Adam took out a knife and set it down on a glass surfaced table. He watched as her eyes tracked the metal gleam of it frantically.
“Do you know why I’m doing this, Angelique?”
She shook her head, or tried to. Given how tightly tied she was, there wasn’t a lot of scope for her to move even that much.
“I’m doing this because of what you did.”
Adam saw that she was crying now. Did she think that would have any effect on him? Did she think that it made any kind of difference to what was going to happen to her? Did she think that he was that weak?
“Do you remember what you did, Angelique? Do you remember what you did to Paige?”
Angelique started to shake her head, and Adam struck her then, in a stinging, open handed blow.
“Liar! Do you think I don’t know when people lie? Do you think I let them get away with trying to deceive me?”
More tears then, streaming down her face, in some mix of fear, pain and more general distress. It was almost as bad as lying, as far as Adam was concerned. When he’d been a boy, he hadn’t been allowed tears. Those had just earned him a worse beating. He’d quickly learned not to cry.
“You betrayed Paige,” Adam said. “You hurt her, wounded her. You claimed to be her friend, but you seduced the young man she was in love with. You helped to break her heart. You stole him away. You hurt her, just because you could. Those aren’t the actions of a friend, Angelique. Those are the actions of an enemy. Someone trying to destroy her.”
Adam stood so sharply that Angelique tried to reel back, but that just meant more pain for her, as Adam had known it would. He’d become quite expert at what he did. At judging the effects of everything he did on other people.
“Tell me, Angelique, are you finding it difficult to breathe yet? Are you feeling the pressure in your head starting to rise as the blood flows there? Are you starting to feel that you can’t hold this position?”
Adam stood just a pace or two away from her, smiling at her as his words made her struggle.
“If not, you will feel it. It’s such a slow death, fighting against it every step of the way. Some people last hours before they die. You won’t. You don’t have the strength for it. You aren’t anything like Paige. She has strength.”
She was trying to talk through her gag now. Adam had no interest in hearing anything that she had to say.
“So pretty,” he said. “But that prettiness is what you used to hurt Paige, and I can’t allow that. You have to pay for that.”
He picked up the knife.
“Paige and I have such a special connection. She’ll see it, in time. She’ll see that her proper place is beside me, not chasing me. Of course, you’ll be dead by then. Now, should I cut you, do you think? Should I carve up that pretty flesh so that no man would ever want you, even if you weren’t dead?”
That had a certain kind of potential as an idea, but Adam was very aware that Paige would be coming to this place soon enough. He wanted Angelique recognizable. Besides, cutting her would only hasten her death.
For what she’d done to Paige, Adam found that he wanted her to suffer.
So he sat back in the chair instead, watching, unblinking and unmoving. Angelique breathed a sigh of relief, but that was only because she didn’t understand how bad things were going to get, given time.
“I’m going to sit here and watch you,” Adam said, holding the knife carefully. “I’m going to watch while your body slowly kills itself, because it can’t move well enough to let you breathe. I’m going to watch and know that you can’t do anything about it. Most importantly though, I’m going to watch, and know that you deserve every, single, moment of this.”
Angelique struggled against her bonds again, then. Adam just sat back and watched her with ferocious intensity. He had all night.