the right angle, and then forces himself inside me.

I scream out even though he’s not that big.

Alexander holds me down, keeping me there while Fraser starts thrusting away.

“Nice, tight little cunt,” He groans.

“It’s a wonder,” Alexander says, “Considering how much cock she’s had.”

Sydney laughs as he starts jacking away at himself, like he’s so turned on he needs to finish.

I know their bodyguards won’t help me, I know none of the staff will help me either. My eyes dart to the doors, the great fancy opening that no doubt would have welcomed half the city’s elite in this house’s heyday.

It feels haunting now. This house, this room, all this space. It feels exactly like a mausoleum. A testament to an era that has been and gone.

By the time tonight ends, I intend to turn this place into a tomb. I intend to bury the Forster name here, to destroy their legacy and leave nothing but the ashes.

A slap to the face jolts me out of my thoughts, and I’m suddenly so aware of what my body is going through. The pain, the trauma, all of it.

My jaw is killing me. My face feels lopsided from how it’s swollen, but I can’t focus on that right now.

“Think you could drift off, bitch?” Fraser says, his spit landing on my face. “You will look at me when I’m fucking you, do you hear me?”

I turn my mouth into a sneer. I’m rewarded with a slap across the face, and again, it’s my jaw that screams out in agony.

I gasp out a ragged, tortured breath. Only everyone seems to turn, seems to react to something I can’t see.

And then a gun goes off.

It’s not near me.

It’s the other side of the room from where I’m being pinned down and raped.

I can’t see the shooter from where I am, but I know in my heart who it is. I know exactly who is there.

High above, that beautiful Tiffany skylight cracks. I can see the lines as the fractures spread all along it like tiny little claws reaching out, claiming every piece.

It’s going to fall down.

It’s going to kill us all.

I tilt my head, staring up at it, entranced by all the beautiful colours. They look like snowflakes, like a rainbow, all fragmented, flittering to the floor.

Only, they’re not flittering softly down. They’re falling. Like bombs. Like tiny blades, slicing through the air.

And they’re coming right at us.