Page 55 of The Secretary Volume II

I bite my cheek until I taste blood, but I don’t cry.

Because that’s what he wants.

He keeps circling.Like a predator toying with the idea of hunger.

“Your nephew turned three last week.Big party.Dinosaurs.Your sister made a little hat for him.Paper crown.”

He leans in.

“He wore it all day.Even to bed.”

My throat clenches.He hasn’t touched me, but I feel stripped open.

He studies me, voice now a scalpel.

“And Kevin,” he says.“You remember Kevin?”

He doesn’t wait for confirmation.

“He’s dating someone new now.She’s younger.Blonder.Less difficult.”

I flinch.

Ellis smiles.

“She doesn’t cry when he forgets to text back.Big upgrade.”

Still, he’s not done.

“You know,” he says, “your best friend—what was her name again?”

I freeze.

He grabs my hair and tugs.Hard.“What was her name, Gillian?”

“Devon.”

“That’s right.Devon.” He releases my ponytail, shoving my head forward.“You wouldn’t believe what’s become of her.”

And that’s when I understand.He’s hitting every nerve.Every buried wire.

He doesn’t want my body tonight.

He wants the last part of me that still thinks it might find a way out of this.

“Lie down,” he says, gesturing toward the floor.“Not the bed.That’s for people.”

I pause.Just long enough for it to register.Not defiance.Just grief.

“Now.”

The rug is soft but cold against my skin.He doesn’t bother with ceremony.Doesn’t remove his clothes.He straddles me like he’s pinning something in place, and when he enters me—it’s not fast or brutal.

It’s slow.Measured.Controlled.

He fucks me like a surgeon making an incision.

Every movement calculated.Every thrust designed to cut something out of me.

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