Page 68

DELILAH

A fter the worst family dinner in the history of the planet, we’re left alone.

I don’t know if it’s because Kane forced me to eat so much that my stomach hurts or because of where we are, but I can’t sleep.

The sun set hours ago and I spent the entire meal waiting for my grandparents to announce that I’d play for everyone.

They didn’t.

Yet the tension is still there in my joints and the urge to scream hasn’t left.

When I was younger, stupider, I enjoyed the attention at first. It morphed over the years as they became more demanding, then they introduced the bench during the lessons I’d have at my grandparents’ estate.

I was so envious of Ruby’s violin lessons, because she was allowed to stand while I was forced to sit on a literal bed of nails.

She always looked so elegant when she’d play, while I spent my pieces searching for someone to focus on that would provide me with the same sense of pride and attention I first felt.

Kane shuffles closer to me as he turns on his back, uncaring about his injuries, and his lips brush my ear as he whispers, “Are you on birth control?”

I have to squint to hear him when he repeats himself. The question pisses me off.

“Yeah, unless you fucked with it while you played out your fantasy of being Asher.”

Dickhead.

Hating him feels good. It gives me an outlet for all the rage inside of me.

I want to argue with him, fight him, fucking hurt him.

At the same time, I just want him to hold me and promise that everything will be okay.

Or lie to me again, make me believe that I’m married to a man who adores me, one who’ll take care of me without the strange behavior and avoidance.

Instead, he bites out, “That wasn’t the fantasy. And good.”

“Yeah, good,” I parrot. “I wouldn’t want a child with a deranged fuck like you and your family. I’d rather kill myself than have your tainted fucking DNA inside me.”

He gets closer, his shoulder pressing against mine, his voice still low despite the fact we’re alone as he asks, “ My family?”

Only turning my head, I snap, “Yes. That was your grandmother who held me down while ordering you to fucking rape me, wasn’t it? Or have you forgotten our beautiful wedding?”

“Are you forgetting your father?”

“Fuck you,” I grit and elbow him in the ribs. “Sleep on the floor or in the bathtub. Better yet, dive down into the water and count every grain of sand beneath it.”

“Not happening, wife.”

My breathing is harsh as I glare at him through the dark. “I hate that word out of your mouth. I never thought it would sound like a threat, but you make it into a death sentence.”

“Good.” He grabs my thigh under the sheets. “That’s exactly what it is. ‘Til death do us part, wife. ”

In my attempt to take my limb back, I end up kneeing him, and I feel better so I punch him.

My knuckles probably hurt more than the small pink mark on his chest that he looks at with a stupid fucking smile on his equally stupid fucking face.

Looking back at me, the arrogant fucking dickhead goads me.

“I thought you’d be able to do better than that after everything I’ve done. ”

The sheets get tangled around my hips as I sit up, punching him again as I seethe, “I hate you.”

He keeps fucking smiling.

It reminds me of Asher.

I climb on top of him so he can’t be like his sadistic brother and pin me down first. My arms swing wildly as I keep punching him, but he doesn’t avoid a single blow. And I deserve a reaction. I deserve him being hurt by me. He owes me the title of being in control of his pain.

So, I voice it all.

“I hate you for existing.” Another punch, landing on his jaw this time. “I wish I really did fucking kill you.”

Kane strokes the sides of my thighs without any acknowledgement to the pain he’s caused.

“No one can love you,” I spit, my punches losing power as my cruelty ramps up. “That’s why you’re a reflection.”

His smile slowly drops—fucking finally—and my breathing is heavy as I weakly punch his chest with the side of my fist.

It all changes as he roughly grabs my wrists and bucks his hips, flipping me on to my back, and pins me in place with my hands against the headboard. He flattens, pressing more of his weight into me as he whispers, “I thought we’d moved past that bastard?”

He’s always been my soft spot. His is Asher. He will always give him importance, over me and over himself. Which he proves as he squeezes my wrists, biting out, “We’re working together, me and you. Not you and fucking him.”

“No.” I lean forward so our noses touch and stare into those pale green eyes I loved. “We’re working together because you are the lesser of all the evil surrounding me . You are not the innocent party here. You lost that right when you fucked with my head. You are fucking wicked.”

The moon only illuminates one side of his face, the other hidden in the shadows.

Just like his personality, there’s one side that’s in the light and the other that’s disguised.

For all I fucking know, he could have planned this.

He cut himself to have the same scar as Asher, he changed the way he spoke, walked, everything to adopt his dead brother’s mannerisms. So this could be another game.

But he moves back an inch, demanding, “Hit me.”

It’s said so easily, like he’s asking for something normal instead of pain.

“No. You don’t get to control what I do with my anger.”

“Why?” He moves closer, his face relaxed as he lets go of my wrists. “You were just attacking me. Do it again.”

I shake my head.

“Hit. Me.”

He grabs my hands, forcing them to strike his body. His fingers dig into the back of my hand and I dig my heels into the bed for purchase as I try to pull away from him.

“I took you from your life,” he says, slapping my hand across his face. “And I told you that your sisters had been in an accident.”

“Fuck off,” I grit, tensing my muscles so he can’t use me.

Which he ignores in his attempt to manipulate me.

“I chased you because it made me feel better, watching you be weak and pathetic, running and screaming.”

“Fuck you.” I spit and it lands on his cheek.

There’s no physical repercussion; he doesn’t even wipe it away as he says, “I tried to kill you. I wanted to kill you and I never thought about you after I left you chained up in a burning building. So. Hit. Me.”

I push my hands under my hips, glaring up at him out of choice.

But he leans closer, my spit drying on his cheek, and his voice lethal and cruel as he says, “When I was released, I saw Ruby and Scarlet. I told them that you were still in the hospital. I told them that if they tried to speak to you, it would make you worse. I made them abandon you because I was alone. I told them that you’re unstable. ”

Another lie.

“When I left you alone in Montana, I saw Ruby and I told her you were my wife.”

Another lie.

My sister wouldn’t leave me alone. She was at the creepy wedding and she hugged me. She told me she was trying to protect me. Kane doesn’t fucking know anything.

“You didn’t choose to be alone,” he muses.

“Not like you tell yourself so that you don’t feel the pain of just how forgettable you are.

You need people around you, but none of them were there for you.

Even Martin didn’t want anything to do with you, but I made him stay there.

I paid him to continue going to the diner so that when I dropped you back in your life I’d have someone reporting back to me. ”

“Good for you.” I scoff. “You’re not Asher. He knew how to get under people’s skin, but you can’t because you always did come second to him in everything you did. Especially with me.”

His nostrils flare and I smile because I’m finally in control.

He can do whatever he wants physically, he can overpower me, but he can’t stop me pressing my finger in that one spot that hurts.

It’s sensitive and raw from the years of suppressing the emotions and I know just how much that pain can alter everything.

After all, that’s what Kane was to me. A leash for everyone else to whip me with.

“I told Scar that you hated her,” he rushes out in a panic.

“That you didn’t cry like when Ruby left.

” His voice gets stronger as he says, “That you didn’t give a fuck where she went and she was dead to you.

It was the only way to stop her being stubborn.

I made her believe it because I showed her exactly what you thought. ”

No, it’s another lie. Scarlet is more forceful than Ruby. She wouldn’t leave me alone. She’s the one our parents were the most afraid of because she’s the strongest.

But Kane ruined any chance I will ever have of having my sister back as he asks, “Do you remember your letters? The ones you used to write to them for when you see them again?”

That’s not a lie. I remember doing it. I’d pour out every secret emotion into them. Even when the bitterness took over.

“Dear Scarlet, I hate you,” he repeats from memory.

“You’re a bitch for leaving when it’s not even that bad.

Mom and Dad can be annoying and overbearing, but you leaving has hurt them.

Just come back and talk to them. Talk to me.

Actually, why am I begging you? You might as well be dead to me, but it’s not like when Ruby left.

I missed her. I wanted her to come back.

Now I feel nothing for you. One day when I’m older, someone is going to tell me that you’re dead, and I’ll tell them that you died the day you left me. ”

I don’t punch him this time. I dig my fingers into the wounds on his back as I fight tears. “I hate you so much. I wish I never fucking met you.”

“Good,” he nods, smiling. “Hold on to it. Hate keeps you alive when there’s nothing else. Even when your mind fractures and you start seeing shit that isn’t there.”

“I never loved you.”

That gets the smile to leave, and he grabs my throat, gritting, “Don’t fucking lie.”

“I didn’t. I was a game to you. Well, guess what, asshole?” I laugh without any joy, pushing my neck harder against his palm. “You were one first. Every time you fucked me, I pretended you were Asher. But you could never fuck me like he did.”

His fingers flex on the sides of my neck before I’m abruptly lifted and he slams his lips over mine. His teeth come out when I remain still, other than my fingers causing damage on his back, and he bites my lip. Hard.

“Don’t. Fucking. Lie.”

“I’m not,” I say, breathless, like a liar.

“Physically you were identical, but he was special. That’s why I had to tell you what to do, so I could imagine it was him.

I did it to hurt him because what’s worse than knowing I fucked someone else?

” I sound stronger even though the pain on his face hurts as I answer my own question.

“Asher knowing that his reflection finally got to have the one thing he refused you because he was the one who had control of me. Congratulations, Not-Asher, you’re a game, just like I was. ”

“Shut the fuck up,” Kane snaps, his muscles rigid.

“Hurts, doesn’t it? It tears at your insides to know the innocent thing you had means nothing. That you are nothing.”

And because he’s weak, a man that can only throw his weight around when it comes to one act, he pushes my hoodie up and cups between my thighs, asking, “If you don’t love me, why are you soaked?”

“Because I’m a whore.” I shrug, adding extra lightness to my voice. “Remember?”

“No, because you are fucking mine.” He pulls his sweats down and slaps his dick against my clit. “Tell me you loved me.”

“Tell me you walked on the moon,” I counter.

“Fucking stop.”

I smile. It’s genuine and I like this feeling. I like it more than being helpless or at his whims, and I love seeing him turn wild as he searches my eyes, his breathing erratic. Even more, I love it when he turns pathetic, begging, “Take it back and tell me it was real, please, my pretty girl.”

“I will never say it until you can take back everything you did to me. Can you do that? Can you undo putting my head inside a dead fucking body? Or take away the feeling of worms and a rat against my skin?”

He shuts up.

I tilt my head, making sure that he can see my hate.

“Can you undo making me think that I was crazy? Or taking the torturous memories away, only to prove that the ones I’d forgotten were worse?

What about hanging me, trying to fucking kill me, chaining me up when you knew you were going to set the room alight?

” He audibly gulps as he avoids my eyes and I snort. “Thought so.”

But then he looks between our bodies and I can’t see what he does with the shadow of his arm blocking everything. I can feel it though. He strokes the tip of his dick through my slit, slowly lining up as he begs, “Tell me you want this.”

“No.”

His head snaps up. “I’ll stop.”

I soften my fingers against his back and wipe his blood on his skin. “You won’t, because you need to feel powerful and I’m the only one who ever allowed you to feel like that.”

Rather than relax at the fact I’m not causing him pain, he leans back, searching for it.

“That control you feel right now belongs to me.” I smile.

“Not you. I will never belong to you because I’m not yours, but you have always been mine.

It’s why you never looked at anyone else when we only had moments in the shadows.

Because from the second you knew what you wanted, I have been the first fucking thing on that list. So do it.

Kill me, hurt me, but it won’t stop my name echoing in your mind.

You will never replace me and I will never fucking stop haunting you. ”