Page 114 of Scarred in Silence

Astra

He kneels at the side of the bed, drenched and broken, his forehead pressed against my knee like he’s praying to something he doesn’t believe in.

I should push him away. I should scream at him for everything he’s done—for putting the weight of a trigger in my hands and calling it mercy. But I can’t.

Because when I look at him like this, so wrecked he doesn’t even try to hide it—I remember the boy who looked at me like I was more than a fucked-up daughter of a corrupt businessman. The man who swore he’d burn the world to keep me breathing.

And maybe he already has.

“I waited,” I whisper.

He lifts his head, eyes wild. “I didn’t think you would.”

“I didn’t do it,” I say, voice cracking. “Not because I didn’t want to—but because it wouldn’t be enough.”

His gaze sharpens, and I know he hears what I’m not saying.

I don’t want peace.

I want revenge.

Lucien rises slowly, his hands brushing my thighs as he crawls onto the bed. His soaked clothes leave streaks of cold against my skin, but I don’t flinch. I let him come to me. Let him look at me like I’m both salvation and sin.

“I almost lost you.”

“You never had me,” I say, biting the words out even though I don’t mean them.

“You just trapped me long enough to make me forget the difference.”

He exhales sharply, like the truth stung.

“Then tell me to leave,” he murmurs, voice rough as gravel. “Tell me and I’ll walk back out that door.”

I stare at him. At the man who stalked me across state lines. The man who orchestrated a kidnapping to get me back. The man who handed me a gun like a gift.

He’s violent. Obsessed. Unforgivable.

But right now, he’s the only thing that feels real.

Instead of answering, I grab his shirt and yank him toward me. Our mouths collide in something desperate and bruising. Our teeth clash. Our tongues tangle. My nails claw down his soaked chest, and he groans into my mouth like pain is just another way of proving he’s alive, just like me.

“You think you can fix me?” I hiss, ripping his shirt off him. “But I was never broken. Just buried.”

His hand slides up the back of my neck, pulling my head back so he can look at me. “Then let me dig, baby.”

I don’t give him permission. I just kiss him harder.

We crash into the pillows, limbs tangled, mouths devouring. He smells like blood and rain and everything I should’ve run from. His fingers find the waistband of my shorts, and I arch into him, already soaked in places I shouldn’t be.

Hepauses, searching my eyes.

“You sure?”

“Don’t fucking ask,” I snap. “Just take.”

And he does.

He tears the last barrier between us, slides his cock inside me in one brutal thrust that steals the air from my lungs. I gasp, back arching as my body wraps around his.