Page 122 of Only for Him
“After you, little viper,” he says, his voice low. There’s no threat in it, just inevitability.
He knew you’d be here eventually. This was always going to happen. He chose you for a reason.
The stairs are cold under my bare feet. Halfway down, I hear it: the faint scrape of metal, the wet snuffle of someone struggling. The room is small with cinder block walls and a drain in the center of the floor. A man slumps in a chair, wrists tied, hair matted to his scalp, stripped to his boxers.
His head lifts when we enter.
His eyes are washed-out, ringed with red. He bares his teeth at me and spits on the floor.
“Detective Cantiano,” Roman says, “Blake Skinner.”
Skinner laughs, a wet, broken sound. “Detective? You gotta be fucking kidding me. You got nothing on me, bitch.”
My hands shake. What am I doing here? How did this happen? Am I really about to torture a suspect? I have to run, call someone, and do it the right way.
The way that’s never fucking worked.
I imagine this man with his hands on my sister and a chasm roars open inside me.
I hate him. If it’s him, he deserves everything that’s coming. It won’t compare to the pain I’ve lived with.
Fuck him. Fuck every man like him.
Give him what he fucking deserves. Show him what happens to men who think they have a right to other people’s lives. He’s fucking begging for it, Giselle.
Before I can stop myself, I’ve hit him, hard enough for his head to snap to the side and the sound to echo against concrete.
“Prove it,” I hiss.
No. No, no, no…
Roman smiles. “That’s the spirit.” He walks over to the wall, opens a metal cabinet, and pulls out a small, zippered pouch. He sets it in my hands.
Inside is a knife. Not the one he fucked me with but a thin, razor-edged blade with a black handle and nothing flashy. The kind that can do a lot of work in a small space.
“I want the truth,” I say, but my voice is thin. I’m mostly saying it to myself. My heart pounds in my ears. I want the truth, and I deserve it, and this man needs to be punished, and I can’t do this, I can’t do what Roman does.
I’m not him. But maybe he picked exactly right.
If Russo saw you right now, if Ida knew you were doing this, if Teddy was here…
But none of them are. It’s Roman who stands behind me, close enough to feel the heat from his chest. To melt into it, into his smell and the blue wave of his eyes sweeping over me. Holding me.
He believes that this is right, and even more importantly, believes that it’s right forme.
“Does he know why he’s here?” I ask.
“Why are you asking me?” Roman says, nodding his chin towards our captive.
Ourcaptive. Christ.
I turn towards Blake, and think of those hands on Serena again. She was so young.Iwas so young.
She was my whole world.
And this has become my whole life.
My wholefuckinglife!
