Page 137 of Only for Him
The only clue was the way the man didn’t beg. I realized, too late, that he didn’t need to be tortured to tell us anything. Heprobably would have confessed if all I’d done was cry at him. Even as Roman drove nails into his knees, the man just stared at the wall, tears streaming down his cheeks in silence.
He was one of the first ones to pay for her, and I actually fucking believed him when he said he didn’t know. That he was just a john trying to scratch an itch, and if he’d known, he wouldn’t have touched her.
I have no reason to believe him. How could henothave known? He at least had to know she was underage, right? And they’d have beaten the fight out of her to even get her to that point. She would have been terrified.
Girls like that don’t end up in hotel rooms unless someone puts them there.
Ineededto hate him, but all I felt was this dull, pulsing pity that’s as twisted and useless as a phantom limb.
“Why did you do it?” I asked, genuinely curious. “You had a wife. Kids.”
He shrugged, a tiny, tepid movement. “I didn’t know. It wasn’t personal.”
I hit him for that. Because how fuckingdarehe tell me it wasn’t personal? That he just had a habit, and Serena could have been anyone. But the anger didn’t feel the same. It feels knee-jerk, and not slow-burn. It doesn’t hurt in that satisfying the way I’ve grown used to.
“It was personal to me,” I said, the words catching in my throat, shaking out my busted knuckles. I wondered if Roman heard it, was finally seeing me as weak. Not his equal at all. “She was my sister.”
He finally looked at me, eyes already dead. “I’m sorry.”
Roman slit his throat before he could say anything else.
They always look so small once they're dead—especially this one. Blood pooled under the chair, pigeon-toed in his inoffensive boat shoes. He was just a man.
No! He was a monster, camouflaged in suburban blandness.
Was he, Giselle? Or is that just what you have to believe?
A fact: vipers don’t care who they bite. They just want to stay alive.
“Satisfied?” Roman asked, voice soft and the blade still dripping onto the floor. There was no mockery or sadism in the question. He was being sincere Like he honestly wanted to know if I’d gotten what I needed.
“More or less,” I said. Heat rose in my cheeks, shame curled in my gut. Not from what I’d done but from how willing I was to do it again. I wanted to ask him if this is really why we’re here, if this man was worth another slice of my soul.
But I didn’t, because Roman walked over and took my hand. His fingers are warm, always, no matter how cold it is down there.
“Come upstairs, little viper,” he said. “You’ll catch cold.”
There was a time that would’ve made me laugh: A man covered in someone else’s blood, worried about me catching a chill.
But now? I just followed. This is the only part of the dance that I can do with my whole heart: his hands on my hips, his breath in my ear, my body burning with a fever I never want to break. Fine. More like my whole pussy, but the point stands.
I’m still under Roman’s spell, stuck in this cycle of craving and caving. He leaves me purring in his lap, drowsy and drenched. Sometimes, it even wears me out enough to sleep.
But tonight, I lie awake and twist Serena’s earring. I’m afraid to fall asleep, because I’m afraid to wake up and walk through another day.
At night, the violence is mercifully simple and my body is loose from violence and pleasure.
During the day, I get visitors from my old life—usually in the form of texts from Ida. Russo and Teddy have texted, too, but not as much. Ida’s relentless because she’s worried. She knows I’m alive, but she also knows I’m not myself, and that terrifies her.
I keep lying to her. And how easy it is? That terrifies me.
Just resting.
Just hiding out.
Just taking some time for me.
My best friend isn’t stupid. She knows something is wrong. I don’t honestly know how long I can hold her off from filing a missing person’s report and coming after me.
