The Business of Revenge

Prologue

"You'll never be anything," he roared at me face red with unspeakable anger, spittle frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog ready to lurch forward and rip the flesh from my bones.

Hot tears ran down my face as I hiccupped, the bubbling sound of failure ricocheting through the office, as he prowled around, his strong hands far too close for me to feel safe. I stumbled back as I saw the darkness in his eyes, the paleness of his skin becoming shrewder with each bout of anger.

I couldn't breathe.

"I made you Andrea, I made you and I will destroy you. You are nothing," he paused, glaring at me with all the malice in the world, and a man who had once meant so much to me was tearing me down, shattering me and using the splinters of glass that made up my frame to plunge into my heart. Carve me open and lay me bear with a mess of emotions and scars, "You are nothing without me."

And I believed every word, they suffocated me as I stared down at the floor, a floor I wanted to swallow me whole, a floor I had once loved to see, smooth almost marble-like stone which would click softly beneath my heels, and then I was press a smile, wrapping it in a ribbon and place it for him, right here in this very office. And he would hold it before tearing it open like a child on their birthday with no care for the time and effort it had taken me to meticulously wrap it. The ribbon would be gone, discarded or fraying and broken, not able to be used again just like me.

"You shouldn't cry," and I thought for one elusive moment he would stop all this rage and unabated anger in my direction.

Oh, the torture of hope.

"Or I will give you something to cry about," and the cruelty of his tone shot through me. My hands were shaking, and my throat was dry. With trembling lips, I spoke my final words to him.

"Thank you for everything."