Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“Make me come,” I say, my hands on his face to make him look at me. See me. “Make me come.”
He shifts one hand between us, and the touch of his fingers to my clit makes me come as he watches me. I arch my back and push against him, then pull his face to mine again, making him kiss me again, taking his final thrusts, swallowing his moan as his release comes, body rigid, every muscle tight, cock throbbing.
When his eyes come back into focus, and he eases his grip, a drop of sweat falls from his forehead to my cheek.
He looks at me. We’re so close. Closer than ever.
“Why?” he asks, voice broken, desperate. “Why, Ivy?”
I brush back sweat-slicked hair. “I swear to you, I swear on my life, I didn’t. I did not do what you’re accusing me of.”
“Your life is no longer yours to swear upon.” He draws back, almost sobering as he does. He exhales a short puff of air and pulls out of me, and we both look at the bloody mess on him, on me. Not bothering to wipe it off, he tucks himself back into his briefs, his pants.
I sit up. “I swear, Santiago. Please don’t do this to me. Please don’t tattoo me.” My god. Saying the words out loud makes it sound even more terrifying.
“Don’t make you look like me, you mean? Deformed,” he emphasizes the word, and my face heats as I regret the word I’d used. I hadn’t meant to. I swear I hadn’t meant to. I knew that would wound him.
“That’s not…I shouldn’t have said that.”
“How repentant you are now when there is something for you to lose.” He touches my cheek with the knuckles of his hand. “Your beauty.”
I shake my head.
“Did you think you’d seduce me? You think me that weak? One kiss and I’d give in to you?”
“No. No, I wanted to kiss you. I needed to.”
He grows rigid, ice cold. “You’re a liar, Ivy,” he says slowly. “A cold, manipulative liar.”
My stomach turns. “No, Santiago, it’s not like that. It wasn’t—”
“Get out,” he says, turning away.
“I didn’t do it. I couldn’t. I was locked in that bathroom. I couldn’t get the door open. I—”
“No? You couldn’t get the door open?” he asks, moving swiftly behind his desk to pull out a keyboard and push a couple of buttons. As soon as he does, the monitors all light up. I watch the blurred lines come into focus, and I hear the sounds I remember from that night. Loud talking. Glasses clinking in toasts. Jazz music. The gong. I see Colette laughing with someone, a man. Her husband, I guess. And then I see him. Santiago. And I watch as from the corner of the screen a woman enters.
And my throat goes dry. “What is this?”
He doesn’t have to answer, though. I can see. Anyone with eyes can see. It’s me in my black and gold dress and my butterfly mask. Except it’s not. And I—she—walks straight up to my husband, and he seems momentarily surprised when I—she wraps her arms around his neck, but he takes her in his arms too, and when she kisses him, he kisses her back, and then the scene blacks out.
I blink once, twice. When I turn, I find him watching me.
“I…” I croak, touching my throat, then pointing at the empty screen, my hand trembling.
Irrefutable evidence, they had said at The Tribunal.
They must have seen this too.
“What’s that, Ivy?” he asks, all false sweetness.
“That’s not possible.” I take a step backward, shuddering. I hug my arms around myself. “That’s not me.”
“No?”
I shake my head. Back up another step only to stumble over the chair I’d knocked over earlier but catching myself before I fall.
“No,” I say, not even convincing myself as he replays it, and I’m forced to watch it again.
“But I have eyes in my head. The evidence is right here in front of us,” he says finally.
We watch in silence, and when it’s over, he switches the monitors off and turns to me.
“I will mark you so you will never forget what you did. What you tried but failed to do. So that when anyone looks upon your face, they will know your shame, and they will turn their backs on you. You are a traitor. A liar. A Moreno.” My name is like a slap. I flinch. “You make me sick, Ivy.”
“I—”
“And my ink to mark your face, to deform you, is the sentence I decree upon you.”
14
Santiago
"How are you feeling?" Councilor Hildebrand peers up at me from beneath his spectacles.
"I live to see another day," I answer flatly.
He nods and then glances at the file before him. The three councilors of The Tribunal are seated behind the ornate desk on the dais in the courtroom reserved only for meetings such as these.