Page 123 of Prince of Pain

I hadn’t heard from her, so she’d probably be more worried about what we’d owe the Donovans for Ryder’s car.

Pain seared my chest at the thought of his words. He hated me, I’d heard him say it. I was pretty sure he had, anyway. It was blurry.

I smacked the side of my head as if to rattle the truth to the surface, barely registering the pain. Ryder and I had thrown hands at each other plenty over the past few weeks, but he’d laid into me today without a second thought.

Usually, at least he apologized for getting mad, but today, I could tell he wanted to do it again.

I should’ve stolen Channing’s keys and hidden them. Then none of them would’ve left and we could’ve fixed it.

Right?

“Fuck!” I shouted, throwing an empty beer bottle across the room and watching it shatter, running my fingers through my hair and pulling hard. I had a headache, the erratic panic in my chest only growing with every passing minute.

I thought maybe Ryder would come back, convincing myself he would realize I’d done what I had to in order to keep us together, but he obviously wasn’t.

A dog barked in the street, children laughed somewhere as they played outside, and the sound of my own breathing was loud in my head as I tried to make it stop.

He said I’d ruined everything, and maybe he was right. I always ruined things, it was why my family hated me and why people only wanted me around temporarily.

I wasn’t even sure if it was because I was good in bed or if it was just because my pussy was warm at this point.

It was always my fucking fault.

I tore the bedroom apart looking for my blade, cursing at myself when I remembered I’d thrown it out. I hadn’t needed to cut myself to feel for weeks.

My eyes landed on Ryder’s bedside table where his knife sat, and I hesitated before walking over and grabbing it, wasting no time as I sat on the bed and pressed the tip against my thigh, savoring the familiar burn as I dragged it across my skin and let the blood drip onto the blanket under me.

It wasn’t enough. The burn was barely there.

I did it again a little deeper, the blood running faster with this one.

The noise in my head was so loud, Ryder’s hateful words screaming at me as I shook my head to try and block them out. Nothing worked.

Blood coated my fingers, and the knife shook in my hands as I cut again, managing to cause some pain this time.

Good, I deserved it.

The world had been punishing me for a long time now, and I considered cutting across my wrist to bleed out. My luck, someone would find me and bring me back, thinking they were helping.

I wasn’t supposed to be here, no one wanted me to be. All I’d had was Ryder, and even he’d turned on me.

I hadn’t set his car on fire, right? He’d done that and gaslit me. He wanted to make me look bad in front of the guys so he’d have his friends to himself.

Had he found someone better? It probably hadn’t been hard.

Everyone wanted him, and he’d finally realized he could do so much better.

I didn’t notice that I was fisting my hair until some of it tugged from my scalp, my chest tight as I tried to remember what had happened.

He’d left me, said I was crazy. Did the neighbors see him set his own car on fire?

Why did he do that? He loved me, or did I imagine that?

Had he even fucking been here, or was I having a bad trip?

I lifted my fingers to my face, smearing blood across my skin. I felt the dried blood from earlier when he’d hit me, so he’d definitely been here. Pretty sure my nose was broken.

My phone rang and I dove for it, scrambling to answer when I saw Ryder’s name on the screen. “Ry?—”

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