Page 204 of Awakened by Sin

No, she wouldn’t let him do anything else for her. It was time to stop looking to men to fix her. Lucifer was right. In the end, everyone chose themselves, and she had to do the same. She didn’t have much left.

“Tell me what you need,” he said.

“I need you to let me go.”

“I can’t.”

She let out a harsh, slightly hysterical laugh. “You already have.”

“I know you’re angry. The bartender told me what Khalid said. I should have listened to you before I—”

Her shaky control snapped. Something raw and searing and deadly spread through her. She’d taken so many hits in the past twenty-four hours, emotional and physical, and she was done. The life she’d been rebuilding had been ripped away as surely as the illusion of the great love she had shared with Vinny. If Marcus wanted a showdown, she would give him one. She would prove him right and show him what a fucking savage she was.

She grabbed the closest object, a delicate vase, and hurled it at the wall. It shattered, just like her heart.

“This is what you don’t need in your perfect, orderly life, isn’t it?” She grabbed a picture frame and threw it. The sound of breaking glass was immensely satisfying.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m a crazy bitch! Everyone warned you about me; you should have listened!”

She couldn’t stand seeing everything looking so perfect. She grabbed an abstract wooden sculpture and tossed that too. It didn’t break, which pissed her off. She kicked over a mirror end table to compensate and was appeased by the loud smash. She was about to upend a vase of flowers she bought earlier in the week when Marcus grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Carmen, stop.”

She struggled like a wild thing. He didn’t want to hurt her, which she used to her advantage. She didn’t fight fair, and when his grip loosened, she broke free. She stumbled into his office and faced an ocean painting she had commissioned for him. She had decorated his office with her dreams for their future. She had to destroy the evidence of her naiveté. She snatched a pair of scissors from the desk and turned back to the painting.

“Carmen!”

Marcus stopped her inches from the swirling blue waters. Her swollen hands couldn’t get a good grip on the scissors as he fought her for them. She wasn’t deterred. She released her weapon and went for the canvas with her fists. He picked her up. She managed to land a solid kick that made the painting shudder, but it stayed mounted on the wall.

“Fuck!” she bellowed.

He carried her kicking and screaming into the bedroom. He pinned her arms to her sides and pulled her tight against his chest. She fought him with all she had, kicking his shins, stomping his feet, but he didn’t release her.

“Let me go!”

“Listen to me.”

“Fuck you! Let go of me!”

She cursed, threatened, and struggled, but it made no difference. When she had nothing left, she went limp and dropped her head forward. She panted as tears filled her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

“I can fix this,” he said.

She couldn’t let him do that. Khalid was the catalyst that brought the hammer down, but their arrangement began to unravel when he revealed that he liked things the way they were. He didn’t want things to advance. He had everything he needed, but she needed more.

“When I found out what Khalid said, I lost control. I choked him.” He dropped his face into her hair. “When I couldn’t get in touch with Mickey, I called Gavin. He told me what happened at the Red Diamond, that Angel was trying to figure out who’d taken you.” His warm breath seeped through her hair and caressed her nape. “I didn’t know what to do. Janice banished me from the office. I’ve been waiting here for word, and then Gavin called.”

“They were waiting for their shot, and I was dumb enough to give them one,” she whispered.

“Tell me what you need.”

“I need you to let me go.”

His arms flexed before he released her. She took several steps away and took a deep breath. Her control wavered, but this had to be done. She wished she had the time to shore up her defenses and face him weeks from now when she could act cool and indifferent. Instead, she was forced to face him without any shields, when the pain was so great that she had no hope of hiding it from him.

She turned to face him. He didn’t look like his suave, collected self. His clothes were in disarray, his hair was mussed, and he had a bruise forming on his jaw. Love and sorrow twisted her heart into knots. He was everything she needed, but he wasn’t for her.

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