Page 81 of Make Her Bleed
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I want you to know that I do good things sometimes. That doesn’t make me a good person, and you need to remember that. I've done a lot of bad things in my life, and I'll continue to do bad things.”
The clip gets fuzzy before changing to earlier in the feed.
"Does his mom not know who his father is?"
"She knows. She's known from day one, and she did the right thing by contacting me to tell me that she was pregnant."
"You're his father?"
"I always made sure Delaney and Rowe were taken care of."
I look at Rowe's face and see the heartbreak he tries to hide.
The video gets fuzzy again before skipping ahead.
"I'm not a dad. I knew he was better off without me. I was never supposed to be a father. It was a mistake."
It switches to Kai and me in his office, me standing there naked as he stands behind me. His hand is around my throat, holding me hostage against him.
"Now, go shower, put your clothes back on, and take my son to your room."
"Take him to my room and …"
"Let him do whatever he wants. Keep him … satisfied. He's earned it."
My eyes move to Rowe and see the deflated look across his face. He knows I told the truth because he saw it with his own eyes. I had no clue that Kai was going to do what he did to Rowe.
Still, I let the final clip roll.
The video changes to after he told me about Teigan, when I confronted him about what he did to Rowe.
"Why the hell did you do that to Rowe?"
"I said it was what he earned. Did you miss that part?"
"I did not sign up for that. You made him think I had some part in it! He's your fucking son, and you attacked him. Have you lost all your goddamn humanity?"
"Decades ago, princess."
"Let's get one thing straight, Kai. I am not a torture device for you to use against other people. You want to beat the hell out of me, rape me, embarrass me? Fine, but you leave Rowe and the others out of it."
"Aw. Are you going soft on him?"
"You would think having feelings for someone is going soft, wouldn't you? It's not though. Love isn't weakness. It's strength and I … I love him. I love Rowe, okay? So stay the fuck away from him."
"Your sass is going to get you in some real trouble, princess."
The video proceeds onto Kai raping me, me fighting him, crying, him nearly pulling my arm out of socket.
Everyone stares at me like they can't believe I'm standing here with what he just put me through.
The video ends and the lights come back on as I stand there with my head high, waiting for Kai to do something.
Is he going to punch me, kick me, take me off to some torture chamber to rip off my fingernails and break my legs? I don't care because I did what I needed to do. I stood up for myself.
He puts his gun back in his pocket and grabs an apple out of the bowl of fruit on the table, taking a big bite out of it.
