Page 42 of Sins of Autumn

She shuddered, trying again to push me away. I moved closer, my lips brushing her ear as I whispered the words that I knew would break her. Promises, confessions, and dark truths, all spilling from my mouth like a poison she couldn’t resist. Her body tensed and then she came again with a broken cry.

“Good girl,” I praised.

I wished I had longer to draw this out, to worship her fully from head to toe, but there were limits to my patience, and I didn’t want us to miss all the fun upstairs.

“I’ll make it up to you tomorrow,” I promised.

“Fuck you, Wilder.”

I hushed her with another kiss.

Reluctantly, I pulled out, fixing myself as I cast a lingering look at her flushed, tear-streaked face. “You’re beautiful like this.” I worked to tug her pants back into place. She squirmed weakly, but I didn’t let up, pleased by the thought of her carrying the evidence of me inside her after all this time apart.

Once she was dressed, I adjusted my mask, pulling it back into place, my focus never left her. She flinched as I gripped her throat, my fingers a leash to lead. We reached the stairs, and I paused.

“Now it’s time to go upstairs and clear up some misconceptions,” I explained, my tone soft but unrelenting. “Be good, and you’ll see Moose sooner rather than later.”

There was a noticeable change in her demeanor at the mention of her—our—dog, a spark of life reigniting in her gaze. If that was all it took I’d buy her a million of them. I smiled and led her up the steps.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I had to have entered some kind of alternate reality. That was the only explanation for all of this. The wetness between my legs and the masked man at my back, his grip firm and unyielding, were trying to convince me otherwise.

Every step I took felt heavier, like the air around me was thickening, pulling me down into a nightmare I couldn’t escape. My thoughts were a mess, torn between rage and humiliation. I wanted to scream, cry, tear my skin open to escape his suffocating weight, but I couldn’t do a damn thing. Not when my sister was caught in the same nightmare that I was. My mind raced, grasping at any hope for how this could possibly end.

I felt a small trickle of his cum run down my inner thigh and clenched my jaw. He’d come inside me. The thought flitted through my mind, sharp and unwelcome.

I hadn’t taken birth control since I left the penthouse, and I—

“I swapped those out with fakes months ago.” His soft voice cut through the chaos in my head like a scalpel.

I nearly stumbled, my breath catching. “What?” The word came out in a whisper, barely audible over the pounding of my heart.

“Be careful.” He steadied me.

“Why would you do that?” My voice teetered between disbelief and fury.

“I was going to tell you.”

“When?”

“When you got pregnant,” he said simply, as though it were the most logical answer in the world.

My knees threatened to give out beneath me. I couldn’t do this. Not now. My mind spun in circles, trying to piece together how the man I had loved could be capable of any of this. I wanted to be shocked, appalled, and disgusted but sadly I wasn’t.

Some dark corner of my mind whispered that I had known, all along, what he was capable of. I just hadn’t wanted to see it. I’d painted over the jagged edges of his personality with rose-colored strokes, convincing myself that his intensity was love and his possessiveness was devotion. Now I was caught in the web I had ignored for so long.

I didn’t know where carrying his baby ranked on the ever-growing list of horrors, but it couldn’t be my focus right then. I tried to prepare myself for what I might walk into, but nothing could have readied me for the sight of waiting at the top of the steps. The first thing I saw was Gabe. His head was entirely wrong, twisted at an angle no head should ever be.

I would have fallen over myself if Wilder wasn’t holding onto me. The house was cloaked in near-total darkness, save for the dining room, where a single light illuminated the space like a spotlight.

A classic song played faintly, the melody twisted and haunting. At the entrance to the dining room, my breath hitched again, this time from the sheer devastation in front of me. Everyone was tied up, their faces and bodies battered and broken.

Tears burned at the corners of my eyes as my gaze darted frantically over each of them. Ryan and Cherish were gagged, their arms bound behind their chairs. Ryan’s jaw was swollen, and a deep cut marred one side of his face.

Cherish’s eyes were wide with fury and terror as she struggled against her restraints upon seeing me. Liza looked dazed, barely upright, her head lolling as if she’d been drugged. Jason was slumped over completely unconscious, a dark bruise spreading across his bloodied temple.

Daniella was in nothing but a bra and underwear, her face pale, and streaked with tears.

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