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I COULDN’T FUCKING do it.
I couldn’t watch.
I couldn’t hear.
I fucking refused.
The entire time we’d played poker, Cut had watched me. He knew what this would do to me. He knew how I would struggle and cripple and potentially unmask myself completely.
He’d come to the game with the same gun he’d threatened me with two months ago—hooked into his waistband, glinting off the chandeliers—nonchalantly promising death if I disobeyed.
It’d been fucking torture waiting for the time to creep closer, but it’d been nothing compared to leaving Nila with my family.
I hated leaving. But I had no choice.
Discussing what would happen was one thing.
Watching it come to pass was entirely fucking another.
My skin itched. My heart burst. My thoughts were a turbid wreck.
I need help.
I couldn’t live with myself knowing what would happen to Nila.
You could overdose.
Take a handful of pills and slide into a coma, so I would never have to face the consequences of what this debt would do.
I fisted my hair and kicked the wall.
The small act of violence simmered some of my rage.
I kicked it again.
The pain I used to seek before swallowing tablets flared into being.
I kicked for the third time.
Throbbing agony graced my toes. It calmed me. Helped me focus on the bigger picture, rather than the next few hours.
Finding a certain peace in my fury, I went rogue.
I let down my walls and turned into a beast.
Whirling around, I embraced every inch of my anger—the parts I’d always suffered, the parts I’d barely acknowledged—all of it.
I showed my true insanity.
Nila was right.
I suffered a madness.
And she’d doomed me forever with no cure.
She fucking hates me.
“Shit!” I stalked down the hall and plucked a music box that’d been my great-great aunt’s from a side table. Hurling it onto the floor, I felt a sick satisfaction as springs bounced free and twangs of music serenaded with broken notes.
“Shit!” I speared gold-gilded candlesticks at the tapestry-draped walls.
“Shit!” I kicked over a priceless French caquetorie.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
Throughout my tirade, all I could think about was what Kes would do.
And how Nila would react. Through trying to save her, I’d lost her forever.
She hates me.
She despises me.
She loathes everything about me.
And I didn’t fucking blame her.
