Page 162 of Diamond Kisses

I found him in the primary suite with someone very unwilling. The girl’s eyes widened as I entered the bedroom. The rapist kneeled with his back to me, his hands spreading her legs while she fought.

Porthole windows lined the bed, twinkling with lights from the harbour. Decadent furnishings made the yacht rich and homey, the colour scheme of nautical blues and whites ready to be bled over.

Holding the blonde girl’s frantic stare, I slinked behind the bastard. Grabbing his hair, I stabbed him from behind. I gutted him over and over, spraying the poor girl with red, all while she squirmed away, her hands bound and mouth gagged.

She watched me slaughter him.

She didn’t flinch as I untied her and helped her into the shower.

She grabbed my hand as I called a taxi for her and whispered under her breath, “I don’t know who you are but…thank you.”

My dead heart tried to react.

To find satisfaction in my extermination.

But I couldn’t.

That part of me had died the moment Ily had taken her last breath.

I had no heart. All I had was a lump of coal.

And I hadn’t done this for her.

I’d done this because I couldn’t live in a world where men like him existed.

And I couldn’t die without taking them, kicking and screaming, to hell with me.

Guiding her to the dock, I stayed in the shadows as the taxi arrived to drive her home.

The captain of the boat woke up as the headlights skimmed the helm.

I smiled and held him at gunpoint.

He wisely skippered me to Europe.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

………………………….

Ily

I COULDN’T SLEEP.

For two weeks, I couldn’t sleep.

In my old childhood bedroom, in my happy family home, I couldn’t sleep longer than an hour before the nightmares started.

The nightmares of serving so many Masters instead of only one. Nightmares where Roland and Ferdinand, Travis and Ian all took their turns because Henri wasn’t there to claim me.

I’d wake in a full-blown sweat.

I’d pace the garden with its veggie patch and windchimes and look at the moon as it cycled from crescent to half-full.

What if he’d never been there?

What if he’d never existed?

What if I’d never seen him at the club and spent six months being broken by others?

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