Page 79 of Darkest Sin

He’s going to wish he were already dead.

“I promise you, Chiara. Sergiu and Monica will pay for what they’ve put you through,” I tell her. “I already have a team working on their location.”

“Good,” she finally says, allowing the exhaustion to claim her. “Then take me home. I need a bath, and after that, I intend to spend the rest of my life in your arms,” she tells me. “I belong with you, Killian. Right here at your side, and I don’t care how many times you try to push me away for my own wellbeing, I’m not going anywhere. You can’t make me. I love you, and though I know we didn’t make vows or have some elaborate wedding, it changes nothing. I’m your wife, and I fully intend to keep being your wife.”

“I’m not pushing you away, Chiara. I’m taking you home to my bed, and that’s where you’re going to stay.”

“About time,” she says, and with that, she slips into the back of my SUV and curls up on the seat, more than ready to live the rest of her life as the only woman I’ve ever seen.

34

CHIARA

The sweet sound of Ezekiel’s screams is like music to my ears as I watch my husband take his fingers one by one. “You should have heeded Chiara’s warning,” Killian chides, snapping the garden clippers closed and watching as his pinky finger falls to the ground. “When a woman tells you she is married to the most powerful man in the country, only a fool would assume that is an invitation to fuck her.”

Ezekiel cries out, sobbing so much that snot falls into his mouth, and I cringe, wondering why I was so afraid of him. Next to Killian, I’ve never seen such a pathetic little man, and yet, this misery of a man held power over me. But never again.

“Please,” Ezekiel begs as blood pours from his hand, pooling on the ground beneath. “I swear, I didn’t know. I never would have touched her.”

Using the garden clippers, Killian backhands him, and I watch as teeth fly from Ezekiel’s mouth, shattering against the wall of the cell. “Are you calling my wife a liar?”

“No. NO!” he panics, his eyes desperately flicking between me and Killian. “I knew. She told me, and I—”

“You what, Ezekiel?” Killian prompts in a tone that makes my skin crawl, but fuck, I love it so much. “And I suggest you be honest with me, otherwise, I’ll keep you here for years, replaying the same torture over and over again.”

Ezekiel frets, his whole body shaking as blood dribbles from the corner of his mouth. “She told me she was yours and that you’d kill me when you found out she was being sold again, and I said—” he pauses, and knowing exactly what he said, I can’t blame him for his hesitation. Once those words are out of his mouth, he’s a fucking goner. “I said that if you were gonna kill me anyway, I might as well get something out of it.”

Killian moves like lightning. One minute the clippers are in his hand, angling toward the next finger, and the next, the handles are protruding from Ezekiel’s stomach, the tip buried so deep I can’t even tell what type of tool it is.

Ezekiel roars in agony, the sound of his pain mirroring the cries of his guards coming from the adjoining cells, and I’m not going to lie, most of the brutality I’ve seen today has had me nodding along in excitement, but even this one has me cringing.

“Damnnnnnn,” I groan.

Killian turns and meets my stare, his brow raising as a stupid grin stretches across his face, and for the first time since meeting him in that terrifying auction house, he’s giving me golden retriever vibes. “You like that one, Angel?”

I can’t help but grin back at him. “That was messed up, even for you,” I tell him. “Just one more inch and he would have swallowed it whole.”

“That’s what I was going for, but my hand was in the way,” he says as Ezekiel groans behind him. “You’re welcome to give it a go if you think you can do better.”

My gaze shifts to Ezekiel, taking a moment to consider what kind of revenge I would find the sweetest, but when it comes down to it, I’ve always been an eye-for-an-eye kind of girl. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as though I’m going to violently ram a dildo up his ass for an hour straight. The more brutal punishments I’m happy to leave for Killian, but everything else . . . I don’t see why I shouldn’t enjoy taking part.

Pushing off the edge of the metal bars, I stride toward Killian and watch as the curiosity flickers in his dark eyes. “Do you have a knife?”

He silently nods and pulls a switchblade from his pocket before handing it to me and backing out of the way, leaving me to take the reins. Nerves begin creeping into my veins, slowly at first until they’ve completely consumed me, and before I even start, I glance back at Killian. His simple nod of encouragement is all I need to remember who has the power here.

“As much or as little as you need, Chiara,” Killian’s soothing tone fills the cell, sending waves of confidence crashing through me.

I take a breath, and as I slowly let it out, I take one final step, settling in front of the man who abducted me twice. He sold me as a piece of meat, chained me, cuffed me, held me down and raped me. Suddenly, my morals no longer exist.

Ezekiel stares at me, his gaze narrowed to slits as I contemplate how I want to play this. “You treated me like an animal,” I say as calmly as ever. “A toy put here for your sick entertainment. You held me down. You sliced my clothes from my body and forced yourself inside of me while I sobbed in agony.”

My voice wavers, and I pause, needing a moment to find my composure before continuing. “Do you recall how many times I begged you to stop?”

Ezekiel doesn’t respond, but I didn’t expect him to.

“Thirty-six,” I say. “Thirty-fucking-six times. I counted every single one of them because it gave me something else to focus on apart from your brutal attack, but now I’m the one with the power, and it’s your turn to beg. It’s your turn to crumble at the hands of someone else, to feel every ounce of your dignity be stolen from you, even if I have to come back here every damn day to make it so. You haven’t scarred me, Ezekiel. All you’ve done is prove to me exactly what I’m capable of surviving.”

He still refuses to respond, and it’s clear that he doesn’t fear me in the way he fears Killian, but he will learn to soon enough. However, to be fair, he kinda has a pair of garden clippers hanging out of his guts, so that could be putting a damper on things.

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