Page 87 of Cruel Knots

“Let’s go,” Leon says through clenched teeth as he suddenly grabs my wrist. Kicking the door open, he drags me out of the cell.

I stay silent as he leads me back up the staircase and onto the upper floors of the manor. Leon is fuming mad but there’s nothing I can do or say to ease his pain.

Reaching my room, he shoves me inside and locks me up again.

25

Lucia

Lying on the cot, I stare listlessly at the ceiling in my room. The torn pants stay abandoned on the floor as I can’t knot them well enough to keep them hanging around my waist.

Without a phone or a TV, I’m forced to lie around with nothing to do, but pay attention to the thoughts haunting me. Until now, I believed Damien to have suffered the most brutal torture at Callum’s hands. His beautiful, angelic face was ruined to look like a beast’s and it was something he’d been cursed to live with for the rest of his life.

Leon’s scars run deep into his soul. Watching his brother’s face getting carved was a trauma he was still dealing with. Damien’s mutilated face is a constant reminder, haunting him every moment.

His obsession with the butterfly knife finally makes sense to me. Having it spinning between his fingers is a way of having control. He’s fine as long as he’s the one doing the cutting and stabbing.

Past memories fill my mind. Damien, Leon, and Mikhail were always together. They never let any jealousy come between them. Whatever they had, they always shared.

Even me...I realize.

This was the very quality that attracted me to them. I yearned to be with them, hungry to be a part of their pack.

I have a chance now, I decide. But, how do I get through to them? How do I make them trust me?

Leon wanted me to witness the torture so I wouldn’t miss the monster that lurked behind his beautiful face. In a way, he wants me to know he’s worse than Damien, that I shouldn’t shun his brothers for the scars that mar his face.

I wish I could make him see that Damien doesn’t disgust me anymore. My feelings changed the moment I realized he was the boy I fell in love with.

The sound of a sudden click distracts me. Next second, the door is being pushed open.

Sitting up, I gather the blanket around my waist.

Lilja strides inside, her gaze immediately falling on the pair of ruined black trousers she’d loaned me yesterday.

“What the fuck did you do?” she mutters, moving forward to pick them up. Holding the trousers, she inspects the sliced waistband. “Do you have access to weapons?”

I scoff. “I’m not even allowed to have a fucking toothbrush here!”

She snorts. “Someone’s in a mood this morning. I thought all that whiskey would mellow you down.”

“Leon happened,” I say, frowning. “He...I...” I struggle to find a word that describes what he did to me this morning. Not only did he cut and stab a man before me, he even had me panting like a bitch before the bleeding, dying man.

Lilja’s expression turns grim. “What did he do?”

“He stabbed a man and slit his gut,” I say in a dead voice. “Then, we fucked.”

She sits down on the edge of the bed. “Too much for you to handle?”

“The act should’ve been the most shocking part but it isn’t,” I confess. “Leon’s trauma still haunts him. He hurts people to avoid feeling like a victim.”

“You understand him, then.” Her dark brown eyes gaze into mine. “No wonder they were never able to give you up. They’d rather do things the hard way than let you go.”

“They’re keeping me prisoner because they want me to hate them,” I say bitterly. “Sometimes, it works.”

She chuckles. “Come on. Let’s go eat breakfast.”

“I’ll have to wear that again,” I say, gesturing at the ruined trousers.

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