Page 94 of Bad Luck, Hard Love
Terrance laughs, the sound bouncing off the concrete walls. “Big words from a man on his knees.” He turns to me. “See what your little rebellion has brought you, Charlotte? This broken man bleeding on my floor? Was it worth it?”
I force my tongue to work, pushing through the chemical fog. “Every...second...away from you...was worth it.”
Something flickers across Thor's face—pride, maybe. Love, definitely. Even now, beaten and bound, he looks at me like I'm something precious.
“Beautiful sentiment,” Terrance sighs, pulling a gun from his waistband. He presses it against Thor's temple. “Shame he won't live to appreciate it.”
“No!” The word tears from my throat, raw and desperate. “Please, Terrance. Don't.”
“Oh? Does my wife have something to bargain with? How delightfully predictable.” Terrance's finger hovers over the trigger, and I can see the sick pleasure in his eyes as he watches me break. “What would you give to keep him alive? What would you do?”
The drugs make my thoughts sluggish, but desperation cuts through the haze like a blade. “Anything. I'll do anything.”
“Anything?” Terrance tilts his head, considering. “Even come home, willingly? Be the obedient wife you never were?”
Thor's eye blazes with fury. “Charlotte, don't?—”
The gun shifts, pressing harder against his skull. “I wasn't talking to you, biker.”
My heart hammers against my ribs as I stare at the man I love, bloodied and broken because of me. Because I ran. Because I thought I could escape the monster I married.
“Yes. I'll come home.”
Terrance's smile spreads like oil across water. “Say it properly. Say you'll be my wife again. My property.”
The words stick in my throat, but Thor's life hangs in the balance. “I'll be your wife again.”
“And?”
“Your...property.”
“Good girl.” Terrance removes the gun from Thor's temple, and I release a breath I didn't know I was holding. “See how easy that was? All it just took was a little motivation.” He turns to Thor with a smirk. “A lesson you should have learned, biker. A woman like Charlotte needs a firm hand.”
Thor's laugh is a broken sound, wet with blood but undeniably defiant. “You think this is winning? You had to drug her, chain her, and threaten to kill someone to get her to say words she doesn't mean.” His eye locks with mine, blazing with fierce conviction. “That's not ownership. That's just proving you were never man enough to deserve her.”
Terrance's composure cracks. His perfectly manicured facade splits like glass under pressure as he slams the butt of the gun across Thor's face. Once. Twice. Three times until blood pours freely down Thor's chin and onto the concrete floor.
“Stop it!” I scream, thrashing against my restraints. The metal cuts into my wrists, but the pain is nothing compared to watching Thor take blows meant to break him.
Terrance pauses, breathing heavily. Blood stains his knuckles and the cuff of his pristine white shirt. He looks down at it with disgust before wiping it on Thor.
“You know what's funny?” Terrance says as he adjusts his tie. “I was going to kill you quickly. A bullet to the brain. Merciful, all things considered.” He crouches down to Thor's level, grabbing a fistful of his blood-soaked hair.
“But now? Now I think I'll take my time. Let you watch while I reclaim what's mine. Let you see exactly what she's going back to. As you can see, I’ve already started reclaiming her.”
I follow Terrance’s gaze, my eyes drifting down the length of my own body for the first time since waking. Horror surges through me. My shirt hangs in tatters, barely clinging to my shoulders. The jeans I wore are gone—ripped away or discarded—leaving my skin exposed, my thighs littered with bruises blooming like violent flowers. Bite marks mar my flesh: angry, red, and crusted with dried blood.
“No!” I sob, the word escaping on a broken breath as memories flash in disjointed fragments. Hands on my drugged-up body. Pain registering through the chemical fog. My mind mercifully shutting down while he?—
Thor roars. He lunges forward despite his restraints, despite the guns trained on him, despite everything. One of the guards slams a boot into his wounded leg, driving him back to the floor.
“You like what you see?” Terrance asks him. “Tightest pussy I’ve ever fucked. One of the reasons I put my ring on her finger and gave her my last name.”
Bile rises in my throat. I turn my head just in time to vomit weakly onto the mattress, my body's pitiful rebellion against the violation I can feel but barely remember.
“I'm going to kill you so slowly you'll beg for death.”
Terrance chuckles, running his fingers through my hair with mock tenderness. “Still making threats? How adorable.” He yanks my head back sharply, forcing me to look at Thor. “Tell him, Charlotte. Tell him how you begged me to stop.”
