Page 57 of Twisted Redemption

For a moment, I swear I see something soft and caring on his features. Concern, or maybe even regret. But it disappears in an instant, replaced by a satisfied and almost predatory smirk.

He grabs my throat and forces me back until I hit the tree. My head hits his other hand instead of the hard bark. As he leans in, I inhale his scent of fresh earth and ferns, of summer afternoons playing in the woods, and it makes my heart clench.

“How does it feel?” His breath is hot on my face. “Does it tear your heart into tiny pieces?”

“Blaze,” I whisper. “Please—”

“Does it feel like you’re dying? Hmm? Does it make you want to die?”

“Stop,” I choke out. He’s not squeezing my throat, but it feels like I can’t breathe anyway.

“Why?” he snarls. “Do you not want to go through what you so easily shoved onto me? It doesn’t feel good, does it, Daisy?”

My fingernails dig into his arms. He loosens his grip on my neck, but it doesn’t make it any easier to breathe. “Blaze, I’m sorry. You know I’m sorry. If I could, I’d go back and change that night. But I can’t.”

“That’s not good enough.”

Not good enough.

Worthless.

Why did I have to have a daughter?

My knees give out as his words hit me. I shake my head. “Then let me go,” I whisper as tears blur my vision. I don’t mean physically, and he knows it.

Still, he releases me, stepping back. I hit the ground, gasping in a full breath. My tears hit the forest floor as I do my best to collect myself.

Stop crying. Don’t let him see you like this.

“Get up.”

I don’t move. I don’t think I’m physically capable of it at the moment. Blaze is right—it does feel like dying. It does makes me want to die. But what he can’t seem to grasp is that I’ve felt like this since the first time David made me bail on him.

“Get up, Brooke.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

“I don’t ca-”

“No,” I shout, glaring up at him. My fingers dig into the dirt. “I said let me go. So fucking let me go, Blaze. Let me go and leave me alone. Please, just stop torturing me.”

His face falls. And then that softness with a hint of regret is back in his expression.

He steps toward me and crouches down until he’s right in my face. He cups my chin with his hand, and it’s such a gentle caress that I almost break. “I tried. But you’ve engraved yourself so deeply into my heart that I can’t figure out where I end and you begin.”

“Then why do you keep hurting me?” I whisper, hating myself. Hating myself because after he just tore me to pieces and enjoyed it, one small expression of care has my heart hoping for him all over again.

Why do I keep doing this? First Francis, then David, and now Blaze. Why am I always vying for the love of men who have no desire to give it to me?

He sighs, closing his eyes. I can’t figure out if his expression is one of regret or annoyance. “I think Dom was right.”

“What?”

He shakes his head, pulling me up. All I want to do is sink back to the ground again and stay there until I wither away, but he doesn’t give me a choice. He lifts me into his arms, shushing me when I protest, and then carries me home.

And, like the masochist that I am, I let him, clinging to his shirt the whole way back.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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