Her only response is to hang her head. Heavy tears beat against her bloodstained jeans in dark dots.
I push her back into the chair again, disgusted. She’d been tortured and left for dead by her fiancé and wasn’t this useless afterward. Why is she now? What’s happened that she’s so scared of me, or of something she’s not telling me?
The remaining alcohol in my system is making me tired, but I can’t sleep, not while knowing she could walk out that door in the middle of the night.
I stalk around the room, needing to burn off some of this anger before I do something I’ll regret. “Why are you just sitting there crying? Why aren’t you defending yourself? Yelling at me? Screaming? Anything!” I roar.
She flinches but says nothing. Not a single word to corral or condemn me.
Maybe that hurts most of all? She’s decided I’m not worth fighting for, that what we have isn’t worth fighting for. But why? I hate that I don’t have the answers, and I hate she won’t give them to me. Every heartbeat of silence only fuels my rage higher.
This time when I pass the decorative table against the wall, I swipe the top with my arm, bringing the glass and items to the floor in a glittering pile of rubble. None of it matters. I keep my eyes locked on her, looking for a response. Anything other than the crying and the shaking…please.
I walk over the broken pieces to the bedside table and toss the crystal lamp against the wall near her chair. This time, there’s not even a flinch. She keeps her hands pressed between her thighs with her chin tucked as tears continue to stream down her face. It’s like she’s completely alone, and I don’t exist on her radar at all.
“Fucking do something!” I yell.
Nothing. Not even a blip of movement from her.
Well. If she won’t defend herself or show me any kind of reaction, fine. At the very least, I’ll have the respect I’m owed as her husband and as the head of the Doubeck family.
I stand taller, straighten my shirt, and smooth back my hair with both hands. It needs more than I can do for it now to keep it in place, but it doesn’t matter when she’s not even looking at me.
As I walk back across the room, the glass crunches under my shoes, grinding into the hardwood. I stop beside her chair and place my hand on its back. “You’re disappointing me, Valentina. I don’t like to be disappointed. You belong to me, and I’m going to ensure the entire world knows it. That way”—I crouch beside the chair, grabbing a piece of broken glass that had skittered near her feet—”if you decide to leave me again, there’s not a soul around who won’t immediately dump you right back on my doorstep.”
She’s shaking again, not just her hands but her whole body.
I drop to my knees and turn her chair to face me, the glass cutting into my palm as I move her. Red dots drip to the floor, and her eyes lock on them, staring, her mouth slack. For a moment, she’s gone, and I know—God, I know—she’s seeing her father’s death again. Over and over in her mind. Sometimes, I still have nightmares about my own father’s death. But it won’t stop me from shaking her awake, demanding the submission she should already be giving me.
“Valentina,” I snap. “Focus, Angel.” I raise the glass, its glossy red edge sharp and already stained.
Her gaze shifts to the glass and then back to me. I know she doesn’t see it yet because I don’t even see it. Not really. It’s like my body has taken control, my baser instincts to claim on overdrive, especially without a good enough reason from her to leave. Not that I’d ever be able to think of a good enough reason.
I press the shard’s point to her exposed forearm, and she freezes with a gasp. When she starts to jerk away from me, I snatch her wrist flat and hold it down against her thigh. “No, Angel. I gave you the chance to talk to me. To make me see reason. Now other needs are in control, and the only thing I want is to mark you, claim you, own you like I deserve.”
She whimpers, and I hate the sound from her lips. Even that day I made her strip naked in front of me, she didn’t make such pitiful sounds. “Why are you doing this?”
I draw the edge of the glass across her skin no more than a few millimeters. A tiny well of blood clings to the edge, matching my own. “I want to carve you up, put my name on every inch of your body so no one, especially you, will ever forget who you belong to.”