The Wife Breaker by Isabella Starling

Chapter 7

RAIN

After Heath realizes who I am, things change for me.

First off, I’m shown from the dingy basement room into a beautiful suite on the first floor. This one has an adjoining bathroom. The suite is luxurious, reminding me of my room back at Xavier’s. We never shared a bedroom - at least I have that to be grateful for.

The moment a guard shows me to my new quarters, I want to cry in relief. Instead, I wait patiently for him to lock me in my new prison before getting into the bath. I load up the tub with vanilla-scented oil and get in. The hot water feels like therapy for my sore muscles. I don’t allow myself to think about Heath until the stress from the last few days slowly wears off, and the water softens my skin and my anger.

Once I’m finally able to breathe again, I allow my mind to race as I remember everything that happened. How Heath treated me. All the messed up shit he made me go through, proving to me he’s no better than his uncle. He’s a monster, just like Xavier. Whatever happened to him in the years that he’s been away had turned him into a beast.

I take great care in washing my body. I dry my hair, finally back to its natural color, and allow it to fall down my back in thick golden waves. There’s makeup in the room, but I ignore it. Instead, I put on a floral dress from the closet in the bedroom and a pair of flat sandals. The dress is modest, and I’m grateful for that. Xavier would never allow me to be covered up like this. He was always too intent on showing me off to allow me any modesty.

The knock comes a few moments later, just as I’m perusing the bookshelf in the room. There are some books I’m interested in and my heart flutters at the thought of being allowed more freedom than I had at the Casa. But even that doesn’t change what Heath did to me, what he put me through. I don’t care that he feels bad about it, now he knows who I am. Nobody should go through what he did to me.

All those thoughts race through my mind as I turn to face the handsome, intoxicating man standing in my doorway.

“Mind if I come in?” he asks in his deep, raspy voice. But instead of waiting for my answer, Heath strides into the room anyway, ignoring my wishes. It quickly becomes apparent he’s still the boss here, and I’ll be forced to do whatever he wants. Just like always, I find myself under a man’s control again. My lips form a thin line as I stare at him.

“You like your new room?” Heath asks, and I just stare back, refusing to give him the satisfaction of an answer. “We bring the good girls here once they prove themselves to us.”

“I’m not a good girl,” I hiss in response. “I’m a captive. You’re holding me here against my will.”

Ignoring my words, he clears his throat and opens the briefcase he brought with him. My eyes widen in fear as I saw the small saw in there.

“Don’t hurt me,” I whisper.

“I won’thurt you.” Heath picks up the saw, weighing it in his hands while my heart races, watching him. “I’m going to help you. Now come here, sit down on the floor for me.”

Reluctantly, I approach him, just because I know if I don’t, he has ways of forcing me to do anything he wants. He takes my hand in his, his thumb gently gliding over the gold cuffs I’ve worn for eight years now.

“I think it’s time we got rid of these, don’t you?” he asks, making my head spin.

The prospect of being free from Xavier’s cruelty fills me with hope, and I nod eagerly. Heath begins to saw through the metal, making me wince in fear. But he’s careful, and minutes later, the sawn-off cuffs fall from my wrists. I’m free for the first time in years.

Heath’s fingertips wander over my now exposed skin. It feels dangerous and darkly enticing to feel his touch on a spot of me that hasn’t been touched in years. I barely hold back my gasp, avoiding his gaze so he won’t realize my true feelings when he caresses me like this.

“Feel better?”

“No,” I hiss in response, instantly pulling my arm out of his reach.

“Don’t be so stubborn, Rain,” he mutters in response. “I’m only trying to help you.”

“If you wanted to help me, you’d get me the hell out of here,” I mutter. “You were happy to abuse me until you realized who I was.”

“It’s my job,” he says. “I have to do this. It’s what I’m hired to do.”

“You’ve changed,” I tell him icily. “The Heath I fell in love with would’ve never done what you did, to anyone, let alone me.”

“You’re in love with me?”

A traitorous flush covers my cheeks, and I shake my head vehemently. “Past tense, Heath. I could never feel anything for a monster like you.”

“We’ll see about that,” he mutters with a sly smile, making me even angrier than I was before. “Now, you must be hungry.”

At the sound of his words, my stomach rumbles, making me blush even harder. I merely nod, too ashamed by the state I’m in to deny it. After all, I’ve been starved for days.

My eyes widen as the doors to my room open and maids walk in carrying plates of food. I eye it all, hungry as ever, but the thought of actually eating makes me feel sick after all the revelations I’ve had today.

Once the help leaves, Heath picks up a bowl of plain oatmeal and a spoon, telling me, “It’s best to start with something easy on your stomach, you don’t want to upset it.”

He scoops up some of the oatmeal and holds the spoon out to me, but I shake my head.

“I can feed myself.”

“Indulge me.”

His eyes burn with dark passion, and I hate myself for succumbing to his wishes. I don’t want to give Heath what he wants, especially after everything he’s ripped away from me. And yet I can’t stop myself. I lean forward, my lips wrapping around the spoon he’s holding for me. I suck off the oatmeal, licking my lips as I hungrily groan at the feeling of food hitting my stomach.

“Good girl,” Heath mutters, making me turn away in disgust.

“I don’t need your fucking praise, Heath.”

“Maybe not,” he shrugs, picking up more food. “But you’d do well to be nice to me. After all, I’m the only one who can help you.”

“Bit late for that, isn’t it?” I hiss at him. “I’ve been your uncle’s prisoner for years, Heath. Where were you?”

His lips flatten into a line.

“Believe it or not, Rain, my life doesn’t revolve around you. I was going through my shit.”

“Your own shit?” I spit out. “Well, I’m glad to know your own shit was more important to you than the safety and well-being of your fiancée.”

“You don’t know what happened,” he replies. “And you don’t get to judge me. Now eat.”

Reluctantly, I open my mouth and accept the second spoon of oatmeal he feeds me. I want to bite him, but I hold back. Deep down, I’ve already realized the man I thought Heath was is long gone. He’s no longer the kind, caring young man I met when I was living with Nana. Something sinister lurks beneath his exterior now. He used to feel like sunshine, but now he’s just a quiet, brewing storm. A storm I’m afraid of.

“I didn’t know you were alive.”

My eyes snap back to Heath’s and I cock my head to the side.

“I thought he killed you,” he continues, his eyes zeroing in on my lips as I eat another spoonful of oatmeal. “I was certain he wouldn’t let you live after he thought he killed me. I convinced myself he had no use for you, that he’d just discarded you like he did me.”

“I wish,” I let out in a soft breath. “He came for me a little after my eighteenth birthday. He took everything from me, burned down my only home. And he killed... he killed Nana.”

Tears gather in the corners of my eyes, but I do my best to fight them back.

“I’m sorry, Rain.”

I raise my eyes to meet his and am surprised to find genuine regret in his gaze. I wonder whether he’s telling the truth. Something about his expression tells me he is, and he never knew about Xavier’s intentions for me.

“Where were you?” I finally ask, my voice breaking over the simple question. “I needed you.”

“Xavier got rid of me,” he says. “He had me beaten and left for dead on the docks. Some men picked me up and...”

He shrugs. “You don’t need to hear the rest. It’s gory.”

“Why didn’t you take your revenge on your uncle, though?” I motion to our surroundings. “Seems like you have the means now to serve justice.”

“I can’t,” he gets out in a pained mutter. “I’ve been biding my time. Xavier is the leader of the Scorpion cartel now. I can’t take him down that easily.”

“Okay,” I say. “But why accept a job offer from him, then? And why did he send me to you? Am I just a part of some sick game again?”

“No.” He shakes his head vehemently. “Xavier doesn’t know I’m the one running this. Nobody does, we’ve kept it secret for a reason. He doesn’t even know I’m alive. And I’d like to keep it that way. I need anonymity so I can strike when he least expects it. But you... you changed everything.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “How?”

“Because Xavier still has something I want.” Heath feeds me more before setting the spoon down, his gaze darkened with desire as it meets mine.

“What do you want, Heath?”

“Don’t play dumb,” he grunts. “I want you, Rain. I want to get you back.”

“I’m not an object you and your uncle can pass back and forth,” I growl at him, ignoring that his words just gave me butterflies, a feeling I’d almost forgotten existed. “I refuse to be a pawn in your sick games. But you owe me, Heath. You owe me my freedom.”

“Come on, Sunshine,” he mutters, his old nickname for me making me feel weak. “You never believed that, did you? There’s no way for you to be free. Not with who you are, who your parents were.”

“I deserve to be free. I deserve to be rid of the men trying to control me.”

“I never said you didn’t.” His eyes bore into mine. “But I don’t think it’s in the cards for you to be free, Rain. You’re too valuable of an asset.”

“I’m not an asset.” I challenge him with my gaze, glaring at him. “I’m a person, Heath. And neither you nor your uncle can control me.”

“That’s what you think, but it couldn’t be farther away from the truth.”

I try not to let my gaze follow him like I’m some lost damn puppy.

It’s incredible to be around Heath again after all this time. If I thought distance and time would make us grow apart, I’ve been proven to be wrong since we reunited. Which is unfortunate, given that I hate him.

“Maybe I could devise a way for you to stay with me,” Heath muses as he feeds me another spoonful. “Maybe I could somehow convince him to allow you to stay here longer.”

“What makes you think I want that?”

I raise my chin proudly, daring him to challenge me on this.

“What makes you think you have a choice in the matter?”

His words are so cruel and devoid of emotion, they hit me almost harder than when his uncle tells me the same thing. With a snarl, I smack the spoon out of his hand, but the next moment, his powerful fingers wrap tightly around my wrist.

“Are you forgetting your manners, Rain?”

“You sound just like him,” I spit out, knowing just how deep my words must cut him. “I should’ve known you were both the same. Instead, I got fooled by both Gunns.”

“Shut your mouth.”

He merely mutters the phrase, but his tone is enough to get me to do what he wants. My heart speeds up as we stare at one another like we’re having a blinking contest.

“You don’t want to stay with me?” he finally asks. “Is that what you’re saying?”

My mind and heart battle between two answers. Finally, I settle on the one that breaks me.

“I want to go back. Anything would be better than this.”

Heath approaches me, and I shrink away from his menacing figure.

“You want to go back to him, to Xavier? You want to keep enduring everything he put you through just to prove a point?”

“I’m not proving a point,” I grind out. “I’m saying anything would be better than this fucking torture.”

His eyes burn as he squeezes my wrist painfully, asking, “What is this fucking torture, to be exact?”

“Being with you. Around you. Near you. At least with Xavier, I knew he was bad news from the start,” I spit out. “With you, I was foolish enough to believe you were good. Like Nana, like me. It hurts how wrong I was.”

His other hand forms a fist and I shiver in fear of what he’s capable of doing. But he doesn’t strike me and doesn’t hurt me. Instead, he seems in pain from realizing just how much I despise him.

“I’m nothing like my uncle,” he finally says, his voice pained. “But if that’s what you prefer... fine. I won’t get involved.”

“Good,” I hiss, feeling a lump in my throat forming. “I don’t want you to.”

The lie feels bitter on my lips and I feel terrible as he picks himself up, avoiding my gaze. Whatever hint of emotion I saw in him earlier was gone yet again, his face wiped off any trace of it. He’s back to being the ruthless killer I don’t recognize. My heart weeps and mourns for the boy with charcoal eyes I was once in love with.

Unlike the Casa, I haven’t been given instructions not to wander around the house.

I’m grateful for that later that night when I keep tossing and turning, unable to catch a wink of sleep. I decide to get up, wrapping myself in a silk pink robe trimmed with lace. I softly open the door of my bedroom, realizing there are guards in a room down the hall. They’re laughing and talking in a foreign language, all of them too distracted to notice me slipping out.

I wander down the hallway, trying to make an impression of my newest prison. That’s when I hear the noise, like a groan of pain and pleasure combined.

My brows knit together in worry at the sound. Whoever that is... they sound like they’re hurting.

Following the sound of the voice, I come to a room where the door has been left ajar. Light spills from under the door, and I press my front against it, carefully peeking inside the room.

And there he is, Heath in all his glory. He’s wearing a pair of dark gray slacks that match his eyes and nothing else. I can see the outline of his already hard cock through the fabric. His chest has so many pronounced muscles they look like tightly bound rope underneath his skin. The muscles flex as he yanks open a drawer in his desk and pulls out a plastic bag.

Horrified and as silent as I can be, I watch Heath sterilize a syringe and pump it full of clear liquid. My eyes widen even more as he slams the needle into his forearm, releasing the poison into his bloodstream.

I blink fast, not sure whether I’m seeing correctly. Surely Heath isn’t taking drugs? Not my Heath, not the boy I fell in love with in the poppy fields...

But as I watch him repeat the same steps and shoot another injection into his arm, I realize he is. It makes me wonder what exactly happened all those years he’s been away. Xavier’s plan worked. He’s broken the last innocent love I had - the one for Heath. Now, I can’t see him as anything other than a monster.

My pupils dilate almost as much as Heath’s as I watch him pull out his cock. I swallow thickly, watching him massage the cockhead and moving down the shaft, making himself groan with each stroke of his meaty palms.

Desperation wraps its evil fingers around my throat, eliciting a moan from me. Heath’s eyes shoot up, but I quickly hide behind the door, my heart hammering and my thoughts racing.

But he doesn’t let it distract him. A moment later, when I return to my hidden spot, I watch Heath jerk his enormous cock while he smooths down something on his desk. A piece of paper, or maybe a photograph. My heart pounds. What is he looking at? I’m so desperate for it to be me, my pussy drips between my legs.

Absent-mindedly, I realize I didn’t wear panties underneath my robe and nightie, and I’m now dripping on the floor. Fuck. Why and how does this man do to me? Everything in me is screaming for me to hate him, and yet I can’t bring myself not to get turned on in his presence.

My hand is so desperate to travel between my thighs it trembles, clinging to the door. I peek at him again just in time to see him jerk his cock over his desk. Animalistic groans escape Heath’s mouth as he finishes, his cock so huge it doesn’t even look human anymore.

I sink into the shadows as I watch him emerge. He stops still in the hallway and I brace myself for being discovered as he smells the air. It’s as if he can sense I’m here.

But Heath shakes his head to ignore my presence and takes off down the hallway.

The moment he’s gone, I slip into his office. I know I should go back to bed, but I need to see this...

My fingers shake as I touch the warm wood of his desk where Heath’s hand was resting only moments ago. And there, on the desk, is a photo of me on my eighteenth birthday, one Nana took with her old-fashioned camera.

I do not know how it survived the fire or how Heath got it, but it’s there. On the paper, I stare at the camera with innocent eyes and a timid smile. My lips tremble at the image of innocence. Life isn’t that simple anymore.

Dipping my fingertips into the droplets of white cream on the paper, I lift my hand and lick the remains of Heath’s load off them.

He came for me, after all.

It’s only fair I clean up after him.