Page 22 of Unhinged

She shakes her head, looking smaller by the second. “Because who would believe me if I told them?”

“Oh, little bird,” I breathe. I shake my head, the vein in my temple throbbing with an anger that blazes like wildfire. “I’ll make them believe,” I promise. Some would say this is madness. To feel such rage over a woman I hardly know, but then I know her. My soul recognized her when we met, drew me to her, and entwined us.

I gently wipe away the tears that streak her face. “Michael Lovell won’t escape justice.”

Her gaze locks with mine, a mixture of fear and hope in her eyes. “Promise?” she whispers, her voice as delicate as a feather caught in a gale.

“Promise.” My word is resolute, a vow carved in stone. When I next go Stateside, Michael Lovell won’t breathe for long. “He’ll pay.”

Alice curls into me, her head on my chest, and I hold her.

Alice’s head would be on a pike if Ileana could see me now. She can’t stand the idea of losing me, not that she ever had me. Alice’s arrival is going to force my hand.

I’ve got a queen to behead. And once she’s dead, I have a professor’s blood to bathe in.

9

ALICE

I’m in hell disguised as heaven.

As Taren leads me into the opulent penthouse suite and the fanciest hotel I’ve ever entered, I’m still trying to figure out why I’m here.

He needs arm candy. Surely, there were many women he could have picked. And yet, there was something odd about our conversation on the plane. I’ve no idea why I told him about Michael. It was a moment of insanity.

Not even my friends know what happened that night on campus.

My friends go on to me about my reluctance to date, but that’s because they don’t know why I’m scared to be intimate. They’re oblivious to the horrifying truth about the night my professor violated my trust. He thrust me into an endless nightmare, leaving me scarred.

Since that night two years ago, I haven’t had sex. And yet, I’ve had sick fantasies about being raped. None of it makes logical sense. I fear that when I have sex again, it won’t be rough enough. Now, I’m broken, and the only way to feel is to be violated. Until Taren came along.

How he looks at me turns me on, and I realize that only cements the truth I’ve feared. I’m fucked in the head. Michael’s treatment of me has screwed me up for good.

I’m broken.

Discardable.

“Why did you bring me?” I ask.

Taren looks at me briefly. “There’s no other.”

It’s a half-answer, one that doesn’t really make sense. There was no one else available? “My three best friends are all far more beautiful than me. You could have?—”

He cuts me off with a savage snarl. “Say that again, and I’ll put over my knee and spank you.”

“It’s the truth?—”

He grabs my throat hard. “You, Alice, are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Your friends.” He shakes his head. “None of them appealed to me. It was you.” He grinds his teeth, eyes flashing with barely contained rage. “It was you I wanted by my side.”

I swallow hard.

“Do you understand?”

Not exactly. I’ll never understand how a man could pick me over my three best friends, but I’m glad he did. “Yes,” I murmur.

“Good, now I never want to hear you put yourself down like that.” His jaw clenches. “Fucking Michael has done a number on you, hasn’t he?” He paces up and down, muttering under his breath in Spanish. I catch a few words, but my Spanish isn’t the best.

“What do you mean?”

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