Page 117 of Science Project

He was here as my prisoner. Not as my father.

I would do to him as he had done to me since I had been just a child. I would do to him as he had done to Hannah since she had been just a child. And I would do to him as he had probably done to Mom countless times before she killed herself.

Once Kai tightened one more rope, he walked toward the exit. “Let me know when you’re done.”

The warehouse door closed behind him, the sound echoing throughout the spacious room. I stood across from my father, relishing in the anger in his eyes. He screamed through his gag, his muffled words enough to make me smile.

How the tables have fucking turned.

This had been me not so long ago, except I had been blindfolded, gagged, beaten, and bruised, begging for him to stop this madness and to kill me already. Sometime tonight, he would get the same punishment too.

My father couldn’t move, so when I knew we were alone, I walked over to him with my heels clicking against the ground. I kicked him right in the bullet wound. More blood spurted out of him, and he shrieked.

“Louder,” I growled, kicking him in the same spot again.

His scream echoed through the warehouse.

“Louder!”

Another kick. Another shriek.

Akio walked behind my father and grabbed him by his hair, forcing him to look up at me as I kicked him in his wound over and over and over again. Tears streamed down his face from his angry eyes, but I didn’t stop.

I had no sympathy for the man.

“My foot hurts,” I said to Akio. “Your turn.”

Nothing hurt, but I wanted Akio to get a chance at him. I knew that he had been waiting to kick his ass since he had found out what was actually happening to me, since he had witnessed my father raping me.

Akio released his grip on my father’s hair and punched him square in the mouth.

I took a seat on a chair that Kai had placed out in front of my father before he left, and I watched in anticipation, in joy, in vengeance as Akio beat the shit out of my father for almost an hour. I didn’t have it in me to hit him anymore.

No, I wanted more than him to be hit a few times.

I wanted payback.

“Stop,” I said, grabbing Akio’s wrist before his fist collided with my father’s face. “I don’t want you to kill him yet. There’s something I need to do.” I reached for my phone in my pocket. “Someone I need to call.”

While Akio’s eyes blazed with vengeance, they softened a smidgen when he looked at me. He released his fist, peering at my father once more, and then nodded, as if to say that he would wait.

I placed a kiss on his lips. “I’ll be right back.”

After releasing him, I scrolled through my Contacts and walked into a separate room off the main warehouse. I hadn’t had his number saved because I hated the kid, but I knew that he would do whatever I wanted.

When I found our text chain, I messaged him.

Me: I have something for you.

A few moments later, the screen lit up with a response from the Redwood Academy quarterback, Carter, the asshole everyone hated.

Carter: Anything for you, babe.

CHAPTER

SEVENTY-FOUR

NICOLE

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