Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 136731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
My body is stiff from the crisp air of the cool night, and my muscles ache as I shiver. If I call out to Julius, he’ll wake, but I can’t help but think that my doing so would result in punishment for me, so I decide to ride it out till morning.
Dino liked to play mind games with me. His brother Gio would take great pleasure in taking me by force, by torturing me. After it was all said and done and Gio had punished me, turning my mind pliable to Dino’s every whim, my husband would take me and bathe me, care for me and hold me close, providing the comfort my broken soul craved. He would kiss me with a gentle mouth and court me with even gentler words, and the broken part of me would hold onto him, craving to be repaired, and I would sleep, feeling a false sense of safety in the arms of a man who was crazy in love with a woman who did not feel the same.
Our marriage was one giant clusterfuck.
I made excuses at first.
He was hurt by my rejection. He couldn’t control his anger. Work had made him a cold man, desensitized, and he didn’t realize what he was doing. That Dino loved me and he wouldn’t always be that way.
Every time, I swore it would be the last time.
I did this for years.
He dealt out hits as though they were kisses. His extreme corrections of my behavior were unfounded and often. He made feeble excuses to lay his hands on me. The truth became clearer to me with each beating, each bruise, and every injury.
I had married a psychopath, and there was no escaping him.
What was worse was that I had not one, but two crazy men to watch myself around. If I so much as gave Gio a hard look, he would go to Dino and fill his head with false rumors of my flirtations, and that night, Gio would grin in victory while I wept helplessly underneath him, crying hopelessly and begging for mercy, as he entered me harshly.
My husband was a closet voyeur. He got off on watching his wife being hit, restrained and fucked. More often than not, he would masturbate to my cries, head thrown back. At an especially pained yelp, his entire body would strain, he would grip himself tight, and I would watch as the man who claimed to love me came, spurting white stickiness all over his white-knuckled hand as I continued to be raped.
Dino Gambino was a sick fuck, and I’m glad he’s dead.
At my back, I feel Julius shift in the darkness and, as though he’s trying to be careful not to wake me, he moves soundlessly across the room to the door next to the closet, closing it behind him. A bright white light shines from the crack at the bottom of the door. A minute passes, and I hear the toilet flush followed by running water. He steps out, and I try to still my quaking body as the bathroom light shines directly on me like a savage spotlight, giving me away.
I quiver in the heavy silence of the room. My eyes snap shut, and I pray he hasn’t seen me. But I know he has.
The bathroom light dims suddenly, and footsteps cross the room, then it illuminates. Julius steps away from the light switch and moves closer to me, his head tilted in confusion. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with me.
Hours.
I’ve been like this for hours, and he can’t figure out what the hell is happening to me. My chest squeezes and the bridge of my nose begins to tingle. I shut my eyes once more, praying the stinging behind my closed lids will subside.
I have stayed strong all damn night, but when he reaches my side of the bed and kneels down by my face to get a better look at me, I humiliate myself by gasping for breath before bursting into tears. One falls then the next follows, and suddenly, a downpour of unrestrained emotion streaks my cold face. My vision blurs as wet warmth trail my cheeks. Body wracking sobs escape me, my mouth open in a silent wail as my chest heaves with every shaking breath.
I hurt.
I hurt so damn much that right now, in this moment, arms wide in affection, I welcome death as a lover.
Julius tuts, his sleepy blue eyes soften, and he utters, “Oh, baby.” His large hand reaches out to stroke my tearstained cheek. “You’re freezing.”
My mind clears for a millisecond, a single moment where some part of me grasps at a fragment of hope as I realize these are not the words of a cruel man, a killer of women.
My heart can only take so much. This has been a shitty week for me. For a second, I forget where I am and who I’m with, treating Julius as a man who might give a fuck about me. I sob and let out a pathetically shaky, “I couldn’t reach.”