Page 7 of The Devil's Wrath

“It’s nothing,” she said, pulling her arm back. “I’ve dealt with worse.”

Something in her tone made me pause. There was a hardness there, a hint of shadows lurking beneath the surface. What kind of darkness had this girl faced to make her so nonchalant about being manhandled by that naked asshole?

“Still, he had no right to treat you that way,” I said, my jaw tight. “Someone needs to teach that punk a lesson.”

A flicker of amusement danced in her gray eyes. “And I suppose you’re just the man to do it?”

I met her gaze steadily. “I don’t like bullies. And I especially don’t like men who think they can put their hands on women without consequences.”

She studied me for a long moment, as if trying to see into my very soul. The intensity of her stare stripped me bare. Finally, she nodded, seemingly satisfied with what she found.

“I think I’ve had enough excitement for one night,” she said, tilting her head toward the door. “It was nice to meet you,Devil.”

THREE

WRENLY

Fucking piece of shit.

He’d literally been getting his dick sucked at the party while I’d been in the other room, for fuck’s sake.

Grabbing my purse from the rack, I burst out the front door, gulping in the cool night air. The street was empty, and the only sound was the muffled bass of the house music and the distant hum of traffic. I started walking, my heels clicking against the pavement as I put as much distance between myself and that house as possible.

I could still hear them in my head—the muffled sounds of slurping and moaning seeping through the door. My fists clenched tightly at my sides as jealousy and rage boiled up inside me.

With each step, the anger inside me only grew. How could he have done this to me? After everything we’d been through? I’d thought what we’d had was special, but clearly, I was just another notch on his bedpost.

Tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them back furiously. I refused to cry over that cheating bastard. I had given him everything—my heart, my soul, my body—and this was how he repaid me?

I walked faster, my breaths coming in short, angry bursts. The night air felt suffocating, pressing down on me from all sides. I needed to get away. As I turned the corner, I nearly collided with a couplestumbling out of a bar, their arms wrapped around each other as they giggled and swayed. I sidestepped them, barely registering their presence as I continued my furious march down the street.

My mind raced with a torrent of emotions—betrayal, hurt, and a simmering rage that threatened to consume me. I couldn’t believe I had been so blind, so foolish to trust him. The signs had been there all along, but I had chosen to ignore them, too caught up in the fantasy of our perfect relationship to see the truth.

I thought back to all the late nights he had spent “training,” the mysterious texts he would quickly hide when I entered the room, and how his eyes would linger just a little too long on other women when we were out together. I had brushed it all off, convinced myself that I was just being paranoid. But now, the truth was staring me in the face, and I couldn’t look away.

As I walked, I pulled out my phone and scrolled through our old messages, searching for any hint of his infidelity. But there was nothing—just a string of sweet nothings and empty promises. I felt like a fool, like I had been playing a part in some tragic drama where everyone had known the ending but me.

I turned down a dark alley to take a shortcut and heard footsteps behind me. I whirled around, my heart pounding in my chest, only to see a stray cat dart out from behind a dumpster. I let out a shaky laugh, feeling foolish for being so jumpy. But the truth was, I felt vulnerable, exposed in a way I never had before.

I leaned against the cool brick wall, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

Suddenly, my phone vibrated in my hand. I glanced down, expecting it to be Vera with some half-assed apology about abandoning me at the party. But it was him. My finger hovered over the screen, torn between the urge to hurl it against the wall and the morbid curiosity to see what bullshit excuse he had concocted.

Against my better judgment, I swiped to open the message.

Where are you? We need to talk.

I let out a harsh laugh. Talk? Now he wanted to talk? After I’dcaught him with his pants down and his dick in some other girl’s mouth? Un-fucking-believable.

My fingers flew across the screen.

Fuck you. We’re done. Lose my number and never contact me again.

I hit send with a sense of grim satisfaction.

But even as I slid the phone back into my purse, I knew it wasn’t over. This betrayal had awakened something dark and vengeful inside me, a part of myself I hardly recognized. He thought he could toss me aside like yesterday’s trash and walk away unscathed. He had no idea what he’d unleashed.

When I walked out of the other side of the alley, my heels clicked with renewed purpose as a plan formed in my mind. If he thought he could break my heart and get away with it, he had another thing coming.

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