Page 86 of Poisoned Promise
“And yet here you are. I consider it a blessing, really. A gift from Nico, sent beyond the grave so that I can finally give you what you deserve.” She walks closer, then her gloved hand grasps my chin and she wrenches my head back until I’m forced to look her in the eye. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you.”
“You couldn’t even if you tried,” I mutter, my voice strained through the angle she forces.
“You’ll wish for it though,” she whispers coldly. “Fifteen years. Fifteen years I have dreamed of having you in my dungeons so I could give you even a fraction of the pain you’ve given me. Day after day, night after night, I struggled to believe I’d wiped the Healy stain from this world. Could it really be as easy as slaughtering and burning every rat in that house?”
Sharp pain builds in my neck, forcing tears to gather in the corner of my eyes.
With no other sound but her voice, there’s nothing else for me to focus on but the anger in her eyes and the cold lash of her tongue.
“You slaughtered my family,” I spit through clenched teeth.
Caterina leans down. “You murdered my son,” she snarls. “You should have died with the rest of them.”
“I did no such thing!” The lie is so smooth I almost believe it myself.
“Liar!” Caterina yells and she releases me, letting my head drop back down onto the bench.
Then, fire ignites across my back from left to right as Caterina brings down a thin whip across my skin with surprising strength.
It cuts right into my flesh like the flash of a spark and leaves behind burning pain and the tickle of blood rolling down my rib cafe.
I grit my teeth against the pain and press my forehead against the best.
“Liar!” Caterina screams again and the whip bites into my skin once more. “You killed him! I know you did! You murdered my son! Admit it! Admit it!”
Each sentence is punctuated with a strike that adds to the inferno of pain blooming across my back.
Stay quiet.
Another blow cuts low across my back.
He deserved it.
Another across my shoulders, and tears leak past my screwed-up eyes.
He was a monster.
The next blow cuts across the swell of my ass and I clench my hands into fists.
If I give her what she wants, she’ll kill me.
Another blow cuts across the top of my thighs, then a flurry of rapid whips across my back that sends a spray of blood across the back of my neck.
If I die here, I can’t help Alex.
“Admit it!” Caterina screams. “Admit you murdered my son!”
“Alright!” The word tears out of me with a sob and I choke, coughing up the taste of tar once more. “I killed him. You know I killed him. I know I killed him. I did it and I don’t fucking regret it!”
The blows stop.
Relief comes in the form of silence and I close my eyes again until Caterina’s hand sinks into my hair and wrenchs my head all the way back.
Something cold and sharp presses against my throat so I snap my eyes open and gaze up into her twisted, warped, furious face.
I swallow and the blade presses a little firmer against my throat.
“I know,” Caterina says softly. “I always knew. I just needed Felix to hear it.”
