“Lavinia?” I jerk against my restraints on instinct, but it does me little good.
“Oh my fucking God.” Her mouth falls open, her evil eyes raking over me with a hatred so profound, it sears my flesh all over again. “So, this is what he’s been hiding all this time?” She laughs as if it’s totally implausible. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What are you doing here?” I demand.
“No, Cinderella.” She slams the door behind her. “What the hell are you doing in my fiancé’s house?”
“Fiancé?”
My heart stills, and time seems to slow as a callous smile curves her lips. “Oh, didn’t he tell you that?”
“You’re lying. That isn’t true.”
“Oh, but it is.” She comes to sit beside me on the bed, flaying me alive with her eyes.
“No,” I insist. “He’s been here with me. I don’t know how you found me, but what you’re saying is impossible.”
“My God, you are daft.” She glares at me. “Where do you think he goes every day? Where do you think he’s been when he isn’t around? He’s with me, you stupid cow.”
An image of Thorsen’s calendar comes to mind, and I think back on the night of the opera. I remember the argument we had when he came home in his suit, and I asked him if he was having sex with someone else. He told me I didn’t have to share him. Was he lying to me?
My stomach revolts, and I feel like I’m going to be violently ill as Lavinia pulls up an article on her phone and shoves it in my face. It’s a photo of them. Thorsen and Lavinia in front of his family’s yacht. She’s flashing a huge rock on her finger, and the headline says it all.
Prince Thorsen Engaged to Mysterious British Beauty.
“What’s the matter, Cinderella?” Lavinia taunts me. “Cat got your tongue?”
“Go away!” I scream at her. “Just leave me the hell alone!”
“In your dreams.” She stuffs the phone back into her pocket and stands up. “If you think you’re going to ruin everything I’ve worked this hard for, you have another thing coming.”
She glances around the room, her eyes widening in delight when they land on Thorsen’s wall of torture.
“Lavinia, no.” I fight against the restraints, but it’s too late. She’s already walking toward them, wearing that same glazed expression on her face from when she pushed me into the fire.
“You don’t mean anything to him, you know.” Her fingers trail over a flogger before moving onto a paddle. She picks it up, assesses it, and then sets it aside. “You’re just a toy. He would never do these things with me.”
“Let me go.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’ll leave. You’ll never have to see me again.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
When I open my eyes again, she’s eyeing the leather plaited whip hung on the wall, and my blood runs cold as she reaches for it. “You need to be taught a lesson.”
“Think about what you’re doing.” I squirm, glancing at the door. Is Thorsen here? Does he know she’s here?
Lavinia plucks a gag from the cabinet, examines it, and then comes for me. I thrash against the restraints and let out a bloodcurdling scream, praying that Lisbet can hear me wherever she is. Lavinia lunges for me, seizing me by the hair while she forces the gag into my mouth. I try to fight her, but it’s pointless. Without the use of my limbs, she has all the control, and it only takes her a matter of seconds to secure the band around my head.
When she finishes, she leans back to inspect her handiwork, and I try to reason with her around the gag, but it’s impossible. Everything comes out so muffled, even if Lisbet were standing right outside the door, she wouldn’t hear me.
“I’m going to make you so ugly Thorsen will never want to look at you again.”
Lavinia snaps the whip in her hand, practicing. It’s small enough for her to control and deadly enough to destroy what’s left of me. There’s nothing I can do but watch as she gets a feel for it. Nothing can save me now. Not even my god of thunder.
Tears streak down my face as she extends her wrist, lashing me with the first blow. The pain plows into me, blistering my nerves and forcing a scream from the depth of my belly. There isn’t time for so much as a breath before she snaps it, again and again, raining down misery so acute, I’m convinced this is how I’m going to die.
The leather snake cuts into my flesh, leaving behind welts and trails of blood as it splits the skin. I’m struggling for breath, choking on my gag, and completely helpless in the face of her evil. She’s burning me alive all over again, and when I close my eyes, that’s all I can see. Fire touches every part of me. This death is the slowest, most agonizing way I could go. And soon, I will be nothing but ash.
By the mercy of fate, my pupils shrink to a pinpoint, and the room closes in, threatening to disappear. I’m floating away to another time and space. A place where pain doesn’t exist anymore. I give in to it, and eventually, the blackness consumes me.
30
Thorsen
“I have to go, Hayes.” I wedge the phone against my shoulder as I unlock the front door. “I’ll be back at the palace in an hour.”
“Don’t forget your meeting at three,” he clips out, sounding as distracted as I feel. “For funeral arrangements.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” I pinch the bridge of my nose as I enter the house and drop my keys onto the table. “I’ll see you shortly.”
He disconnects the call, and I pocket my phone, glancing at the time. It’s already noon. When I left this morning at six, I didn’t expect to be gone this long, and guilt has been eating away at me all day. Ella is still strapped to the bed in the guest quarters, and I have yet to figure out what I want to do with her.
Last night, I was convinced I had no choice but to send her away. But all morning, while I met with various members of parliament, I considered every other alternative that meant she would stay. Each option was more ridiculous than the last. I could tie her up. Keep her locked in the guest room forever. Gag her so she couldn’t ever speak, and never make me believe her lies again.
But were they really lies? I had swung wildly from one certainty to the next. Of course, she was lying. Why wouldn’t she be? That’s all I’d ever known. But I’d convinced myself she was different. I’d let my guard down, only to be blindsided again.
As I approach her room, my decision still isn’t any clearer. The house is quiet, and Lisbet is on her afternoon break. But something feels off when I reach the door to Ella’s room and notice it’s cracked. I distinctly remember shutting it last night. But did I lock it?
I push it open, and half expect Ella to come flying at me with another lamp. But the room is silent and still. When I round the corner, and the bed comes into view, the whole world just fucking stops.
“Ella?” I try to blink away the sight before me. The bloody, beaten body of the woman I love.
Love.
I love her. The profound realization hits me like a brick to the head as I stumble forward, heart hammering against my rib cage. She’s so still, and I’m fucking terrified that I’m already too late. Her dead eyes are focused on the ceiling, and it takes me a minute to convince myself she even blinked.