Page 83 of The Devil's Pawn

“I think she’s finally awake.” Carlito’s voice buzzes through my mind like a swarm of hungry bees, itching to get a taste and leave some scars behind.

His footsteps crash against the floor, closer now. So close I can smell his rotting body odor, like sweat mixed with death. My pulse accelerates and my stomach fills with terror as I force myself to shrink deeper into the chair.

I don’t have to wonder what he’ll do. I know he’ll hurt me. His viciousness can finally see the light of day, just as he’s wanted it to for so long. I’m his now, and my mother allowed it to happen. My own flesh and blood.

He roughly yanks the blindfold off of me, and my eyes narrow as they adjust to the bright fluorescent lighting and find his irate glare.

I quickly scan the area, noticing the high ceilings and large open space. Thin boards of wood line up next to chainsaws. It looks like a carpentry factory. My insides wrench as I focus on the blades.

Is that what he’ll do to me after he’s had his fun? Cut me into pieces small enough not to ever be found? Did my parents sanction this for my defiance?

I refuse to believe they’d do that. Maybe this is merely Carlito’s way of scaring the hell out of me. Because it’s working quite well.

“Be easy on her, Carlito,” says a voice behind him.

My brows burst up, and my eyes practically fall out of my head.

It can’t be.

My heart constricts so firmly in my chest that the air instantly evaporates.

“No, Sal, that’s not what she needs. You’ve been too easy on her. This is why she ran off.” He turns around, and that’s when I meet the eyes of my father.

“Daddy?” I shudder as tears fill my eyes and cascade down my face.

But he doesn’t even look at me. His gaze is on Carlito, as though I’m nothing but a ghost. And maybe soon, I will be.

“If you would’ve let me have her when she was sixteen like I wanted, we wouldn’t have had this fucking problem!” he howls. “Now she’s probably damaged goods. I’m sure she let that fucker Dante have her.”

My father’s thick gray brows slant with a frown as his head shakes with disgust.

Carlito clamps his shoulder. “Leave her with me, Sal. Let me teach her how to be a proper wife. It’ll be a lesson she’ll never forget.”

I gasp, my insides curling with panic.

“Daddy, look at me, God damn it! You can’t do this!” I wail with more heartache than I can bear, my chin trembling. “Please. Don’t leave me with him.”

His shoulders drop with a sigh, and he walks around Carlito as both of them look at me.

“I’m sorry, Raquel,” Dad says. “But he’s right. You’ve shamed this family with your reckless, childish behavior. And to marry that vile creature of a man? I can’t forgive that.”

I choke on a sob. His love for me is no longer in his eyes. I can see that now. It vanished long before his soul did.

“Carlito is your rightful husband.” He continues with his ugliness. “It’s his rightful place to punish you for the shame you brought him.”

I can’t believe he would allow this. My own father. I can barely look at him. I’m trying not to cry, but the tears of my torment continue to wreck my very existence.

“How could you?!” I scream. “You’re myfather! You’re supposed to protect me, not send me into the arms of a savage!”

“You bitch!” Carlito roars, his palm striking my cheek and whipping my face to the side. “You don’t talk about me that way!”

My face pulsates with white-hot pain. I inadvertently yank my hand up, wanting to ease the ache, but forget the rope binding my wrists.

“Go, Sal,” he tells my father. “I’ve got this. I won’t kill her, I promise.” His eyes are on me with a hateful sneer. “But she’llwishshe was dead.”

“I’ll be downstairs.”

And with that, my father slips out of the room and leaves me alone with my abuser.

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