Page 66

KANE

I hurt her.

I hurt her.

I fucking hurt her.

I hurt her in the exact same way I blamed her for. But Delilah wasn’t in SEG with me, she didn’t force herself into me, onto me. I’ve fucking done that to her. She froze.

She froze like I froze.

My fist flies out, hitting the tile, and a crack forms. I do it again, relishing in the pain as my knuckles split.

I keep doing it.

Until a jagged piece of porcelain falls to the floor and I have an escape.

Sinking down to my knees, I snatch it up.

The first scratch against my palm adds a bit of calm.

The calm increases as I fold my sweats and boxers down to add a new line in a place no one will notice.

The line isn’t as clean as the others that have healed with time, but I can’t focus on that when a little dot of blood begins to form above my dick.

The only thing I feel is frustration at not being able to get deep enough because of the thick tile.

So, I search like an addict who needs that one little hit to keep going until I find the glass Delilah ripped from the wall so that we could have something to drink from.

It has a new purpose now, a more important purpose.

I remain on my knees as I hold the glass in my fist and punch the wall. The shards dig into my hand, my fingers. Beautiful pain that shuts it all out.

Your mind can only focus on one pain at a time.

I pick the largest one for what I need.

Do you want me to stop the screams?

I look down as I cut through my skin.

There, your leg is broken. You can’t feel their hands now, can you?

I’ve done coke, ket, synthetic drugs, smoked weed, been drunk, yet nothing compares to the high of causing pain.

It’s euphoric and controllable in a way that any chemical intoxicant fails to replicate.

This. Is. Peace. My dad always said that bloodshed comes before peace.

It’s how countries have excused their wars by masking suffering as the payment for survival.

If only he knew that same war exists within me.

A soft tap hits the bathroom door, accompanied by a softer voice, “Kane?”

The door handle rattles, along with my heart rate at the thought of being found.

I quickly pull my sweats up, relishing in the sting as my boxers make contact with the cuts. I carefully collect the shards of glass, so Delilah doesn’t know what I’m doing.

“Kane?” she asks again as she steps into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. “Are you okay?”

“Stay the fuck away from me.”

I dump the glass in the sink, keeping the larger pieces free from the drain, then wash the blood off my hands.

She stays there, watching me and fucking waiting for an answer when I can’t do shit.

I’m stuck. I was born to be this thing that’s surrounded by vile acts and even viler people.

No, I was born to be less. Always in Asher’s shadow, always a tool for other people to fucking use.

I should have killed her. She’d be free then. Free from her parents, free from Helene, free from Rowan. Free from me.

My palm stings from the water pushing into the cut so I savor it, stretching my fingers out to allow more water into it as I ask, “How did you get out of the fire?”

“You carried me out and left me outside,” she whispers, taking a step closer. “Let me check your hand.”

“No, the fire in your apartment. How did you get out?”

A deep crease forms between her brows as she repeats, “You carried me out.”

Am I the crazy one?

I remember leaving her there.

I know I did because I kept checking news sources and every email that came into the holding company that manages the apartment building for me to see if she’d died.

None of them mentioned a casualty. I wouldn’t have checked if I knew she was alive.

I would have fucked with her. Or just fucked her.

Fifteen fucking years of forced celibacy means she owes me that.

Delilah gently moves me back to stand in front of me. Her eyes are the most open they’ve ever been as she hooks her arms up and over my biceps, careful not to touch my back, and she whispers, “It wasn’t you, it was him. Just like at the club.”

Her hair will cause more pain. The strands will get caught in the cut on my palm so I thread my fingers through her hair and pull her head back.

Helene’s voice is in my fucking head, reminding me that she can see us.

I can’t speak to my pretty girl how I want to, I can’t hold her, I can’t fucking have her or she’ll be hurt.

So, I become that masked figure again and yank her head back as I grit, “You should have stayed in it.”

She flinches at my tone, blinking back her tears. Tears that I fucking cause when I only want to have her. We managed to get to a good place, an understanding that we’ll always hate the other for ruining shit and we were fucking close, so fucking close, but it’s been taken away again.

I can’t have love, so I settle for hate.

I’ll be the thing Delilah hates the most in existence, that way she can never forget me.

Her eyes won’t look at me lovingly, but they’ll burn at the sound of my name.

She won’t long to hold my hand, but mine will be around her fucking neck.

There won’t be peace, warmth, fucking care. But hate, that I can have.

I drag her with me as I leave the bathroom, building more hate as she punches into my ribs. “Get the fuck off me.”

I haven’t worked out where the camera is to be able to determine if there’s a blind spot, so I hook my foot over her ankle, tripping her and forcing her to knees.

Dipping my head so we’re eye to eye, I watch the one emotion I’m allowed darken her features as I battle her glare. “Crawl. You enjoyed it last time.”

Hate me. Hate me. Hate me.

Helene will be watching. She’ll see that I don’t feel anything for Delilah, and she wanted it to be entertaining.

Delilah crawling for me, only me, should stop her from being taken by that cunt.

I slap her cheek with the backs of my fingers, giving in to the craving to touch her.

Light pink strips show that she’s mine as she spits, “Fuck. You.”

“Crawl, you little fucking whore.” I slap her again, harder this time. Her nostrils flare as I lean closer, dropping my voice. “Or do you only act like a desperate slut when I’m wearing a mask?”

Hate me. Hate me. Hate me.

“Fuc—”

I slap her again, bastardizing another thing I once loved.

It stops her arguing though. Is she thinking the same thing as me?

Remembering how she would beg me to slap her while I fucked her ass and how hard she would bite her bottom lip to stop anyone else hearing her screams when I’d sneak into her room.

Or is she remembering how she would fucking ignore me the next day as soon as Asher had his arm around her shoulders?

Without argument, she places her hands flat on the floor. I stand behind her to cover her ass while she crawls in front of me with her hair wrapped around my hand. My blood coats the strands, turning them pink then red as I drag her to the bag I filled up with food and water.

Hate me. Hate me. Hate me.

“Eat,” I order, hating myself now too.

She sits up on her knees and I clench my teeth as she takes out a bruised apple.

Fuck, I shouldn’t have been careless when I dropped the bag.

But she eats it without complaint as I continue twisting her hair around my fist to inflict more pain on myself while silently promising, “I’ll get you away from these cunts, then I’ll kill them all for taking everything from us.

When they’re dead, I’ll beg at your feet for you to forgive me. ”

She doesn’t say anything as she blindly thrusts a piece of bread at me.

“Eat,” I snap. “I don’t want anything your filthy fucking hands have touched.”

I don’t want to take it off you.

The tap of Helene’s stick makes her freeze. I pull her back as I step around her to kick the bag behind the drapes. Helene doesn’t knock on the door, she just walks the fuck inside with a smug smile on her horrid fucking face.

“Get the fuck out,” I bark. “Do not enter this room while I’m with my wife.”

Her eyes slowly glide over my shoulder, to the lashes crawling over my skin, then down my arm to my hand in Delilah’s hair. She looks back up and says, “I’m glad you listened. Now bring her downstairs. I won’t allow you to hide away while we have guests.”

I drag my pretty girl to stand, making sure the hoodie falls to cover her as I wrap my fingers around her nape.

She has to fucking fight me now and drags her feet as I force her out of the room.

Maybe this way I can steal a moment to explain to her that she’s safe, that this isn’t the real me.

All we need is a second away from Helene’s surveillance in this room for me to tell her that I fucking adore her, that I’ll never intentionally hurt her.

Then she’ll understand me, she’ll wait for this to be over.

The cold tiles will hurt her feet, so I wrap my arm around her waist when we reach the staircase and carry her down.

She’s fully enraptured in her hate and digs her nails into my forearm, but it’s good.

Hate is an emotion. If she hates me, I can make her love me again.

If she feels nothing, then I’ve lost her.

Thankfully, Helene’s attendant isn’t in the kitchen or tied up anywhere, but Anna is standing in the corner of the hallway with wide eyes. She doesn’t even blink as we approach. My steps slow at the rope tied around her ponytail.

It was fucking her .

Whatever she experienced has made her a statue.

She doesn’t even react to Delilah glaring at her.

Or the voices of her old employers coming from the lounge.

That makes Delilah stiffen in my arms. Her fire comes back when we enter the lounge as her parents continue laughing with her grandparents. She screams, “Fuck you!”