Page 40 of Vow of Vengeance (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #2)

thirty-two

Soren

It feels like Vin took a blade to my skin, cut through the arteries to let me bleed out, and scraped everything out of me.

I'm hollow, exhausted, broken.

I'm so fucking broken.

My life was a lie, and it's gone, but the damage isn't.

My husband let men pay to rape me. He drugged me night after night and let me think I was going insane, let me think I was ill and pretended to have no idea what could be causing the lapses in my memory, the unexplained bruises or the phantom pain.

He gaslit me into thinking that something was wrong with me, got me on prescription medications for problems I didn't have, and all the while, he knew that everything going on with me was his own doing.

It's horrible all on its own, a type of sinister my brain can't even contend with. And that's saying nothing of the men he let do those things to me. Khan. Jimmy. My own friends... men I trusted, just like him.

I'm clearly an awful fucking judge of character.

My soul feels heavy, weighed down with the thought of hundreds of hands on me, holding me down, drowning me, choking me, suffocating me.

But then he orchestrated the murder of our own baby, let someone into our home with the intention of abusing me so badly that my body couldn't sustain the life inside of me. He says he didn't want Tony to go that far, and maybe he didn't. I'm certain he didn't plan for Tony to shoot him, either.

"You told me we could get past this." Vin says coldly. "Snap out of it, Soren. If I wanted a zombie, I'd have drugged you again, for old time’s sake."

I blink when he appears before me, a pair of scissors in one hand and a little red ball in the other. My brain feels too fuzzy to make sense of the items, of his presence, of the reality that I now know to be true.

When he grips my head in the same hand as the scissors and shoves the ball into my mouth, my body starts to come back to life, the numbness of his confession receding as survival instincts kick in.

I try to gnash my teeth together, to shake my head and wriggle away, but he gets it against my tongue and shoves in far enough that I choke.

The realization doesn't hit me that it's a gag until I feel the leather strap against my cheek, and I work to shove it out of my mouth, but he's stronger.

He secures it around my head, so tight that the band cuts into my cheeks as drool runs from my open mouth.

I try to scream now that I've remembered I am still alive, that I want to stay alive, but it's muffled around the ball gag as Vin pats my cheek appreciatively.

"There you are, baby. I'll admit, I liked you passive and quiet." He cocks his head a bit, like he's reassessing his previous opinion of me. "But fuck if you don't make my cock harder like this than you ever did before."

His words add insult to injury, salt to the wound.

My husband never loved me. I know that now. And I was so fucking stupid to think that it was real all that time.

Tears stream down my cheeks as he steps away from me, but I don't take my eyes off him as he moves to the end of the bed and grips my foot, sliding the scissors between my skin and the leg of my pants.

He cuts through them quickly, letting the fabric fall away at the split seams so that I'm left on the bed, trembling in my panties as he shreds my shirt, too.

I'm careful when the blade is in my vicinity, but the minute the fabric falls away and leaves me in my bra, I strain against the straps he tied me down with, testing them, trying to break them, desperate to get away from him.

"You still have a nice body, even with the extra weight." He remarks, unbothered by my futile escape attempts.

He crosses to the dresser and picks up the cell phone before he walks a circle around me. "Smile for the camera, baby."

The light in my eyes makes me dizzy when he brings the phone close to my face, capturing every tear, the snot and drool and everything else.

I want to yell at him to go to hell, but I'm not sure that's even what my tongue tries to say, because all that comes out of me is a long, unintelligible moan.

"That's it, sweetheart. My obedient little whore. You're going to help me make the best film yet."

I don't have to wonder what sort of film he's talking about.

"It started innocent enough, you know?" He shrugs, turning to the dresser to grab something I can't see.

When he turns back, a knife is in the hand not holding his phone, the blade glinting in the bright light coming from a corner of the room I can't see.

"We had to make ends meet, and I saw the way men looked at you, Soren.

I saw how badly they wanted to fuck you.

When I caught Khan beating his dick to a picture of you, I had a lightbulb moment.

I asked how much you were worth to him, and that five hundred dollars?

He said it was worth every penny." Vin sighs fondly at the memory, lost in it for a moment before he remembers himself.

I try to contain my rage and grief as he drags the knife between my breasts, down over my hip, and then cuts the side of my panties, leaving me open to the cold air and the angle of the camera he pans down my legs.

In the back of my head, I know I should be plotting an escape. I know I should be thinking of how to get out of this, trying to recognize details about where we are in the off-chance that I make it out of this. But my mind won't focus on anything other than the fucked up past and the awful present.

"But he wasn't willing to sacrifice his 'friendship' with you.

So, I got creative. The first time I drugged you, I thought I overdosed you and you died, honestly.

It was frightening, but he paid me and fuck if he didn't enjoy himself.

He loved it so much I figured other people might love it, too.

So, I started bringing in clients and filming it for my own enjoyment. "

Vin slips the point of the knife between my breasts and pulls, letting the tension disappear so my breasts spill out as the fabric pulls away. He makes a sound of appreciation, eyeing my naked form. "There's one bonus of the weight you gained. Your tits are bigger now."

I'm trembling so hard my body aches with the force of it. I don't know if it's from the hatred rising so violently inside of me or the fear of what he's doing and why.

"I started posting the videos online one day, just to see if people would pay for that too.

Imagine my surprise when the recordings ended up being more lucrative than letting men pay to fuck your warm holes.

" He laughs. "We had such a good thing going, baby.

And then you had to get pregnant and ruin it. "

I watch him crack his neck like he's just so frustrated with me for having the audacity to want a baby when he was busy profiting off my body and ignorance and the naive hope I had of being loved.

I was stupid to push for a baby. I knew, deep down, he didn't want them. But he never told me no. He just strung me along, letting me believe he was doing this for me, that he'd be a father because he'd do anything for me.

The whole time, I was a possession to him, not his fucking wife. Not the mother of his child. Not a person.

My jaw hurts, but not as bad as my chest. My heart. My mind.

Vin pans the camera to my face before setting the knife against my stomach, the edge of it pressed against my flesh. "Give me something to remember you by, baby."

My scream is strangled around the gag as he presses the blade into my skin so that blood wells up around the point of it and I squeeze my eyes shut to try and get a grip on the pain as the blade sinks slowly, methodically deeper.

“I’m no doctor, but I know where to cut to keep you alive long enough to feel everything.” He promises.

I can feel his eyes on me as he sinks in deeper.

More tears flood past my closed eyelids, and I hear him chuckle as he retreats, a sob that racks my entire body breaking loose when the blade releases from the flesh.

"I wish I could hear you scream, but we don't want to cause a commotion. Your pain is good enough, even if you can't scream."

I turn my head, back toward my own vomit, because I'd rather drown in it then give him another fucking second of satisfaction.

It's why I don't realize immediately what it is that he plunges inside of the hole he just made in my flesh, making me try to wriggle out of his hold, to escape the searing pain.

"Uh-uh." He says harshly. "I wouldn't squirm if I were you, unless you want me to rip your guts out through this little gash."

I can feel sweat on my face and nausea rising along the back of my throat, but I force myself to still and look at the wound.

.. at his fingers plunged deep inside of me.

I can't fight the tremor as disgust rips through me, but it's quickly eclipsed by agony as he scissors his fingers, like he's trying to spread me open more.

It feels like my nerves are on fire. The pain is blinding, white behind my closed eyes as my head drops back against the mattress.

"Fuck, you're perfect. You’re going to be a goddamn star.

" He laughs in disbelief and pulls his fingers unceremoniously from the wound.

"I didn't understand the appeal of snuff films at first, you know?

Sex is one thing. Sex with pain is another.

But watching someone die? Why would anybody want to see that? "

I won't let him win.

He's going to kill me, but I'm not going to let him get off on my death by giving him what he wants.

He let Tony rape me, and Tony seemed to enjoy the fight.

Vin told me he didn't want a zombie.

You’re going to be a star.