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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“If you obey me, you can know anything you’d like. You are now a proud co-owner of La Gabbia.” Alister and I were now sitting on the balcony overlooking the stunning ocean. The white sand glistened as the sun rose and gave it life.

He dragged me out by my arm, sliding me against the marble flooring into the bed that no longer had the dead woman lying in it. Bradley flinched as agony was clearly painted across my face.

He forced me to drink a cup of tea, and before I knew it, I was unconscious and woken up to breakfast in bed.

“You have the most beautiful eyelashes I’ve ever seen.” He reached over and brushed his fingers against them.

I moved his hand away from my face. “Is that why you collect them? Just because they are beautiful?”

He looked back at the ocean and sipped on his cappuccino. “Papa hated my eyelashes; he said they looked like the lashes of a girl. He and Ian would mock me about them. Papa and Ian were blonde, with light eyes and pale skin. My mother…she was beautiful like you, Demi. Skin that had this golden glow and big dark eyes.” He paused and leaned his head back before cracking his neck side-to-side.

“Then one day, he saw me playing with a doll—Mother had purchased it at a market in the islands on a vacation. He took the doll and tore her dress off and waved it in my face. He told me to look at her gorgeous naked body. He told me that women are here to pleasure men and nothing more. He called me some obscene names, and then he leaned forward, reeking of bourbon, and ripped my eyelashes out. When I cried and fought back, he summoned Ian, the brother who should have been protecting me, and had him pin me down as he plucked each eyelash out. Then he had Ian make a wish, and my brother did. He wished that I be exiled from the family.” Alister laughed and opened his arms to the ocean-front view. “Now look at me…alive on Earth’s most beautiful land, as the world’s most powerful man, and my brother… You killed him, my love. You are truly the love of my life.”

There it was, the making of a monster. I looked at the man sitting next to me. The one who created an all-inclusive resort, housing women who were being brutally raped and then murdered by powerful men. Women, so delusional with their wealth and prestige, that they thought adopting a baby was nothing more than an exciting shopping trip.

“Then why would you do all this?” I waved my hands around us. “You know how painful toxic masculinity is… Why the cages full of women? What would your mother have said?”

He paused and nodded slowly, as if he were processing it all. But then, like a light switch went off inside him, he looked at me and smiled. “You stupid little bitch, I’m saving the world by creating happier couples and flourishing families.” He tossed his head back and laughed hysterically.

Fear ran through my body as I watched the man who was now my husband have no emotion beyond inflicting pain.

“You’re not doing any of that. You are a monster. You are wrecking lives.” I didn’t have even a second to process anything else before his hand covered in the thick gold rings rang across my face, creating a crack echoing from my jawline.

“Ah!” I cried out, immediately dropping my face between my knees. But he didn’t stop.

“Please,” I choked out as the iron from the blood seeping into my mouth triggered a gag reflex inside me.

“Please…” I begged. His black dress shoe slammed into my face, causing my vision to blur.

“Alister…” The world was spinning as I lifted my hands and tried to protect my face. He had me pinned down and with my legs spread.

I screamed so loudly that my ears rang. The surgical procedure Dr. Davenport had recently performed wasn’t healed yet. The stitches were ripping, and my body was on fire.

“Please…” my voice trailed as I grew faint.

He kept going while my breathing hitched and life around me began to dissipate.

Was this finally the end? I had tried to understand this family and take them down. I had tried to finally make my life worthy and meaningful, but perhaps everyone wasn’t meant to have that.

Perhaps some of us were meant to simply be irrelevant to the world.

My eyes were closed as everything in my body ached.

“Open your eyes, wife,” he boomed. Slapping me, the sting of his rings crashed into the open wounds on my flesh.

I forced myself to look at him. He looked different; he looked like a wild animal.

Taking a knife, he slit his arm and his blood gushed out over my face. Grabbing my arm, he did the same motion before dropping the knife and slamming our exposed arms together.

“We are one, and there is no escape, Demi Ivory. You don’t understand. That woman’s corpse in our wedding bed is nothing compared to what I will do to you if you die. I will have you preserved, serving me until my final days, and even after I will find you in our next life and make you mine.”

“Uncle Alister?” a familiar voice called out. I blinked away the blood in my eyes that no longer had lashes protecting them.

“The blood ceremony is complete, nephew. It’s complete.” He smiled proudly as I watched Bradley race to me. I thought he’d lift me into his arms and take me to a safe haven, but instead, he wrapped his arms around Alister and patted him on the back.

“Congratulations, uncle.”