“Do it,” I said again. “Just do it.”
His stare tightened on mine. “Do what, exactly? Finish off your self-hate attempt? If you feel that fucking bad, you should finish yourself off, you know. Save all the goddamn wallowing. It’s pathetic.”
“Yeah, well maybe I’m a failure at that, too.”
I knew the tears were pricking at my eyes, and I despised myself for it. I forced my jaw up in the air, trying to look as proud as I could manage, even though my bottom lip was trembling.
Shhh, secrets. Secrets.
Never tell your secrets.
He dropped my wrists and pulled away from me, and the pity was worse, his eyes still struggling to take it in. I pulled my tights up, but didn’t attempt to squirm away, just gathered my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them.
“Finish me off,” I whispered.
“You seriously need to get some damn therapy,” he said. “It’s not as though you can’t afford it. Spending the rest of your life in therapy might be a good idea. Better for you than snorting coke every minute of the day.”
I was tired of hearing the same old bullshit, so I scowled at him.
“Last time I checked, you weren’t my personal advisor.”
He smirked at that, letting out a chuckle.
“I use that line plenty myself, darling.”
The atmosphere in the room had flatlined enough to make me feel useless. The tension between us was gone – any of the good tension, at least. If there could even be such a thing as good tension between the Constantines and the Morellis.
Lucian got to his feet and brushed himself down, clearly feeling as though anywhere with less than a million-dollar decor value was obviously infested with cockroaches.
“At least fuck me before you go,” I said, and I meant it. I truly meant it.
He sneered at me. “I wouldn’t want to fuck a Constantine, just strip them and hurt them.”
“That’s not what your dick is telling me,” I said and gestured to the bulge in his pants.
It was then that he came to his Morelli senses and came charging back to me, gripping my throat in his hands. “I will hurt you,” he snarled. “Don’t fucking push it!”
“Good,” I said, and I meant it. “You’ll save me the work.”
We glared at each other with more spite than you could put into words, both of us seething on waves of malice built up over decades. But it wasn’t spite that was making my heart race.
“Do it,” I rasped through his grip on my neck. “Hurt me.”
His eyes were slick with evil, and I saw it. Felt it. Sadism . . . cruelty . . . brutality . . . just like I’d known from so many men, so many times.
I felt like that again. I felt it deep. I felt it in him. In the monster in front of me.
But this monster was different.
This monster made me flutter in a way no other man had ever done.
Lucian Morelli wanted to hurt me, and it wasn’t just because of my bloodline. It was because he wanted it. He wanted to see me suffer. He wanted to see me lose myself in my pain.
Oh God, please, I wanted to lose myself in my pain too.
I wanted the perfect monster to make me hurt for him.
Please, give it to me. Please.
But no.
Like a switch had flicked inside him, his fire turned to ice.
“I have no time for your worthless shit,” he told me. “You’re nothing but a sad little bitch from a bitch of a family. All of you can rot in hell, and I’ll help you get there.” His pause hurt me more than his hands ever could. “But it won’t be today. Not while you’re asking for it.”
My lip kept on trembling, and the cold in his eyes chilled my bones. I was silent as he backed away from me, his sneer blooming on his lips.
“Enjoy your breaths, little girl,” he said. “I’ll be coming for you one day. In the meantime, keep playing your pathetic little games of self-harm.”
I wanted to beg him to stay, even though it was insanity piled on top of insanity, and made no sense to my soul. I didn’t beg him for anything. I summoned enough pride from the scrappy little pits of my heart and stayed silent as he walked away, watching him leave with my sobs battling in my chest.
He didn’t even look back.
I flinched as the front door slammed closed behind him, and then the sobs burst their way free from my lungs.
Predictably, the cocaine burst its way free from my clutch soon after.11LucianThe bitch had twisted me up inside, so tight I didn’t even know my own mind as I left that slum of a building. I marched out into the street, hoping that a random lowlife freak would come chasing after me, just so I could slam my fist into some fool’s flesh and make them suffer.