He didn’t deserve my screams.
It all stopped as quickly as it had begun, the tracker making a dull clunk as he dropped it to the top of the stand by the bed. I held perfectly still, willing him to make the assumption that it would be the only tracker implanted inside my body.
Because who bothered with more than one?
The hilt of the knife came down on top of the tracker while I watched Dima destroy the device that would bring Rafael to his home. I breathed slowly, wincing when he wrapped a bandage around my elbow delicately, as if he hadn’t been the one to cut me in the first place.
When he was finished he crawled off of me and stood from the bed, holding out a hand for me to take. Even with the relief that he hadn’t bothered to look for a second tracker, I couldn’t do it. Not knowing how similar it felt to the way Rafael had asked me to go up to his room that first night in Ibiza. I hadn’t known what I was doing then, but I did now.
“Come, Isa,” he said when I didn’t take his hand.
I shook my head slowly, sitting up and curling my legs up to hug against my chest and refusing to meet his eyes. I didn’t want to go wherever he wanted me. I knew, somehow, that whatever would come was far worse.
He pinched his brows together, casting a cursory glance around the room. “I do not like you here. I thought it wouldn’t bother me to know it was a temporary arrangement, but you were right. Locking you away like a dirty secret is wrong. I only want to bring you to your rooms upstairs for now.”
“At least this cage makes it clear what it is. I don’t want the pretty, gilded cage that makes you feel better about what you plan to do to me. I’d much rather stay here, where webothknow exactly what I am and what my place is,” I snarled in defiance.
He went still and then nodded his head slowly. He faced away from me, breathing heavily, and continued nodding.
He turned so suddenly I never saw the open palm coming, the sharp slap of his hand cracking against the side of my face so harshly that my entire body twisted with the force of it. I crumpled to the mattress, my lungs heaving against my shock.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but somehow I was, even after everything.
“Have I not shown you kindness? Have I not been gentle?” he yelled, grabbing at my ankles. I screamed as pain flooded my body when his hands wrapped around the bandages, dragging my feet off the bed and twisting me until I was bent over the edge in front of him.
I shoved my body up until I stood, turning in front of him and trying to keep myself out of the kinds of positions that were vulnerable.
Even if they all were.
“Will you be gentle when you rape me inside my pretty cage?” I demanded, my face grimacing at the heat blooming on my cheek. It throbbed, and his eyes narrowed in on what I knew must be a red mark at the very least. “Because no matter howgentleyou think you are, it willneverbe anything but rape. I will never want you, and I willalwayschoose him.”
The back of his hand cracked against the other side of my face, sending me tumbling to the floor in front of him. I panted as I forced myself up to my hands and knees, running my tongue over my bloody lip.
I would not bow.
The mantra played in my head even as my wrists throbbed with pain. I turned my head to glare up at Dima where he stared down at me.
The movement of his leg caught my attention, a shrill scream tearing free from my throat as he pulled back to prepare for the kick to my stomach that would bring my entire world to an end. “I’m pregnant!”
I twisted my body, shoving myself forward to take the kick somewhere else.Anywhereelse. Dima pulled back in shock, the kick driving into the back of my thighs with less force than he intended as I twisted, making my body protest.
He went still above me, glaring down at my stomach, and then lunged. Grabbing me by the hair, he yanked me to my feet and laid me out on the bed in front of him while I thrashed. My dress was shoved up my legs, leaving my underwear revealed as he bunched the fabric around my breasts. He stared down at the swell of my stomach in shock, and I knew Odina hadn’t told him.
She’d kept one secret to herself, and I wondered if there was at least that small trace of humanity left inside her. It would hardly matter once Rafe realized what she’d done.
With Dima’s eyes on my bare body, I couldn’t stop to think about my husband with my twin, even as tears stung my eyes to think of how irreparable our marriage might be if he’d fallen for her tricks.
But I had to have faith. I had to believe he would know the difference between us.
I pushed my dress back down when Dima took a step back, running a hand over his short, styled hair and turning it into a frantic mess. He stretched out his hand suddenly once more, grabbing me around the throat and lifting me to my feet. He shifted that grip to the back of my neck, collaring me and forcing me to walk toward the door. “Where are you taking me?” I asked, limping through the pain in my ankles.
“To decide what to do with the spawn the devil planted inside of you.”