Page 75 of His Bride

He lets me go, and I struggle to sit up when something metal and warm is pressed into my temple.

Everything in me lurches. A gun? Did he pull his gun on me?

“Stay down.”

“Not much of a wife for you and your dealings if you blow a hole in my head, you coward.”

He smacks the back of my head with the barrel, and I cry out. The pain is excruciating, stars bursting behind my eyes, and through the ringing in my head, panic and anger surge in equal measures.

The gun’s still pressed against my temple, and my stomach lurches when he bunches the skirt of my dress around my waist.

I’m not wearing panties. I didn’t put any on when I slipped into the dress after my shower. I’m completely exposed.

“Oh, now, this doesn’t need any changing at all. No panties. I like it.”

A single tear escapes my eye as his rough hand trails over my bare ass, sending shivers down my spine. The fear that grips me is unlike anything I've ever felt before, a bone-chilling terror that seeps into every fiber of my being.

My mind screams for action, fight or flight, but my body remains paralyzed, frozen under his touch. It's a fear that threatens to break me from the inside out.

“Aurelio, stop!” I thrash and jerk. “You need me, so put that fucking gun away and take your hands off me!”

“You’re right. I do need you.” He kicks my legs apart, and a sob rips from my soul. “But I don’t need your brother. Remember that.” His hand is between my legs, and he runs a finger along my cleft.

“No!” I scream, thrashing. “Don’t touch me!”

“Soon, you’ll beg for my touch.”

My world implodes when he shoves a finger into me. Rough. Brutal. Violating. It hurts. I can feel his nail scratching against my delicate flesh.

“We’re gonna have to do something about this dry pussy.” His finger thrusts and drags at me as he does so. “Soon I’ll have your cunt wet for me…even if I have to use your goddamn blood to do it.”

“Please,” I cry, “please stop. You’re hurting me.”

Aurelio doesn’t. He grows more vicious, wiggling and shoving a second finger in there, but I’m too dry, and it seems to stop him getting all the way in.

“Goddammit, Aurelio. Stop!” Tears are hot, searing, my body aching everywhere at once.

From somewhere close, I hear a sound. A door, footsteps, and I scream, “Help! Help me!”

“Maybe,” Aurelio says, “I’ll let you get gangbanged on our wedding night. I know people. We can teach you submission. Just one night and we’ll break you in.”

“Someone, please! Help me!”

There’s a shadow that breaks the light shining underneath the door. I can’t quite make it out, but I’m desperate. I need help, and I know whoever that is heard me, yet…the shadow doesn’t move.

It just…stays there. And for a bone-chilling moment I realize that whoever that is, they’re not going to help me.

While Aurelio’s fingers are violating me, this monster on the brink of raping me, all I can think about is that shadow. It can’t be security because they’ll bust in after hearing me scream. Cristiano, too. That only leaves one person.

My father.

The shadow disappears, and something inside me, something profound, breaks. He had to have heard my screams. My cry for help.

Yet he…he walked away.

Suddenly everything around me turns hazy. Aurelio’s voice. His hands. His fingers inside me. It fades into something dark, a terrifying emptiness that swallows my senses. The pain is there,the fear, but it feels distant and unreal, like I’ve fallen into a nightmare, and I can’t wake up.

Aurelio manages to shove his fingers deep. Then he mutters something, tone disgusted. I don’t say a word as he rips his fingers from me and takes me by the hair, tossing me to the ground.

---