WARPED VANITY ( BL)

CHAPTER 30

Vegas lifted his head, and my brother and Danilo tightened their hold, but they blended into the background when vegas eyes finally met mine. Fourteen months.

  The force of his gaze hit me like a tidal wave. In the time since he’d released me, I’d often wondered if I could ever forget him, if I could move on and live a new life, but now as I looked at him, I realized I had been foolish to consider that an option.

  The corners of his mouth lifted in a twisted smile. “Angel.”

  My brother punched vegas face, but he only laughed darkly as blood spattered on the ground.

  “This is your chance to ask for forgiveness,” Dad said.

   vegas looked from each of them until his eyes finally settled on me. “Do you want me to beg for forgiveness?”

  His eyes dragged me down fiercely, mercilessly, irrevocably as they’d always done. As they always would. “I won’t give you my forgiveness,” I said quietly.

  Something flickered in  vegas eyes, but Samuel and Danilo wrenched him away from my view, down the corridor into their torture chamber.

  Dad kissed my temple. “We will avenge you, make him pay for what he did.”

  He walked away, leaving me with Dante, who regarded me with calm scrutiny. He touched my shoulder lightly, and I met his gaze. “He will ask for forgiveness in the end,” he promised.

  I briefly touched his hand. “I don’t want him to because it would be false.”

  vegas did everything with unbridled passion, with ferocious rage, without an ounce of regret.

  He consumed, obliterated, ruined.

  He took everything and left nothing in his wake. He was an unrepentant sinner. He was a destroyer, a murderer, a torturer.

  A monster.

  The father of my children.

  The man who held my heart in his cruel, brutal hand.

  “You will castrate him?” It was an unnecessary question. I knew they would, and it was only one of the many atrocities they’d planned. All I needed to know was when.

  Dante gave a terse nod. “Tomorrow. Not today. It would speed up his death too much. Danilo and Samuel will do it. I’m not sure you should watch any of this, but maybe you need to. Today will be easier to stomach than tomorrow, so stay if it’s what you want.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered. Slowly I made my way toward the screen on the table and turned it on.

  My brother and Danilo were kicking vegas in the stomach, in the side, and Vegas made no move to defend himself. When they finally let up, because Dante had entered, vegas rolled onto his back and looked directly into the camera, knowing I was watching.

  He didn’t look away when my father took out his knife and cut his chest. Not when it was Samuel’s turn. Not when it was Danilo’s turn. Not when it was Dante’s turn.

  I’d spent so many hours, day and night, wondering how it would feel to see vegas broken, to see him on his knees.

  This wasn’t how I imagined things to be, my heart clenching in my chest so tightly I could hardly breathe, the tears pressing against my eyelids so fiercely I had to bite the inside of my cheek to hold them back. And even through the torture, vegas didn’t look broken because he couldn’t be broken, not with violence and pain. Maybe not at all.

  I turned away from the screen and walked away. My bodyguards followed close behind, their steps slow and measured. Shadows meant to protect and save me. But I was beyond saving. My family tried to mend me, but I didn’t need it because I wasn’t broken.