Page 80 of Midnight Salvation

He grabbed my hair, hauling me back across the floor. “Maybe I should just fuck you into submission right now while you’re all alone.”

“I’m never alone,” I shouted. “Ash will kill you for this.”

His laugh sounded like it came from the depths of Hell. “I wouldn’t count on it. My son is many things, but first and foremost he is a Blackwood. He proved that when he took my company and stood and watched your father kill my brother.”

“He is first and foremost my husband,” I said, trying to free my hair.

He kicked me in the stomach as I tried to twist away, but still I fought. My nails dug into his wrist, my teeth latching onto the hand that kept hitting me while the other held my hair. I hated everything this man stood for. He had tortured Ash his entire life, terrorised his mother, and allowed the death of his brother.

If the devil had a face, it belonged to Matteus Blackwood.

Even in the darkness of the kitchen, with only the light of the moon to illuminate us, his evil radiated out to coat everything it touched. I caught flashes of his face as he lashed out at me.

Survival was my only ambition, because I refused to let him steal my future. He grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me back, my head hitting the wall over and over until I slumped on the floor. My ears hummed and my body ached.

“No wonder Ash doesn’t want to share you.” He grinned down at me. “Maybe I should have a taste and leave you here for him to find.”

His hands went to the front of his trousers and sick crept up the back of my throat.

“No,” I whimpered, shaking my head. I refused to be a victim, another woman traumatised by this sick bastard.

He laughed, knowing that most of my energy was spent. I crawled across the kitchen floor, my body broken and every muscle screaming in pain. He paced forward to loom in front of me, his disgusting appendage released from his trousers.

“I’d rather die,” I hissed up at him.

“I’ve never tried necrophilia, but for you I could make an exception. Be a good girl and spread those legs for me.”

I knew every single inch of this house, this kitchen had always been my solace. I closed my eyes and used the cupboard beside me to lever myself up. “I will never open my legs or any other orifice for you.”

He made his first mistake when he pushed me forward toward the sink, his hand trying to tug my leggings down. His second was when he released his hold on my neck to try and aid him.

I’d lost count of the number of times I stood here watching out the window as I loaded the dishwasher. Ash taught me a lesson from his childhood. The men tended to stay out of the kitchen and not know what was in it.

My fingers curved around the handle of the carving knife I’d put in there earlier, spinning when I felt the tip of his grotesque cock touching my ass, to plunge it deep into his stomach.

The moonlight highlighted his eyes widening in shock.

I hacked and stabbed over and over and over, unable to stop myself because right now I was vengeance herself. All those women he had hurt stood behind me, lending me their strength. I plunged that blade into him even when he fell to the floor.

A creature as evil as Matteus Blackwood had nine lives, so he needed to die ten times. In my head, I recited the prayer I learnt as a child to save his darkness from polluting my soul. He would never torture or rape anyone ever again. The Blackwood legacy would die with him because Ash would never allow it to survive.

Hatred burned in my soul as I remembered the look in Marigold’s eyes. Her power infused into me as I stabbed him in her name. In the end I only stopped because I didn’t have the energy to continue.

Then I pulled my leggings in place and sat with my back to the door of the dishwasher, holding my weapon. I stared at his body waiting for the horror of what I’d done to set in. It never came because there was no remorse to feel.

Ash was finally free.

***

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ash

I was on my way back from the disaster of the evening in the Council chamber, where they blathered on about everything and nothing. Dad had been missing, but Hugh gave his apologies. He was still sulking since we intervened in his affair with Shannon and took possession of all the artwork in that warehouse. I was halfway across London when my phone sounded the one alert I had hoped never to hear.

There was only one person who had access to that security system, so I didn’t even need to look at my phone. If she’d hit that alarm, then she was in more danger than I cared to contemplate. She’d said she had a bad feeling. I had left a few moments after her text message, leaving the guys to finish up the meeting. When it came to Lucrezia, I never ignored a warning, even herbad feelings.

The only person stupid enough to go straight for Lucrezia was my father, and if a hair on her head was harmed, I would cross the line I had always teetered on and purge the world of him.

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