Page 85 of His Captive

“Yes, Ethan,” Sorrento nods proudly.

“You, but you were out of town on business. I had the police look into it after. You were seen on CCTV in a hotel in Georgia.”

“Yes I was,” he smirks.

“See, that’s the fucking beauty of love. The things it can do to a man. Turn him into a monster and fill his heart with hate.”

Sorrento looks Ethan up and down like they share something in common. “Bring him to his knees,” he sneers. “Then there’s those that are prepared to go a little further… And kill.” His eyes move past Ethan’s and settle behind me.

“Right, Buddy?”

I follow Sorrento’s eye line to Buddy and hear the painful cry that leaves his body. His eyes swell with tears and his hands grip at his blonde tuffs like he wants to pull it from his scalp.

“Buddy?” Ethan looks over to him, completely thrown.

But he’s too tormented to respond.

“Yeah, Buddy. Good ol’ fucking buddy,” Sorrento laughs

“He probably loved her more than any of us. Didn’t you, Bud?”

“Buddy,” Ethan speaks angrily. His grip on Sorrento's neck noticeably firmer.

“Ethan. I…She was so unhappy,” Buddy starts, cowering to the wall behind him.

“She’d tried to do it to herself so many times, but I always managed to catch and stop her. She was so desperate.”

“You fucking killed Millie.” Ethan lets Sorrento slide to the floor and paces over toward Buddy.

“I didn’t know she’d been with you. I just heard her crying and he’d already given me the drugs, the ones that would make it all be over for her,” Buddy looks over at Sorrento’s crumpled body.

“He told me that it was what she really wanted. That she was miserable and she was just too scared to do it herself. I saved her from him, Ethan. You saw what he had in the basement. I knew what he did to her, she’d told me.”

My heart pounds wildly.

The basement.

Sorrento had lived at Ethan’s when he was married to Millie. Had he kept her in the basement? Tortured her?

“You. You took her from me,” Ethan says. Tears filling his beautiful eyes.

“You let me think for all these years that she killed herself because she regretted that night with me.”

“I’m sorry, Ethan,” Buddy cries, and I scream when he quickly lifts the gun and points it forward.

“Noooooo,” I scream pulling against my restraints to get to Ethan.

But it isn’t Ethan’s body that falls. The heavy body of Sorrento slumps back to the floor. The knife clattering from his hand as the bullet hits him in the chest. Ethan looks stunned, only able to watch as Buddy steps toward the body, a stare on his face that doesn’t look right there, as he fires off three more shots into Sorrento’s already limp body.

There would be more if Ethan didn’t step in and take the gun from his hand, tossing it away.

“It’s alright, Bud. He’s gone.” He wraps his arm around his shoulder to comfort him, but there’s no warmth in his eyes.

Ethan supports Buddy as he slides to the ground, tapping his shoulder, before stepping over him and coming toward me.

“You ok? Did he hurt you?” He holds me at arm’s length, his eyes frantic in checking me over.

“Did he…” his voice wobbles.

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