Page 36 of Revenge & Ruin

“What is it,belle?Do you want me to ruin you?”

Just when I think she’s about to let out a small whimper, something else happens entirely.

The pain is instant and the yell escapes my lips just as dizzying darkness threatens to take over my vision entirely.

For a second, I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking at. Then my vision clears, and the pain hits all over again.

And there’s a switchblade pinning my hand to the sink counter.

And by the time I yank it out, Isabella has vanished.

10

ISABELLA

Ishould be counting my lucky stars for having survived my last encounter with Teo Vitale, not staring out my apartment window, wondering if he could be one of the lurking bodies below.

But I can’t help it. Not when he’s the only thing that has occupied my mind these last forty-eight hours.

I was only supposed to kiss him.

I was only supposed to lure him in long enough to get a knife to his throat.

But when he kissed me.

When hekissedme…

God, it was like nothing else. I’d almost forgotten what it was like. Or at least I managed to convince myself it wasn’t as good as I remembered.

But it was better. So much better.

And I’d let the lust get the better of me.

Because it had beenfilthy.It had been rough and hard andharder,and he’d met me exactly in the middle, never shying away, only rising to the challenge.

“Do you want me to ruin you?”

Yes,I wanted to scream back.

But there’d be no going back. The realization had hit the second he’d closed his eyes in the mirror. As if by doing so, he’d cut off whatever spell he had put me under.

I had the knife in my hand a second later, knowing I’d never be able to do it unless it was right there and then. I thought that was enough to convince me to run, to leave for good and not look back. It was, it was, it was.

He’d kill me to kill my mother.

I say it in my head like a mantra, as if I haven’t repeated it a thousand times already.

It doesn’t matter that I’ve tasted it now; it’s still the blood of my enemy.

And yet.

And yet and yet and yet.

I couldn’t leave my apartment yesterday. I was too overwhelmed to do anything more than call my brother to let him know that I was all right and to let him know that I had done what we had agreed I would do.

I conveniently left out the part where Teo Vitale fucked me against a bathroom wall.

I groan again as I flop back down on my bed, massaging my temples.

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