Page 35 of Vow of Vengeance (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #2)

twenty-eight

Soren

It feels like someone is stabbing my brain with an ice pick.

A lobotomy.

"There's my fucking wife."

I didn't see the face of the man who attacked us, but I heard his voice. And it took my breath away, robbed me of every bit of oxygen I need to make sense of what the fuck just happened.

I'm on my back, which isn't how he tackled me, so I definitely lost consciousness at some point.

I can't see much from my position, and my body doesn't respond when I try to sit up and take note of my surroundings. A look down at my arms shows me they’re there, strapped down to my sides, and I blink, trying to figure out where I am.

Horror slams through me as the memory comes back to me- of watching Violet be knocked to the ground, turning for the gun before the same attacker dragged me down too.

I think I’m lying on a bed, given that I can make out a dresser on the opposite wall. There’s a little tripod sitting atop it, with a cell phone mounted on it. The little light assures me something is being recorded, and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s me . I’m being recorded… watched.

Am I dead?

Maybe I was shot in the scuffle and didn't notice.

But if that was what happened, why would I still hurt?

I suppose it tracks, if I ended up in hell. And hell must be where I am, because there's no other explanation for the man who steps before me.

“Vin?” I choke on the terror leeching into my lungs.

"Oh, baby." Vin huffs a sound of relief when he sees my eyes have focused enough to take him in.

He stands before me in all black- gym shorts and a tee that shows how pale his arms are, ghostly.

"What is this?" I mean to ask it, but the words come out on a sob.

I'm either in hell, in which case I'm pissed because I don't deserve this, or my fucked-up mind is torturing me for reasons I can't even begin to guess at.

Vin smiles, but it looks all wrong. It trembles, like it's not really there, the way I imagine a hologram glitching.

"God, I've missed you." He shakes his head slowly and then lunges forward, the mania on his face betraying the fact that he is not in his own head right now.

When his mouth crashes against mine, I try to escape him, horror unfurling in my stomach, bringing a wave of nausea alongside it.

He tastes like ash, decay and rot and fucking death. He tastes like my death.

"Kiss me." He groans, his wet mouth pulling away from mine just long enough to make the request. I try to turn my head when his tongue seeks mine again, slimy and warm, but he grips me by the throat and squeezes hard enough, right in the middle, that I feel my air supply pinched off again.

I still don't kiss him back, my head swimming and my stomach twisting with revulsion as he chokes me, both hands wrapping around my neck to assert dominance.

When he moves his grip, air floods my dying lungs, and I choke on it, coughing and hacking as the nausea pushes higher, threatening to come out.

Vin stares at me in disgust, his gaze cold and hard.

"You used to beg me to fuck you like a pathetic whore, and now you won't even kiss me back?"

My eyes are full of tears, from being choked or crying, I don't know. When I'm finally able to blink past them, I see him staring at me with anger on his face, hardening his jaw and sharpening his eyes.

"I don't understand." I wheeze, taking a breath to try and stabilize my lungs, stop the choking. "You're dead."

"Of course I'm not.” He sneers. “You just felt me kiss you. That was real. I'm real."

It doesn't make sense. I saw him, dead.

I watched his body be removed from the house.

I have his ashes.

"You died."

"No." Vin shakes his head. "I almost did.

They thought I was gone, I'd bled out so much.

But I was laying there, dying, and I thought of you.

How you'd be so lost without me, how you'd suffer, how you've never known anything about life without me, and I couldn't let go.

I held on so I could get back to you, so they took me to the hospital, and they saved me. "

I shake my head.

“Y-your ashes are on the mantle.”

“Not mine.” He smirks. “Knowing the coroner definitely has its perks.”

Nothing makes sense. My husband knows the fucking coroner? How?

Whatever game this is, I'm not playing. I refuse to believe that it's Vin, that I'm looking at my dead husband. I'd believe he had a secret twin all this time before I'd believe that he survived the murder that I was accused of.

"You're lying. You're not real."

Vin laughs and shoves his shorts and boxers down his thighs before stepping out of them.

Terror leeches into me as he strips his shirt over his head, too, showing how thin he's gotten.

He used to have a decent amount of muscle packed onto his lean frame, but he looks weak now.

The scar on his stomach shows me the source of it, but I'm not focusing on that.

I'm focusing on trying to get free, trying to make my body move.

But it doesn't obey me, no matter how I try to escape as he draws closer.

"Don't be scared, baby. I told you, it's just me."

"No." I swallow, not because I still refuse to believe it's him, but because I don't want it to be. The thought is somehow more terrifying. "I don't want you."

"That's rude." He shakes his head. "And it's a fucking lie, because I've been watching you. I know how you've cried for me, how you've sobbed my name in your sleep, just begging me to come to you. I did, a few times."

My head is pounding, thoughts reeling. Nausea churns deep inside of me as I take him in, wondering what he is planning to do. If I can keep him talking, maybe I can fend him off…

But I’m tied to a bed in a room I don’t recognize, and my husband is a fucking monster.

A serial rapist.

A serial murderer.

A sadist.

I didn't recognize it before because he was always so careful with me, but I've seen what he does now. I've seen his torture chamber, his tools. And I know now why the sex always had to be vanilla, why he acted like it was a chore, why he never seemed interested in me.

He's interested now, though. His dick is half hard in his hand, and he's too close for me to be able to relax.

"What do you mean?" I gasp, trying to force my body to calm down so that my mind can think clearly. "What do you mean, you did a few times?"

Vin smirks. "I mean I gave you what you wanted, baby. You just didn't know."

I stare at him, trying to understand what he's not saying. I think I do, but the awfulness of it is too much.

“You used to dream of me, right? That I would come home and peel back the covers to slip into bed and fuck your filthy little cunt? They weren’t dreams.”

No.

No, I refuse to believe that. And yet, something about the way he smirks tells me it’s the truth… maybe one of the only truths he’s ever given me.

"If you've been alive, where have you been for the last year?"

"I was with you all along, baby.” He leans over me and presses a kiss to my lips, his mouth pressing hard overtop of mine, the smell of rot and the palpable terror stealing my breath.

“I told you, I survived so I could come back to you, because you need me.

I couldn't risk anyone knowing, in case they tried to come back and finish what they started. "

My head is spinning, and I feel faint, like I'm slipping away from the world.

The call is coming from inside the house.

My brain flashes uselessly to the suspenseful movies we used to watch when I was a teenager, falling hard for him because he was the only thing in the world that made sense to me.

When he finally straightens, I suck in a ragged breath, choking and sputtering.

"You were in the house?" My voice sounds frail. "The whole time?"

" Almost the whole time." He shrugs. "Until your fucking boyfriend had to go and become obsessed with you.

I watched them put cameras up in the house across the street, watched him sitting there in that driveway when he wanted to scope out our house, and I knew I had to leave for a while, to avoid being caught. That's when I went to Khan for help."

My brain stutters over the revelation, but once I process it, the accusation feels like a sucker punch.

"Khan?"

As in my best friend?

No. He wouldn't help Vin.

He didn't even like Vin all that much.

"I knew he'd help me, since I know all his dirty secrets."

I shake my head, because none of this is tracking in my mind. None of this makes sense. And I hate how much power he has over me right now, how terrified I am, how I believe him.

"I don't understand."

"You don't need to. There are more important things. It's been too long since I've been inside you."

I flinch when his hand lands on my cheek, and something in his eyes hardens. He grits his teeth.

"Fucking Evers. He's ruined you."

I want to tell him that if I'm ruined, it's because I loved a monster.

I trusted him.

I slept beside him every night.

But all the words leave my mind when he grips my hair and yanks my head toward him, meeting my lips with the crown of his dick.

Everything inside of me clenches as I clamp my mouth shut, wiring my jaw so that nothing can slip past. I try not to wretch at the feel of his skin against mine, try not to think about all the places that dick has been.

"Open up for me, baby. Show me how much you've missed me, and I'll go slow."

I want to tell him that I wish he was fucking dead, but I refuse to open my mouth, so I glare at him instead, hoping that's enough to prove my point.

"Come on..." He cajoles. "Remember the first time you sucked my dick? You didn't want to do it then, either, but you liked it."

I sure as fuck didn't like it.

I didn't like how it made my jaw hurt or how he pulled my hair and forced me to stay still when he was coming, mashing my nose against his skin.

And I sure as hell didn't like how he grabbed the back of my neck and held me there, forcing me to swallow the disgusting, slimy cum that was making my stomach twist.

It’s almost sad, now, that I couldn’t see how fucking awful he was when we were together. Because in hindsight, he was horrendous.

Hiding from me for a year, inside our own house, is horrendous.

Unimaginable.

And so is being here at his mercy right now.

He slaps the head of his cock against my lips a few times in quick succession, like that will make me change my mind.

When it doesn't, he lets go of his grip on me and steps back, running his hands through his hair. I take the opportunity to look for restraints.

I'm fully clothed, still in the outfit I changed into when Violet and Wes showed up.

It's a small blessing, telling me that he hasn't done anything, but the thick bands that cross my body don't give me any assurance beyond that.

The straps are like the ones from the awful chair I'd seen in the basement of the bar.

.. the kind that look like seat belts, without a buckle anywhere in sight.

My arms are pinned by my sides, my legs pressed tightly together, and I feel like a corpse about to be mummified.

I feel like one of his victims… the ones he did unspeakable things to.

"Vin..." I venture slowly. "Let me go. We don't have to do this."

Whatever this is, I don't want it. I know what he’s capable of, and if I can’t steer him in a different direction…

I don’t have to ask myself whether he’d really kill me. I know that answer in my bones, and it’s making my entire body tremble.

"You're my wife , Soren!" He screams, turning around so suddenly I flinch away from him and the anger written all over his face. It's not something I witnessed often and seeing it now feels like a bad omen. "I thought we could get past this."

Get past it?

He faked his death.

He let me think he was gone, let me suffer alone for nearly a year, let me carry the grief of losing our child by myself.

And now he shows up, now that I know the truth about how vile he is, and he expects me to move on as if no time has passed?

There are so many things I could say, so many things I should ask. But I need to know, once and for all, what happened that night.

"Maybe we can." I say, so quietly that I wonder if the words actually made it off my tongue.

Vin freezes, eyeing me with something like hope.

"What?"

"Maybe we can get past it.” I swallow the lie and my fear over what he plans to do to me. “But I need you to be honest with me. No more lies?"

"No more lies." He agrees quickly... too quickly.

He's desperate for me to forgive him despite the fact he's not yet asked for my forgiveness.

"What happened the night I thought you died?"