Page 45 of Tortured Hearts
“You seem awfully confident in a man who lied about his entire identity.”
“You’re not the one who spent eight weeks analyzing him. What someone calls themselves becomes irrelevant once you delve past the surface.”
“You see what you want to see. Gianni Marchesi’s life was mapped out the day he came into this world, and nothing and no one”—he gestures down my body—“can change it.”
My stomach churns, but I stand my ground. “Children can break the mold their parents made for them.”
“Because that worked out so well foryou, didn’t it?” He shakes his head with a rough chuckle. “You’re just as dumb as he is.”
My breath catches, his dig hitting deep. “You don’t know him like I do.”
Henry cocks an eyebrow. “Which version … the one I pretended to protect or the one I hunted behind his back?”
I’ve treated enough narcissists to recognize a reach for validation when I see it. He doesn’t want to just destroy Gianni; he wants tobeGianni. To prove he’s better, smarter,darker.
So I deny him what he wants most:acknowledgment.
“You claim him to be a monster, but you’re forgetting a key component…” When I hear his molars clack together, I know I have his attention. “Gianni never pretended to be a white knight. He always told me if I believed nothing else, to believe he was no hero. You, however, spent four months masquerading as the good guy, only to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
His eyes darken. “If you have something to say, then say it.”
“It sounds to me like you’re projecting your insecurities onto him.” I lift my chin. “So maybe it’syouseeing what you want to see, not me.”
“Be very careful, Doctor,” he hisses between clenched teeth.
I’m getting to him. He’s on the outside looking in, a nobody playing a master’s game. It’s in the superior smile that always hid a bottom-layer player with back-alley morals.
“What’s wrong, Henry? Did that thorn dig a little too deep?”
He draws his hand back and swings, sending my chin sailing across my shoulder. Pain explodes across my face, but I’m too angry to let it drag me under.
I turn back, licking the blood from my lips as I meet his eyes. “Did that make you feel more like a man?”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
I stumble backward, but he counters every move. One last step and my back hits the wall. “No,” I plead, but the word evaporates as he grips my throat and slams my head against the wall, pinning me in place. Tears pool at the corners of my eyes. “Please don’t do this.”
The words fall on deaf ears, and he drags his other hand down the length of my body to my thigh. “I hear your cunt makes criminals walk the line. I think I’ll find out for myself.”
“Mine. Becca.Only mine.”
No. I’m his.
“Mine.”
His.
The word repeats over and over in my head as I fight with everything I have. For a moment, I think I have the upper hand, then Henry shoves his fingers under the hem of my dress, forcing a scream from my throat.
The smile on his face turns diabolical. “Let’s see how loud you can get.”
There’s a part of me that still believes he’s going to stop. That a man who swore to uphold the law isn’t capable of an act so vile. But when he tugs the zipper down on his pants, that part dies a painful death.
When he moves to force my legs apart, I see my last chance closing in. Planting my foot against the wall behind me, I drive my knee into his balls with all the strength I have left. Henry’s eyes widen, and then he releases his hold on my throat and doubles over as if sucking in his last breath. I try to run, but I stumble and hit the floor. I rush to stand, but Henry recovers first.
“Fucking bitch!” He rams the toe of his shoe into my ribcage, then grabs me by my hair and jerks me to my knees.
Brutality has always been part of my life, so when his closed-fisted punch comes, I don’t scream or flinch. I simply absorb the blow, accepting the temporary physical pain as a trade-off for what would’ve been a permanent emotional one. He draws his arm back to hit me again when the door slams behind him.
