Page 223 of Ruin My Life
I hesitate—just enough to make him seethe. He clamps his palm over my shoulder and shoves me down hard.
From his pocket, he pulls a coil of black zip ties. My blood ices over.
I bolt. Or try to.
I lurch upward—too slow. His hand slams me back into the seat, iron grip crushing my collarbone against the chairback. The muzzle of his gun grinds into my temple so hard my teeth click.
“Don’t. Fucking. Move.”
His voice is a rusted blade, the promise behind it sharp enough to flay me open and gut me like a fish.
He jerks my arms behind the chair, threads the zip ties through the rungs and yanks them tight until the plastic carves into my skin. My shoulders burn, muscles already forming knots from the unnatural angle. Then he binds my ankles to the legs of the chair, each tug of plastic a merciless cinch until I can’t shift an inch.
It’s all painfully familiar—too close to that first night at The Speakeasy.
I grit my teeth, but don’t show my pain. I won’t give him that satisfaction.
He doesn’t even look at me when he’s done. Just turns his back and starts tearing through the house. He moves fast, methodical, like he expects her to crawl out from under the bed or slip from behind the curtains at any second.
He kicks open every door. Rips through closets. Slams drawers shut with mounting fury, as if Rebecka’s absence is a personal insult carved straight into his pride.
I stay still. Watch. Wait.
Every second he spends searching is one more second I’m alive. One more second closer to Damon.
And if he doesn’t get here in time…
Then I’ll have to be enough.
He storms out of the last bedroom, boots pounding the floor like gunfire, each step a loaded threat aimed right at me.
“Where. Is. She?”
Each word is a dagger. Each syllable dipped in venom.
I tilt my head, trying to drape calm over the raw animal panic beating in my chest. Trying to be cold. Unshaken. But my heart doesn’t buy it.
“I don’t know,” I say with a tight smile. “Maybe she’s out for a walk? Grocery shopping? Playing bingo—”
His hand closes around my throat.
Hard.
He leans in, and the panic spikes—sharp, familiar, paralyzing. But I force myself not to flinch. To pretend the past isn’t dragging its nails down my back.
“Keep it up with the smart mouth, hacker,” he growls, spittle spraying against my cheek. His thumb traces my bottom lip slowly. “Maybe I’ll just shut you up with my dick down your throat.”
The bile rises immediately. I wrench my head to the side, but his grip locks tighter, bruising my windpipe.
“I wonder if you suck cock as good as you take it,” he hisses, and something deep inside me fractures—a thin thread gone to dust.
I can’t breathe.
My lungs claw for air.
My body screams.
But I can’t move.
