Love is twisted
Chapter Sixty Two
Angel Bella’s POV
Gabriel and Rapheal dragged Lord Erik into the safe house, his arms and legs bound, his nose busted and dripping blood, his hair sticking to the back of his head with more blood. I slowly rose from the sofa where I had been waiting for almost one hour with two bodyguards
.
Dad moved toward me, trying to shield Lord Erik from my view—or me from his. I wasn’t sure and didn’t care. “Dove, you shouldn’t be here.” His eyes narrowed on my bodyguards, harshly, cruelly. I touched his arm.
“I will stay,” I said firmly, my voice resolute.
My uncle was the last to enter.
The men exchanged a look. Their word was law, not mine, but their guilt gave me power over them, more power than they’d ever held over me. I hated using it against them, but they would never allow me to possess power for any other reason.
I walked past my father, toward Rapheal and Gabriel holding Lord Erik between them. His head hung down, body was slack. I tried to hide the tLord Erikr that had taken hold of me the moment I’d spotted him.
Lord Erik.
Rapheal ’s expression twisted like it always did when he saw me. With guilt and a flicker of humiliation because something had been taken from him, because Lord Erik had taken it from him. He was a strong, powerful man, and having lost me haunted him like it haunted every man in the room. I was their failure. Their pride a tattered sullied rag. Every time they had to peer into my eyes, and worse the eyes of my children, they were reminded.
They’d never let me be anything but the dove with broken wings. They couldn’t. But I wanted to fly.
“Have you come to watch the bastard die,Bella. ?” Gabriel asked, his face cruel, eager, brutal as his blue eyes settled on Lord Erik, who still hadn’t moved, but I noticed the almost imperceptible shift in his shoulders, his muscles twitching. He was waking up.
My heart beat faster, my palms becoming sweaty.
“I know you deserve your revenge, dove, but this is going to be more than you can stomach, trust me,” Dad said, coming up behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder. His voice was soft, compelling, but his face held terrifying eagerness and cruelty as he regarded the father of my children.
“What are your plans for him?” I asked my uncle, because he was the man who would have the last word on the matter.
His cool blue eyes weren’t as controlled as usual. He, too, wanted to tear into Lord Erik. They had waited a long time for this moment. “We will prolong his torture as long as possible without risking an attack from the Jades .”
“He won’t die today?”
“Oh, he won’t die today,” Gabriel muttered. “But he might wish for it.” I gave a nod. It was what I had expected. Lord Erik wouldn’t experience
any mercy at the hands of the Heaven, not that he’d ever ask for it.
“He’ll beg for death,” Dad said harshly
.
“I don’t beg for anything, Pietro.”
I shivered at the familiar timbre, at the underlying threat, the undercurrent of power. How did he do it? Lord Erik lifted his head, and my brother and Rapheal tightened their hold but they blended into the background when Lord Erik’s eyes finally met mine. Fourteen months.
The force of his gaze hit me like a tidal wave. In the time since he’d released me, I’d often wondered if I could ever forget him, if I could move on and live a new life, but now as I looked at him, I realized I had been foolish to consider that an option.
The corners of his mouth lifted in a twisted smile. “Angel.”My brother punched Lord Erik’s face, but he only laughed darkly as blood spattered on the ground.
“This is your chance to ask for forgiveness,” Dad said.
Lord Erik looked from each of them until his eyes finally settled on me. “Do you want me to beg for forgiveness?”
His eyes dragged me down fiercely, mercilessly, irrevocably as they’d always done. As they always would. “I won’t give you my forgiveness,” I said quietly.Something flickered in Lord Erik’s eyes, but Gabriel and Rapheal wrenched
him away from my view, down the corridor into their torture chamber
.
Dad kissed my temple. “We will avenge you, make him pay for what he did.”
He walked away, leaving me with My uncle , who regarded me with calm scrutiny. He touched my shoulder lightly, and I met his gaze. “He will ask for forgiveness in the end,” he promised.
I briefly touched his hand. “I don’t want him to because it would be false.”
Lord Erik did everything with unbridled passion, with ferocious rage, without an ounce of regret.
He consumed, obliterated, ruined.
He took everything and left nothing in his wake. He was an unrepentant sinner. He was a destroyer, a murderer, a torturer.
A monster.
The father of my children.
The man who held my heart in his cruel, brutal hand.
“You will castrate him?” It was an unnecessary question. I knew they would, and it was only one of the many atrocities they’d planned. All I needed to know was when.
My uncle gave a terse nod. “Tomorrow. Not today. It would speed up his death too much. Rapheal and Gabriel will do it. I’m not sure you should watch any of this, but maybe you need to. Today will be easier to stomach than tomorrow, so stay if it’s what you want.”
“Thanks,” I whispered. Slowly I made my way toward the screen on the table and turned it on.
My brother and Rapheal were kicking Lord Erik in the stomach, in the side, and Lord Erik made no move to defend himself. When they finally let up, because My uncle had entered, Lord Erik rolled onto his back and looked directly into the camera, knowing I was watching.
He didn’t look away when my father took out his knife and cut his chest. Not when it was Gabriel ’s turn. Not when it was Rapheal ’s turn. Not when it was My uncle ’s turn.
I’d spent so many hours, day and night, wondering how it would feel to see Lord Erik broken, to see him on his knees.
This wasn’t how I imagined things to be, my heart clenching in my chest so tightly I could hardly breathe, the tears pressing against my eyelids so fiercely I had to bite the inside of my cheek to hold them back. And even through the torture, Lord Erik didn’t look broken because he couldn’t be broken, not with violence and pain. Maybe not at all.
I turned away from the screen and walked away. My bodyguards followed close behind, their steps slow and measured. Shadows meant to protect and save me. But I was beyond saving. My family tried to mend me, but I didn’t need it because I wasn’t broken
.
Slipping behind the steering wheel of the Mercedes limousine, I revved the engine the second my bodyguards were inside. My foot pressed down on the gas. They slanted looks my way but didn’t comment. They were meant to protect not judge.
I was allowed this freedom because my family’s guilt had paid for it. They couldn’t bear keeping the dove with broken wings in a gilded cage.
The second I had the car parked in front of my family’s home, I killed the engine and got out, not waiting for them. I stepped inside and hurried upstairs, didn’t stop until I entered the nursery. Both Jordan and Jemima were asleep in their shared crib, looking peaceful and painstakingly beautiful.
I stroked their heads, the thick black hair like their father’s. When my fingers brushed Jordan’s temple, his eyes peeled open with those dark brown, almost black eyes. I leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead then to Jemima’s, breathed in their scent, then sank down in a chair and watched them sleep.
I wasn’t sure how long I stayed like that when the door opened. Familiar steps sounded behind me, steps that had accompanied me almost all my life. A warm hand came down on my shoulder, and I covered it with mine.
Gabriel pressed a kiss to the crown of my head then rested his forehead against it for a couple of moments. So gentle and caring, so very different from the man I’d seen torturing Lord Erik. He straightened and I tilted my head back, peering up at him.
His gaze rested on Jemima and Jordan, but for him there was nothing beautiful about them. As always, his eyes shone with guilt and aversion when he regarded them before he noticed my scrutiny and lowered his gaze to me.
Warmth filled his expression. I wished he could spare some of it for the children I loved more than life itself. Gabriel was my blood. He would always be. He was part of me as I was part of him, and I didn’t resent him for his feelings toward my children.
I knew he hated their father, not them, but more than that he hated himself.
I stood, grabbed his neck, and pulled him down until his forehead rested against mine. “Please,Gabe, stop blaming yourself. Please, I beg you. I’m not broken. You have no reason to feel guilty.”
He returned my gaze but I realized his guilt ran too deep. Maybe tomorrow he’d finally be free. Maybe he could let go of his guilt when he had to let go of me. “I love you,” I said, knowing it was the last time.
Gabriel wrapped his arms around me. “And I love you,Bella.”