Page 31

31

LAVINIA

I’m back in the padded cell, strapped into the straitjacket, feet bound together.

Helpless to the bone.

Hating myself.

Fear tightens my windpipe and makes black spots dance in my vision every so often as I go into a fit of panic.

Fear for my own future and for the girl I hurt.

My only friend, whom I might have killed.

I almost didn’t care about the idea of going to a new man who’d torture me as badly as Zoltan did, or even worse.

But the idea of going straight back into the claws of the monster I escaped makes me remember all too clearly just how horrible, mind-numbing, and soul-crushing that pain was.

More so, it’s a deep cut to my pride I can’t live with.

At some point, the man with the perforated oxfords comes to check whether I’m hurt.

I feel like cattle as he takes off the straitjacket and turns me to check my skin.

A wide smile is plastered on his face.

“I have no idea what’s so special about you, first making Dorin act all strange and possessive—I actually thought he was going to keep you at one point. And now, a buyer bidding thirty million at first sight.” He pats my cheek in a gesture that’s more of a few soft slaps.

“Thank you for making me a rich man.” Pressing his hands to his thighs, he pushes up.

“Well, even more rich.” With that, he turns to the guard waiting at the door.

“Get her back into the straitjacket. I don’t want to have to do a partial refund if anything happens to her.”

When he’s about to leave, I break from my debased numbness.

“Is she dead?”

He turns to me, a severe look making his already low brows draw lower, almost as if the girl means something to him too.

“No.”

Relief loosens the tightly coiled tension in my body, making me slump.

I just sit there, staring into nothingness as the guard puts me back in the straitjacket, then leaves my cell and turns off the light.

I’m exhausted—tired to the bone—when the light comes on again and a new man enters.

This time, it’s the long-haired guy, who was supposed to mar my skin further with Zoltan’s name.

The man the masked girl sought shelter with.

Dax.

“Are you here to take me to him? To Zoltan?” I ask, feeling dead inside.

“Not yet.” He approaches me slowly, honing his sharp—no, murderous—attention on me.

Suddenly feeling like a maelstrom has ripped into my cell, about to tear me apart, I scoot away, into the corner.

“Then why are you here?”

His lip twitches in a cruel expression as he leans down to snatch me by the hair.

“To get my revenge.”

Ice slithers through my veins, my stomach twisting with a foreboding feeling.

I’ve sensed the murderous rage in Dorin when someone hurt me.

I even saw him kill a man for harming me.

Now, I’m the one who harmed the girl.

I’m the one who will pay dearly.

Even knowing it’s no use, I try to plead with him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean t—”

Slamming his hand over my mouth, Dax whips me around and hoists me up with an arm around my waist.

Instinct takes over, and I kick and scream.

But it’s no use.

I’m strapped in tight in the straitjacket, my feet bound, and Dax is as strong as Dorin.

There’s nothing I can do as he carries me off.

I’m certain I’m getting prepared for my execution as he straps me into the chair in the medical room.

The idea that he’s about to end me should please me, but for once, I don’t want to die.

All through the action, even seeing Zoltan, I’ve held on to the hope that Dorin will come for me.

It’s a stupid, na?ve hope, but I can’t let go of it.

“No,” I cry out as straps tighten around my wrists, ankles, and stomach.

“Don’t do this. I’m so sorry.” When my pleas don’t work, I try something else.

“Dorin will kill you for touching me.”

At this, Dax laughs.

Grabbing my chin, he leans in to spear me with a cruel gaze.

“Dorin’s not here now, is he? He doesn’t care about you.”

His words are like a stab to the heart.

A stab that crushes my hope as I realize he’s right.

Dorin is not coming for me.

He made his choice—tossed me aside to be claimed by the devil.

I go slack, staring at the ceiling, welcoming death, as Dax uses several straps to fasten my head.

It’s not until he straps my face in with pins and metal fixtures as if I’m about to undergo head surgery that it dawns on me how strange this is.

New fear surges through my veins.

I strain against the straps and the pins, but they’re too tight.

All I can do is flit my eyes from one side of the room to the other.

“What are you doing?” I croak as he dons surgical gloves and disinfects my throat.

Somehow, I just know he’s not giving me the easy way out by killing me.

He wouldn’t go through all this trouble of strapping me in tight for that.

Dax is going to make me suffer for what I did.

“Don’t worry. I’ve done this to a lot of girls over the years. I even got a few to practice on before filling an order. Only one of the early ones died from complications. I’m very good at what I do. Unlike Dorin, I haven’t cost Mikhail much merchandise loss.”

A wicked smile gleams in his eyes as he lifts a syringe and aims it at my neck.

“I really hate to sedate you for this, but too much muscle movement will heighten the risk of complications, and I want you to live to feel this.”

I scream as the sharp needle sinks into my neck.

“That’s right. This will be the last scream coming up your throat.”

Terror becomes a thick haze over my brain as the sedative seeps in, stealing my scream, stealing my voice.

All I can do as Dax sinks a scalpel into my neck is flit my eyes back and forth and sink my nails into the padded surface until they break.