Page 47 of Sadist

I hadn’t admitted it to myself yet, but clearly the decision had already been subconsciously made, so after a moment, I nodded.

“Yes.”

She walked over to the table and sat heavily, closing her eyes. She looked…ruined. As if the emotional weight she had been carrying all this time had finally taken its toll, with the relief of knowing I was giving her freedom back. I wanted to take it back already. Throw her back into the cell and lock her in there. Mine to keep.

Except she would wilt in the dark.

And that would be even worse than watching her walk away.

“When I let you go,” I said, taking a moment to compose myself. “You need to disappear, especially if you can’t trust your father. Octavia Vanguard stays dead, and that can’t change. Whatever he did, there is no coming back for anything. Not vengeance or compensation.”

The words felt like acid on my tongue, the edge of panic already curling in my gut at the thought of never seeing her again. I clenched my fists against the visceral need to reach out and grab hold of her.

She let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob.

“I have beentryingto escape him for fifteen years, Theodora. He took everything from me.” Her face pinched, and she refused to meet my eyes. “I have always donated the money he gives me. It makes me feel dirty, like somehow it makes what he did acceptable. I have never touched a cent of it.”

She was fidgeting as she spoke, and I could tell how deeply uncomfortable it made her to speak of this.

“But three months ago, I was notified that my identity had been used to start a business that was recently liquidated with fifty thousand pounds owed in taxes. I knew I would be able to fight it, but I was at risk of legal action if I didn’t make a down payment. I would risk arrest at the border or deportation fromforeign countries with a criminal conviction. I needed money quickly and planned to use that money as a good-faith payment until I could get it squared away.”

“Except the payment was late,” I said.

“Yup.” She grimaced. “I made the mistake of asking if it could be paid a week early. It killed me to do it, and the second he caught wind that I needed it, he used it to his advantage. He refused to put the payment through unless I returned to the UK. I thought he was just doing it to feel like he had control again, and I needed to come back to lodge the fraud investigation anyway. But I don’t believe in coincidences, Theo.”

“He lured you back here,” I guessed, trying to temper the rage curling in my stomach. “He would have known what happens to the families of those who cross the company I work for.”

“Two birds, one stone,” she whispered. “He gets what he wants, and his biggest loose end is tied up. It’s extortion, isn’t it? That’s what he has on your company. Information that could bury them, and they retaliated by taking me hostage. You played his game perfectly.”

I said nothing, my mind racing over how thoroughly I had misjudged what this was. Her thumb was pressing into one of the larger bruises on her inner arm, as if the pain was keeping her grounded.

“Why are you scared of the dark, Octavia?” I asked, already knowing I was going to hate the answer, but needing to know regardless.

She closed her eyes and let out a long breath.

“Fuck it,” she murmured. “You don’t want this anyway…”

I didn’t get a chance to question what she meant before she continued, her tone flat and emotionless.

“He would lock me in a chest at the foot of his bed when I wasn’t obedient. When I didn’t please him,” she said, soundingso disconnected from the words that it didn’t even sound like her. “It started when I was ten. I ran away when I was sixteen.” She raised haunted eyes to the roof, swallowing hard. “There were fifty-two nails in the lid of the chest. I would count them to keep myself calm. Over and over, until I went a little mad, I think. The longest I was in there was three days after he was too rough and I threw up on his—on him. Lying in my own mess, counting the nails over and over.”

White hot, life-ending rage burned its way through my veins, and I moved slowly, not trusting myself to keep my temper in check as I lowered to a crouch in front of her.

“This is where you look at me with disgust and pity and tell me how sorry you are about the tragic state of my life,” she said, her voice flat and emotionless. “Save it, Theo. I’ve heard it all before.”

“No, Sweets,” I said calmly, though I was anything but. “This is where I tell you that I am going to skin that sick fuck alive.”

17

OCTAVIA

Idon’t know what I had been expecting from Theo, but rage hadn’t been it. The pity that would make me crumple into a self-loathing husk wasn’t there. The hand on my knee hadn’t moved, and she was still looking at me.

“Did you report it?”

“Yes.” The simple question took me off guard, and I shook my head. “I mean, I tried. The sergeant I was giving my statement to asked me three times if I was lying to get a payout from him. And with the payments he had already started…it looked bad. I dropped the charges and left after a lecture about how girls like me ruin good, hardworking men’s lives, and I should be ashamed of myself. I left the country the following day.”

The hand on my knee tightened, but she said nothing, a muscle in her jaw flexing.

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