Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“A woman doesn’t realize how precious her voice is until she’s been silenced.” —Ursula
Eden
Tristian backhanded me across the face so hard that my body flew back, and I tumbled to the floor. I didn’t have a chance to catch my bearings; in less than a second, he was gripping onto the front of my shirt, holding me in front of his face.
My head spun.
My body trembled.
I saw stars.
Bright.
Big.
Blinding stars.
“What the fuck did you just say to me?” he roared in a voice I’d never heard.
If I thought I had been terrified the night he’d held a gun over my heart, it didn’t even come close to this. Nothing compared to this paralyzed state of panic I felt in this exact moment where his rage had completely taken over his reasoning.
“Tristian,” I whispered, as if his name was a sin off my tongue.
“Tell me!” he seethed, his face turning a daunting shade of red. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“You need to calm down.” I hated how weak I sounded.
How my lips trembled.
How I didn’t recognize this woman who was lying on the ground with her husband holding her captive.
“Calm down? Calm down?” He shook me.
Hard.
Fast.
Long.
I had no choice but to let him.
He was bigger than me. Stronger. Angrier than I’d ever seen him.
“You want me to calm down when you just told me that Naz isn’t my son?! Then who the fuck is his father, Eden?!”
“Tristian, please… you’re hurting me.”
He let me go, but not before he shoved me away from him. Causing my head to smack against the wood floor.
“You fucking bitch! You stupid fucking whore!”
My stomach churned, my mind reeled, and my body felt as if it was falling the fuck apart.
I was hunched over, placing all my weight on my hands and knees. Breathing in fresh air with tears streaming down my face. There was an unbearable amount of weight sitting on my chest from what was happening.
I didn’t expect it would come to this.
Me terrified of my husband.
The man who used to be my best friend.
My family.
The one I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.
“Fuck! Motherfucker!” he growled, pulling his hair away from his face.
Through a daze, I watched as he wreaked havoc around his office. Leaving a path of destruction in his wake. Swiping the contents off his desk, he shouted, “I loved you! I fucking loved you!” He tore the large picture of us off the wall, chucking it at the door. “I fucking loved you!” It shattered to the floor, marring our faces with nothing but glass and debris. Item after item flew through the air, striking the walls, the door, the floor, breaking into pieces.
“Please stop! Please!” I begged, but my words went unheard.
Nothing could stop him.
Especially not me.
“How could you do this to me?!” Tears streamed down his face.
A vase whooshed by my head, crashing behind me, sending me to cower in the corner. This wasn’t the end; this was only the beginning.
Would I wind up dead? Please, God, protect me.
“I trusted you! And you betrayed me!”
My mouth was opened, spewing my own poisons. “I trusted you, and you cheated on me! I trusted you, and you held a gun over my heart! I trusted you, Tristian, and you just fucking hit me!”
My words only heightened his wrath; he went after anything he could find. Knocking over the coffee table, the couch, the pictures on the walls, our life.
Our family.
Broken.
Everything we created together, he was destroying in a flash. When he pulled the tv off the wall and chucked it across the room, I backed into the corner further. Nothing but tears blurred my eyes, my body churned with the desire to fall apart.
I was stupid to not bring my cell phone in that office, just like I was stupid to trust he wouldn’t lose his mind and hurt me.
“Tristian, stop! Please! Just stop!” I broke down to the point of hyperventilating. Hugging myself, trying to hold what was left of me together. “Please, I’m begging you!”
He abruptly turned at the last second as another painting shattered to the ground. Walking through the chaos caused by his turmoil and my betrayal, he grabbed me again.
“It’s Romeo, isn’t it? He’s Naz’s father, isn’t he?”
I cried hysterically, and it didn’t stop him from once again shaking the shit out of my body.
“All these years! All this time! How could you do this to me?”
I opened my mouth to speak.
To say something.
Anything.
I couldn’t.
Not one word left my mouth; he backhanded me across the face yet again. My head whipped back so hard I thought he was going to break my neck.
“Look at me! Fucking look at me!”
“I can’t,” I whimpered, unable to move.
He let go of me, and my lifeless body fell to the floor. Crouching down close to my face, he sneered, “I’ve done everything for you, and this is how you repay me. Spreading your legs for my fucking brother only to wind up pregnant. Well, I’m going to tell you one thing and one thing only… Eden Sinacore. My wife. The mother of my child. You. Will. Never. Leave. Me. Do you understand me? NEVER.”