Page 83 of Burn for Me

She’d tricked me for her freedom.

‘Of course I want to marry you,’ she said, her face breaking into a sunny smile. ‘It’s all I ever wanted.’

‘I know. It’s all any woman wants.’

Massimo looked me up and down and shook his head. ‘You believed she wanted you? That a woman like her could settle for a man with a face like a melted jack-o-lantern?’

Massimo’s grip loosened slightly on Laura, and she grazed one hand over the hand he used to secure her throat,threading her fingers through it and dragging it to her lips. She placed a sweet kiss on his knuckles, looking up at him with rapt desire.

Desire she’d given to me.

I cocked my gun, aiming for Massimo’s head.

‘Watch your aim, Phoenix. One slip and you’ll hit Laura. Looking at your face, I think that would kill you worse than I ever could.’

‘She doesn’t want you.’ My words were hoarse, filled with anger.

‘I should put him down,’ Massimo said, his non-gun hand dropping down to Laura’s side, gripping at her hip. ‘Like the damaged dog he is.’

Laura simply shrugged.

‘If you wish.’

It was death by a thousand fucking cuts.

FORTY-THREE

Laura

My palm was sweaty as I reached for a syringe, trying not to alert Massimo to my movements.

Phoenix’s tortured face killed me. None of it was true, but I needed Massimo to believe me long enough to stick the damn needle into him.

Phoenix cocked his gun, taking aim, but Massimo was ready. He fired two shots, hitting Phoenix right in the torso. I screamed, trying to break free of Massimo. Phoenix’s body hit the floor, his legs crumpling beneath him.

My soul all but ripped from my body, rage filling me and exploding from every fucking pore.

‘No,’ I screamed, grabbing the syringe from the back of my dress and turning, aiming it right for Massimo’s bollocks.

He caught my wrist, crushing the bones in it, sending horrific pain radiating up my arm. The syringe fell to the floor, useless.

Massimo lifted one perfectly polished shoe and crushedthe syringe, its paralysing liquid seeping away into the concrete.

‘Oh Laura,’ Massimo tutted, pulling my body flush with his. He reached around my back, finding the final syringe and tossing it to the floor. The crunch a moment later stole away the last of my hope. ‘You could have had it all, and you threw it away for what? An ugly loner?’

‘He’s more man that you could ever be,’ I spat at him, all pretence gone. Phoenix died thinking I had turned my back on us, and I’d go down taking as much of Massimo to the grave as I could.

Lashing out with my teeth and nails, I scratched at him like a cornered animal, taking chunks of flesh from him under my nails. Letting all the anger and torment slide out of me in an outpouring of pure rage.

‘You stupid fucking bitch,’ he said, slapping me so hard across the face it left me seeing stars. ‘Just like your useless fucking family. I’ve never been so glad to have removed people from my world.’

Using his pistol, he whipped me across the face, an explosion of pain filling my head. I stumbled and fell backwards, landing hard on the cold concrete. One of the machines loomed over us, and I tried to shimmy back between its wheels. My body ached, feeling broken in a hundred places. Tears stung my eyes. For the pain. For the loss. For Massimo winning.

It wasn’t fair.

‘Don’t cry Laura, I’ll make you come over my cock before I blow your brains out. You’ll get to know what a real man feels like before you die.’

‘If you were the last man on earth I wouldn’t fuck you,’ I said, my voice quavering.

---