I can’t stop shaking. My entire body is consumed by fear and I’m trembling all over. My hands are shaking chaotically, and I can’t make them stop.
The heavy knife is gripped tighter than I’ve ever gripped anything in my life. I don’t even feel like it’s my hand holding the weapon. Another person’s hand, on top of mine, is forcing it to stay in my grip. To hold it tighter and tighter until it hurts so much that my body begs me to fall to my knees in agony.
I won’t allow my body to betray me. I can’t drop the knife. I can’t stop myself. The fear and rage are mingling into a concoction that’s far too powerful to deny.
The blood on the blade drips down onto my hand and feels like fire on my skin. The tension, the anger, the pure rage, and terror all boil in my blood as I stare at the dead, milky white eyes of the monster in front of me.
I can’t look at Carter. I can’t rip my gaze from the motionless stare of Alexander Stephan.
I’m waiting for him to blink. To jump up and grab me. The fear I feel is paralyzing, but the adrenaline coursing through me is going to burst my veins. He’s limp in the chair, his throat split wide open although the blood isn’t gushing anymore. It’s only a slow trickle at this point.
It reminds me of the way my mother’s throat was slit. The way he did it.
I remember it so clearly. That scene has haunted my dreams for as long as I can remember. How he stood behind her after he’d abused her. How he didn’t do it slowly; instead it was vicious and violent. It was all I could think to do to him here in this chair and at my mercy when Carter handed me the knife.
“Aria,” Carter’s voice breaks through my terror and the memory as he commands, “Give. Me. The. Knife.” His words mix with the sound of my heavy breathing.
Carter’s voice is demanding and on the edge of anger. I barely peek at him, the fear of Stephan waking and taking the knife from me is all too real. Blood seeps into his shirt, and his mangled body is unmoving. But I know he’s going to take the knife back. Stephan will take it and do to me what he did to my mother.
I squeeze the steel handle harder. I won’t let him.
Tears prick my eyes as Carter yells at me, his voice booming in the silent room and sending a violent vibration through my chest. It hurts. It all hurts.
My head shakes in defiance. I shouldn’t disobey him. Bad things happen when I do. The cell. At the thought, my shoulders hunch and my knees go weak, ready to surrender and kneel to the man who’s held me captive yet given me this revenge.
Given me the means to avenge my mother’s death.
But I can’t move. “I can’t,” I say, and my words are weak and fall from my lips like a pathetic whimper. “I won’t.” Those two words come out harder and I reach out, swinging my arm violently in the air and slicing into Stephan’s throat again. In my periphery, I see a man back away, and then another.
A small cry slips through my lips unbidden as Carter wraps his hand around mine, his other hand on my shoulder and keeping me steady as he pries my fingers back. The murmurs of the other men in the room barely register. All I can hear is Carter shushing me, and all I can focus on are Stephan’s eyes. The depths of his irises never seemed as dark as they do now.
The steady shaking of my shoulders turns violent as I try to move backward, away from the monster, away from his grasp. To run and hide like I did all those years ago.
But I can’t. Carter won’t let me.
It’s Carter, I tell myself. Carter is holding me. Focusing on regulating my shaky breathing helps steady me back to reality.
My left knee falls to the ground first and it makes my right knee slam against the ground.
“Shh,” Carter shows me mercy. Stealing the knife from me but guarding me against my fears.
“It’s over,” he whispers as he finally pries the knife from my grasp. And I let him. I let him take it, but I won’t move until I know Stephan is dead.
“He’ll come for me,” the scared child inside of me speaks. He can’t be dead, because then it would be over. And with Stephan, it’s never over. He’s haunted me for as long as I can remember.
“She’s fucking insane.” The sharp and disgusted voice of Romano cuts through my thoughts. Thump, thump. My heart beats harder as I remember where I am. “This is insane,” Romano says with anger.
“Shut up.” Carter’s voice once again tears through my body, thrumming through my blood and for the first time, I close my eyes. But then I remember Stephan is only feet from me, and they fly open again.
The room falls silent, just as Carter commanded. His fingertips are gentle on my shoulders, one hand on each as he lowers his lips to my ear and tells me, “Go upstairs and wash yourself off.”
My head shakes on its own, my eyes not moving from the body in the chair in front of me.
“He’s not dead,” I speak softly as if it’s my excuse. Logically, I know he’s dead. He must be. But the fear that he’s not is so real, so visceral that I can’t contain it. I can’t shut it down.
Carter’s grip on me tightens as I hear him breathe heavier before huffing a low sound mixed with a grunt of anger. The second he moves away from me, all I feel is the chill of loneliness.
With one heavy step, Carter kicks over the chair, sending Stephan’s heavy body to the floor with a thud, and again the men back up while Romano says something I can’t hear. It all turns to white noise as Carter kicks the limp body. Stephan’s head falls to the side and I have to move to my right, my knees rubbing against the unforgiving floor as I look into his eyes. Still open, still staring aimlessly.
“He’s dead, Aria. He’s fucking dead!”
My head shakes as my pulse quickens, the palms of my hands sweaty. “He can’t be,” I say but my words are weak.
Carter leans over the dead body, gripping my chin in both of his hands and pulling me closer to him, but I react quickly, terrified that Stephan could reach up. That he would get me if I dared to take my eyes from his.
“Un-fucking-believable.” Carter’s mutter sends hatred through me. Hatred toward myself and my cowardice. How many years have I woken in sheer horror at the vision of the man lying dead at my feet? Enough that logic betrays me, making me think there’s no way that he’s dead.
“I’ll give you his head,” Carter says and not understanding, my eyes lift to his for only a moment, but he’s already crouching down, the knife in his hand. He lifts it high in the air and strikes it against the open wound in Stephan’s throat. His muscles tense in his neck as he hardens his jaw. Anger is evident in his strained expression as he strikes again and again, taking his frustration out on Stephan’s neck.
He holds the knife in place, sweating and panting with both anger and exertion. Carter’s shoe slams against the slick side of the knife. Over and over each thrust of his leg is accompanied with more power, more anger—no, outrage, that Stephan’s neck doesn’t split beneath the blade. My body jolts with each impact, and the awe of watching Carter destroy Stephan by tearing his head from his body slowly helps restore my sanity.
A crunch that makes my gut twist and turn echoes through the room, as does the deep growl of irritation that rumbles from Carter in a snarl. As Carter lifts his bloodstained shoe, Stephan’s head rolls backward, parted from his body.
My erratic heartbeat settles as Carter stands tall in front of me. His usually impeccable suit is a wrinkled mess against his tanned skin. He drops the jacket to the floor and rolls up his sleeves one by one, taking his time as he steadies his breathing. I watch every bit of him morph back into the controlled man I know him to be. With blood splattered on his shirt, his hard jawline seeming even harder in the light from the chandeliers above us, Carter has never looked more dominating as he towers over me.
Men talk around us, but they don’t exist in this moment. Not when Carter’s dark eyes pierce through mine and the shards of silver in them hold me hostage.
“Upstairs.” The word slips from my lips before he opens his mouth. I watch as his tongue wets his lower lip and he considers me. His eyes leave mine to trail down my body and then back up, and it’s only then I remind myself to breathe. “Upstairs to wash myself,” I repeat Carter’s command from a moment ago, letting my gaze move to Stephan’s beheaded body.
When I raise my eyes back to Carter’s, I know he was waiting for me to look back up at him.
I’ve left him waiting.
I’ve disobeyed him.
Everything moves around me slowly as I regain what little composure I have left.
Carter steps over Stephan’s dead body and grips my chin forcefully in his hand. I can’t breathe as he lowers his lips to mine, his eyes never leaving mine and tells me calmly with a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “He’ll never have power over you again. The only thing you have to fear, is me.”
