Page 22 of His Captive

But nothing comes.

Millie’s rare beautiful butterfly has lost its fight and is now laying limp and lifeless at the bottom of the jar.

I turn my head to Sorrento. My fingers clutching at the glass so tightly that it almost cracks in my hands. I think about taking the pillow from under his head, and depriving him of the oxygen his body needs to keep him alive. Making him suffer the same way he has Millie’s butterfly, but I don’t act.

I think.

I make a choice…

Sorrento believes he’s invincible.

“My dad owns this town and when he dies It will be mine.” I hear his taunts in my head. “When I’m running this town I’ll crush all the scum like you in it.”

I hate him.

Can’t bear to imagine how devastated Millie will be, how guilty she’ll feel not being able to set the butterfly she’d trapped free like all the others.

She won’t want to play the game anymore.

I notice an envelope on the desk, the words on the front written in Sorrento’s writing, spelling out Millie’s name. It isn’t sealed, so I take out the letter from inside and read.

My anger multiplies with each word.

Millie,

I guess the species just got a little rarer.

Ivan

x

My blood singes inside my veins. He wants to give this to Millie, to taunt her by presenting her with the butterfly he’d stolen from her and let die.

I think fast, lifting the lid off the jar and tipping it so the butterfly falls on to my palm. Her wings touching my skin like tissue paper, delicate and frail.

Taking the envelope that has been intended for Millie. I carefully placed the butterfly inside it and slipped it into my pocket. Then snatching some spare paper from the desk I rip the lid off a biro with my teeth and write a simple, but meaningful message for Sorrento.

Some things can’t be owned.

I place the note inside the jar and screw the lid back tightly before sneaking back out of the house the way I got in.

When I get home, I place the envelope safely on top of my wardrobe just until I can figure out what to do with it. Getting into bed I close my eyes, immediately greeted with the vision that is painted on the back of my eyelids.

Millie Montgomery and her pretty smile, the smile that never fails to warm my chest and make my heart beat a little faster.

I shake the memory out of my head.

Sorrento had never mentioned the butterfly to me again, but I always knew it ate away at him that he’d been outsmarted. That was how I’d been sure he had taken it.

That was how it had all started, and now even after all these years, we are still fighting each other. Though I have to give Sorrento credit, this latest stunt had trumped them all.

I stand back up and move to the window. The blackness outside showing my reflection in the glass. Sorrento expects me to be the same boy from all those years ago, the boy who had hope, and could love almost as passionately as the man I’ve become could hate.

What he doesn’t know is that over time hate has turned to venom and slowly poisoned me. It’s my addiction, and revenge is what feeds it, and keeps me breathing.

I’ve lost anything that mattered, and gradually gained everything that didn’t.

My fortune and success is powered by my ruthlessness, the lack of fucks I give for those who get crushed under my sole as I step to the top. And as beautiful and fragile as the creature Sorrento has sent to try and test me is, I know I’ll crush her too if that’s what it comes to.

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