Page 19 of Forgotten (The Soulbound #1)

The first thing I hear is his breathing.

Uneven. Shallow. A sharp inhale, then a staggered exhale—like he’s trying to steady himself and failing. Like he's finally a human, not an empty shell of one.

Like some things still get to him.

I lift my head slowly.

Mark stands just inside the kitchen now, his cigarette abandoned somewhere along the way. His gaze flicks from the blood pooling around my feet to the broken bottle still resting on the tile. To Duvall’s body—crumpled and still. And then, finally, to me.

Something cold and unreadable passes through his eyes.

He doesn’t speak.

Neither do I.

We just stare at each other like two people who have absolutely no idea how they got here. Except we’re not strangers. He is my husband. And I am his wife. And even though he’s made vows about loving and cherishing me, he apparently also considered human trafficking me to his awful creditor part of the deal.

The realization settles in my bones like ice water.

My fingers curl against the floor, pressing into the cooling blood that isn't mine, that never should have had to be spilled like this. My breath shudders out of me, but I don't cry. I don't scream.

Something just… breaks. Like a switch flipped. Like I'm a different person now.

Mark tilts his head slightly, his brows drawing together, but the expression is fleeting, gone before I can read it. He shifts his weight. Opens his mouth. Closes it again. And then—

“Did you have to kill him?”

The words are soft. Almost gentle. Like I’d just put a dent in my car instead of shanking a man who fully deserved it.

I blink. A slow, disbelieving motion. My pulse pounds against my ribs.

“ What ?”

His jaw flexes, but his expression remains irritatingly calm. “You could have just—” He gestures vaguely at the mess between us. “Fucked him up a little. You didn't have to go this far.”

The room tilts. My head pounds.

Fucked him up a little?

I push up onto my knees, my limbs sluggish, blood-slicked hands bracing against the tile.

“He was going to rape me,” I say, and my voice comes out hoarse, foreign.

Mark sighs, running a hand down his face, and for the first time in all of this, something flickers across his expression. Frustration? Disgust? Exhaustion? I can’t tell. But it isn't guilt .

“Yeah,” he mutters. “I figured.”

I lurch to my feet so fast my vision goes white. Mark straightens too, mirroring the movement like we’re strangers meeting in a dark alley. But he doesn’t step back.

“You… figured ?” I spit.

The cigarette. The way he kept his back turned. The way he didn't even flinch when I screamed for him.

I knew it, but hearing him say it so blatantly makes something ugly claw up my throat.

“You stood there and watched.” My voice shakes. My fingers twitch at my sides. The anger bubbling in my chest burns hotter than the fear ever did.

Mark exhales slowly, leveling me with that look of his. The disregard .

“It's going to cause me problems, Skye,” he says.

I stare at him. Speechless.

A sharp laugh breaks from my throat before I can stop it—hollow, bitter, the sound of a woman who has officially lost all remaining fucks.

I’m empty inside. Truly fucking empty.

“Problems?” My voice is raw, cracking at the edges. “I killed a man to save myself, and you're worried about your problems ?”

Mark exhales again. Slower this time, like he's being forced to bare with me.

“You don't get it,” he mutters. “You never fucking get it.”

“Oh, I get it,” I snap. “I get it just fine, Mark. You let him do what he wanted because it made your life easier. You stood there and smoked while I begged for your help. And now you're pissed because I ruined your plans?” My voice rises, sharp and shaking. “Because I fought back? Because I lived? In my fucking house?”

Something shifts in his posture. A new kind of stillness.

“Your house?” he echoes. A muscle jumps in his jaw. “It's my house, Skye. You might have gotten it from your inheritance, but everything in here that you see? It’s mine. It will always be mine.”

“You wish, you piece of shit,” I grind out.

I've never insulted Mark like this. But tonight, the mask is gone. And I don’t care what happens next.

Everything about this house belongs to me. My great-grandfather built it with his own two hands. His blood, sweat, and tears are imbued into the very wood, the foundation, every nail and brick. This house isn’t just mine—it’s a part of my family, my history.

Mark has no claim to it. No matter how much he thinks he does.

“What?” I throw my hands up. “You made me your housewife and decided to be the sole breadwinner, and suddenly that means you own everything? What’s next? My soul? MY fucking cunt for you to share with whomever?”

He flinches. But it’s not a good flinch. He looks like I slapped him and he wants to slap me back.

I don’t fucking care.

“You'd be no one without me, Skye,” he breathes out. “You know how much I've done for this. For us.”

“Yeah? Like what?” I step into the pool of blood, watching it soak into my socks. “Please, Mark. Enlighten me with your male provider wisdom.”

I’m smiling. Maniacally so. And there’s no softness in me anymore. Only rage. Burning rage.

His voice drops to an eerily soft whisper. “You think you’d still have this house if it weren’t for me? You think those lawyers would’ve just let you keep it? You think the debts your daddy left behind would’ve magically disappeared?”

My smile drops. Goddamn it. A reaction. I hate giving him reactions.

Mark sees it, and his mouth curls—not into a smirk, not into a sneer. Something worse. Something dangerously close to pity.

“I made sure you didn’t lose it all,” he continues, taking a step closer. “I made sure you weren’t out on the street like some pathetic orphan with nowhere to go. I handled things, Skye. I took care of you.”

Another laugh crawls out of my throat before I can stop it. A broken, bitter thing.

“You took care of me?” I echo. My hands curl into fists at my sides. “Is that what you call letting a man waltz into our house and—” My voice cracks, sharp and jagged, but I push through it. “That was you taking care of me?”

Mark shakes his head, like I’m just too stupid to understand.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” he sighs. “Duvall was supposed to leave, and everything would’ve gone back to normal afterward.”

Normal.

He actually fucking says it.

Like I was supposed to just… shrug it off? Take a shower, do some yoga, maybe bake a pie, and then slide right back into his bed like a loyal, trauma-ignoring wife?

I take a step closer, my chest brushing his. I tilt my chin up, forcing him to meet my eyes.

“You made some fucked deal with him, huh?” My voice is even, somehow, despite the absolute raging inferno I’m currently suppressing. “You promised him you’d let him fuck me for something? Be a man for once and at least admit it.”

Mark doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t have to.

The truth is there, written all over his face.

I wasn’t supposed to fight. I wasn’t supposed to win. I was supposed to be the sacrificial lamb, get ruined, and let Mark be the one to fix me.

But now that I did fight back—now that I did win—it’s a problem.

Mark’s hand twitches at his side. His fingers flex, like he’s debating whether to reach for something. I don’t know what. At first.

Then I see it.

The shift in his jaw, his teeth grinding together like he’s chewing through every last ounce of self-restraint.

My Mark. My composed, silver-tongued, gaslight-gatekeep-husband-boss is gone.

This man standing in front of me isn’t the Mark I once knew—not the smooth talker, not the patient manipulator.

This is the real Mark. The one who doesn’t bother with words anymore. The one who’s out of excuses, out of lies, and apparently, out of any semblance of human decency.

And I see it, plain as day.

He’s going to kill me.

His posture shifts—just a little, just enough. The kind of movement a predator makes right before it pounces. I don’t think.

I move.

I take a fast step back. But the second I do, Mark lunges.

His hand slams into my throat before I can take another breath. The impact knocks me back, my feet slipping on the blood-slicked floor, but Mark doesn’t let me fall.

No, that would be too easy.

His grip tightens like a damn vice, fingers digging into my windpipe with the kind of dedication that says he’s hated me for a long time already. He shoves me against the counter, the edge biting into my lower back.

I try to scream. Nothing comes out.

I claw at his wrist, but he doesn’t even flinch.

His face is inches from mine, his breath hot against my cheek. He isn’t yelling. He isn’t cursing. His voice, when he finally speaks, is low.

Too low.

“You should have just let him fuck you, Skye. Would it be really so bad? Would it be worse than me killing you?”

His fingers squeeze harder. My vision blurs at the edges.

“Because now I have to kill you, honey,” he purrs, like he’s doing me some kind of favor. “I can’t be tied to Duvall’s murder.”

I thrash, kicking out, but he’s prepared. His body presses into mine, pinning me between him and the counter, keeping me still as the air fights to leave my lungs.

I try to breathe.

I can’t.

I can’t.

He's too strong.

“You're a loose end. I know I won’t be able to shut you up, not with that righteous mouth of yours,” he murmurs. “You’ll go to the cops. You’ll ruin everything. And I can’t have that.”

Black spots bloom across my vision, creeping in from the corners, distorting the world. My hands grow weak, my legs trembling beneath me. A dull, distant panic claws at my mind, but it’s buried under something colder. Something worse.

He's never loved me. I was never loved.

“But this is good, Skye,” he continues, lost in the violence and his fucked-up dreams of grandeur. There's no grandeur here. Only ugliness. “I'll tell them you both ran away, you see. Duvall will take the blame for the money theft. And you, for seducing him.”

A slow, creeping numbness takes over my limbs. I blink, once, twice, and the world shifts, my mind slipping, floating, fading—

No.

No.

Not like this.

A guttural noise rips from my throat—a raw, desperate sound. I summon everything I have left, every last ounce of strength, and twist my body to the side, just enough.

He stops me before I can grab the knife. But his grip falters.

Air rushes back into my lungs in a burning, ragged gasp, and before he can recover, I push off the counter and slam my knee into his stomach.

Mark stumbles back, clutching his face. Blood seeps through his fingers, dripping onto the floor, mixing with the mess already there.

I don’t give him time to recover.

I turn and run.

My feet slide on the tile, but I push forward, sprinting toward the door. My lungs burn, my throat raw and bruised, but I don’t stop.

I can’t stop.

I hear him behind me—the sound of his heavy footsteps, the sharp intake of breath as he moves. He’s fast. Faster than I remember.

But I’m faster.

The front door is within reach.

One more step.

One more second.

I lunge for the handle, fingers closing around the cold metal, twisting, pulling—

A hand snatches my hair from behind.

A scream rips from my throat as I’m yanked back, my head snapping with the force. My feet leave the ground for half a second before I slam into the floor, pain exploding across my back, my skull cracking against the tile.

White-hot agony bursts behind my eyes.

The world tilts.

Mark looms over me, his face a mask of rage and something else. Something dark. Something wild.

His lip curls, and he spits blood onto the floor.

“You think you’re leaving?” His voice is different now. Rough. Almost breathless. “After everything?”

I gasp for air, my hands scrabbling against the floor, searching, reaching—

He steps forward, his foot pressing onto my chest, pinning me down.

I freeze.

The weight is crushing, his body towering over mine, his eyes empty and cold.

“You’re not leaving, Skye,” he murmurs. His voice is soft again. Almost gentle. “You’re never leaving me.”

Then he squats over me and wraps his hands around my throat.