“You’re upset, I understand that, Derek. And I will forgive you for it. But you will give me back my merchandise. Like you, I’ve waited a long time for my revenge.”
Listening to him now, I realized how foolish I had been. I’d agreed to this plan, thinking that it would appease my soul, that it would somehow make up for what had been done to me. Both of us thinking we could use this girl, destroy her, to make up for wrongs that she never committed. We both deserved to die for what we’d done.
Unfortunately, today, only one of us would pay that debt.
“Let her go, Marcos,” I warned him one last time.
He raised the whip again, and I knew in that split second, no matter what I said or what I did, he would never relent. If I left with her now, he would hunt us down. He’d never stop, not until I was dead and she was in hell. I deserved it…Scarlett didn’t.
I lunged at him and reached up at the same time. I had his head between my hands, and without a moment’s hesitation, I jerked, hard and fast, and his neck snapped with a stomach-turning crack. Such a small sound for what it signified.
I released him, the man who had been a friend, almost a father, for more than a decade, and he fell to the ground. His lifeless eyes stared up at me and my breath lodged in my throat. He was dead.
But I’d had no choice. Or, I’d had a choice, and the decision had been clear. Protect Scarlett. It was all that had mattered at that moment, and I would not regret it.
It didn’t make up for what I’d done to her—I’d never be able to do that—but I would protect her.
I turned away from him to look at her. She was still on her side on the bed, right where she’d landed. She hadn’t moved an inch since I’d pushed her down there, and her face seemed frozen in an expression that worried me—terror, pain, stunned disbelief.
Even when I approached her, she didn’t move. Even her eyes remained fixed where they’d been, staring at Marcos’ dead body. Her father’s dead body. The conversation between him and I from just moments before replayed in my head and a tiny bit of guilt crept in. I’d killed her father right in front of her, not even minutes after she’d found out he was her father.
But in that way, I’d had no choice. If I hadn’t done what I did right then, there was no telling when, or even if, the opportunity would present itself again. It didn’t matter that she was his daughter. He didn’t care. He would have tortured her just the same, maybe more so.
“I’m sorry, Scar,” I said, the first apology I’d made my entire adult life feeling strange on my tongue.
My voice seemed to jar her into the moment and she looked up at me warily.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“He wouldn’t have stopped,” I explained, hoping she’d understand without me having to spell it out for her.
“But why? I’m just…a thing to you,” she said as fresh tears cascaded down her cheeks.
It wasn’t Marcos that had her so distraught, and that shouldn’t have surprised me. Every father figure she’d ever known had been a monster. The connection meant nothing to her. But what she was asking wasn’t any easier. I had no idea how to explain why I’d done what I did; why I’d been happy to view her as a thing no so long ago but now, she was the furthest thing from it. I had words for it because it was something I’d never experienced before.
So I did the only thing I could do—I ignored it. There was no sense in trying to explain something to her when I didn’t understand it myself.
“Lay down on your stomach,” I told her gently.
She looked up at me, confused, her eyes still filled with tears.
“We have to leave, and when we do, it will be a long time before we can stop. You’re going to be…the welts…” Why the hell was I suddenly having such a difficult time communicating? It irritated me. “Lay down,” I said, more harshly than I’d intended, but this time she scrambled to comply.
I retrieved the cold cream from the bathroom—the one that few slaves ever got, medicated as it was to numb the pain. And I tried not to look at the angry welts on her back when I returned. Why they bothered me so much, I didn’t know. I’d left marks on her skin, and handprints, and seeing them had turned me on. They still did when I thought about it. But the long, thin, bloody lashes across her back now, they made me angry. I wished I could revive Marcos just to kill him again for hurting her.