Page 152 of All Your Hate

I run upstairs and through the open door. There’s no time to decide which way to go so I take my chances with right. The house is a wreck. I have to manoeuvre around tipped over furniture and narrowly avoid skidding on loose documents that are left scattered all over the floors.

“Don’t run from me. I don’t want to have to hurt you!” Looking back over my shoulder I see Daniella struggling to catch up.

I make a sharp left into a room with large windows and go straight for them, intending to throw myself out. A gun goes off, making me drop to my knees and cover my head before I can reach them.

“I said stop!” Daniella pants and I hear her getting closer. I roll onto my ass and scramble backward. My dagger is held tight behind me. Its handle slick with sweat or maybe it’s blood.

“The baby. You don’t want to get the baby,” I quickly say.

“I’d never hurt my child. They’ll be fine as long as I make sure you don’t lose too much blood.” Her arm sways as she points the gun at my leg. A trail of blood drips down her other arm that’s hanging limp by her side.

“No, please! It’s too risky. You can hardly take me to the hospital. I’ll come with you. We can get in the car and leave.”

Daniella’s eyes dart back and forth across my face.

“I want to be able to trust you,” I tell her. “This baby needs someone good to care for them.”

"I am good!" she snarls. The gun still shaking in her grip. I need to get the aim off me.

“Will you help me up? I feel faint.”

That worried motherly look settles on her face again and she places the gun on a nearby table so she can help me up. Pretending that I can’t stand up straight without her, I lean into her shoulder.

“I’ve got you,” she says, soothingly stroking my back.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. You know better now.”

Looking at her up close she seems so frail. Years of abuse and neglect have worn her down.

“I’m sorry he made you feel you were less because you couldn’t have a child. I believe that if you wound up with anyone but him you might have had a chance at happiness. It’s all over now. You won’t hurt anyone else again, including yourself.”

She gasps as I push the dagger into her stomach. “No,” she chokes out. The blade sliding free as she pulls away.

“That is for every single woman you lured into this house and abused for your own gain. No one deserves to go through the torture you and Tommaso put us through. Death is a mercy for the sins you’ve committed.”

She stumbles back, clutching her stomach. Her legs hit the table and she leans on it for support. The gun is right there and she grabs it before I can react.

A nasty snarl of contempt twists her face as she points it straight at me. Then it morphs into anguish. Sadness. Grief. She drops the gun and sobs. “Please make sure that baby has the best life.”

Even this close to death she’s holding onto that hope. The good thing to do would be to let her go peacefully with that knowledge. But peace is the last thing she deserves.

“There’s no baby. There never was. You latched onto the idea of one. But this womb,” I clutch my stomach, “will never carry a child. I refuse to bring life into this broken world. That is my choice and it will never be taken away from me again. Whether or not I have a child doesn’t change my worth. I am more than what’s inside here. I’m sorry you never had anyone to tell you that until now.”

A howl of pain rips from her chest and she crumples to her knees.

Wiping my dagger off, I slide it back into my boot.

“There’s one thing I need to know before I leave you here to rot. What did you do with the bodies of all your other victims?”

She doubles over as another wave of pain hits her. “Not all of them died. Some we swapped for newer ones from Dmitri. The ones that didn’t survive he took care of them for us.”

“But Evie was found here.”

Daniella looks at me confused. She didn't even know her name.

“You buried her under the fucking rose bush!”

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