Page 177 of Ruthless Chaos

“Have you been drinking?” he asks, lowering his eyebrows. I don’t respond. Then he barks, “Get out of the bath.”

Ah, another one of his commands.

The ones I so dutifully listened to because I enjoyed making him happy, because I thought he cared about me. I sink deeper into the water until it touches my chin.

“How aboutyouget out of the bathroom?” I fix my attention on the marble tiled wall.

He doesn’t immediately answer. I’m not sure what I expect him to say or do, as I’ve never spoken to him like this before. I hear his footsteps, then he’s hovering above me.

“My patience is wearing thin,” he says through gritted teeth. “Get out of the fucking bath, Alize”

I keep my eyes fixed on the wall.

Alexander grabs my arm and pulls me up and out of the bath. I flail against his grip, splashing water everywhere, but I can’t resist his strength.

I glance at him and wish I didn’t.

He’s angry, angrier than I’ve ever seen him.

His gaze is fixed on my face. My eyes travel to the gun sitting an arm’s length away from him then back to his face. I have no idea what he’s going to do.

I hope he kills me.

FORTY-FOUR

ALEXANDER

I can’t figureout where the fuck her head is.

Clearly, trying to be nice to her isn’t working. I tighten my grip on her.

“We’re going to try this again, outside the bathroom,” I say.

Alize has a defiant look in her eyes, and she refuses to meet my gaze for longer than a few seconds. I barely even recognize her.

There’s blood on her face, blood on her fingers.

Even her fucking lips are swollen and bleeding from what looks like her own teeth marks. The bathroom looks like a crime scene. Though she’s soaking wet and slippery from the bath, I can’t even bring myself to look at her naked body.

My stomach cramps instead. I found her soaking in a bathfilled with her own blood. My eyes burn as they travel down her body, and I brace myself for the damage she’s done.

I don’t even want to look at them, but I must.

If any of them are too deep…

I can’t even bring myself to finish the thought.

I grit my teeth to stop myself from recoiling. There are probably fifty wounds on each of her legs. Most of them are small, the kind that I saw on her the first time. A few are deeper and still bleeding. She doesn’t seem to have hit any blood vessels, and I try to cling to that positive thought.

It’s not enough. I find myself searching her face again.

“Why did you do this to yourself, sweetheart?”

She wrestles in my grip, but I don’t let her go. My heart is hammering against my rib cage, and there’s tension coiled tight in my body. There’s a pounding in my head.

I think I’m scared.

“You have to answer my question first,” she says.