Chapter 43

I try digging my nails into his wrist to try and stop him, but he’s got me held and gagged like he
intended, and I can’t get him off no matter how much I thrash, twist and turn. I can barely breathe or
open my mouth to attempt biting, as the floods of tears hit me, through the veiled mist of panic.

He’s stronger, more powerful and my slight body is no match. Alexi fucks me for only seconds, until I
am in the throes of emotional hysteria so great my legs give out, and I end up being held up completely
by him before he stops. The point of his effort was not his sexual gratification—it was a plain and
simple lesson in my defiance. A tool to hurt me for standing up to him again and it was never about sex
at all.

My eyes are blurry with tears and my nose pouring from the instant sodden mess I have become. My
heart is destroyed, my soul torn in two and I can’t see from the blind panic of being unable to get free.
Pain wracking through me from the distress of what he has done.

Despite trying to hide this from him, he ripped it to the surface in the same way he forced me to endure
one of my biggest fears. Letting me go, gracelessly dumped, I fall in a heap on the floor sobbing and
clawing desperately at my arms and legs to curl up, even though he no longer has a hold of me. He just
stands and glares while he buttons up his trousers and calmly rights himself as though he’s doing
nothing wrong.

I feel violated and dirty, destroyed in every way as dark shadows and men fly at me through the dark
shadows of being caught between reality and traumatic memory.

‘’I warned you … don’t fuck with me.’’ It’s low, cold and devoid of remorse. The evil in the darkness and
he’s no different to any of the millions of men who treated me like worthless rubbish. I am distraught,
gasping, aching and shaking so violently I cannot compose myself. Unable to get off the floor or move
from where I feel. Like a worthless rag on the floor. He didn’t physically hurt me much, he didn’t force
anything on me, but he knew how to get to me on the worst kind of level, and as I pull my legs into



myself as tightly as I can, curling up to shield my body from more abuse, I sob like a broken child. I
physically cannot hate him anymore than I do right now. This was more than humiliating, it was soul-
destroying. ‘‘Why … would … you?’’ I can’t get the words out through gasping breaths and hazy vision,
broken inside and lost in memory and fear. Places I spent years locking out, and ever since him, they
have been unravelling inside of me like a spew of bad dreams, suddenly resurfacing after years of
being locked in a box.

‘’I told you once … I am not your hero or your lover. I told you that there would be consequences if you
got on the wrong side of me.’’ Alexi sounds strange even for him, and I bury my face in my hands and
just start to unravel completely, trying to stifle my heart broken gasps, but I am just too far gone down
that road of emotional despair. Shuddering with the effort to breathe, wiping my nose and face as it
drips onto my naked chest. Hating and cursing him, yet so lost in my own misery that I don’t care if he
sees me broken.

I don’t care if it’s what he wants—he has broken me. I wrap my arms around my legs and pull myself
taught and small, tucking my head down into the ball I make with my body, like I used to when I was
little in a bid to keep the bad men out and find a safe little place where no one could find me. Make
myself invisible, so they might leave me alone for just one day, one hour, one minute, even just one
second to have no one wanting to hurt me.

Almost without even realising I start humming that song I used to sing in my head, over and over to try
to block it out. To self soothe and find that inner peace which stopped me from losing my mind a million
times in my past, and to try to keep what they were doing out of my focus. Humming a stupid lullaby, I
don’t even know where I heard it but it’s always there ready to centre me and bring me back to a safer
place in my head. Finding that little haven of unreality where my mind can detach from my body and
nothing can touch me anymore.

I jump when a warm touch on my arm breaks my internal bubble, crashing back to the still darkness of
my prison, and I lash out ferociously.



‘‘Don’t touch me! … None of you will ever touch me again.’’ I cry out, fighting shadows and cruel hands
with so much pain and anguish in my voice as I fail to really grasp where I am anymore.

Lashing out with one hand to slap and scratch at whoever gets near. ‘‘Camilla?’’ Alexi’s voice sounds
different and far away from me, alien to how he ever sounds. His dark silhouette appearing close by
between the flashes and slices of other faces. I can’t look at him, at the monster who takes pleasure in
all the suffering of those weaker than him. The monster that uses my wounds against me in any way he
can. I shift away, trying to crawl into the darkest corner of the room to hide, and curl back into a smaller
space in a bid to hide from them all.

If you’re small and you’re quiet, then sometimes they can’t find you at all. Reverting to child and
humming my stupid song like a deranged psychopath. The hand touches me again and I freak out, lash
out and slap as it tries to hold me again in full fury, ready to defend myself to the death if I have to. I
won’t let that bastard touch me again. I won’t let anyone do those things to me anymore. Those
horrible, painful, inhumane, degrading things. I can’t take anymore.

He makes a grab at my wrist, pulling me away from the sanctuary of my corner towards him, trying to
get a hold on me for God knows what. I twist free, screaming at him hysterically, losing all ounces of
sanity and reacting like a caged animal backed into a wall. Finding my fierce and protecting what’s left
of me.

‘’Let me go! Let me … Go!!!’’ I fight weakly, energy waning and sobbing more than fighting as my body
gives up the fight from sheer exhaustion. Body getting limp, but I am trying to not stop. Alexi finally lets
me go and disappears back into the shadows, silent and still once more as I regroup and pull myself
tight back into my little ball in a bid to keep myself safe from him, he’s my idea of hell.

All of them out there, waiting for me. Poking at me and teasing me about what they are going to do.
Little girl, oh I am going to enjoy having you …



‘‘I won’t do that again.’’ His voice sounds strangled and low, like it’s not really him at all, and I just back
away until I feel the wall behind me once more and tighten myself up smaller, tighter and shield my
body. Mistrusting of the softness of his tone because I know it’s all a lie and just another angle, another
false tender to pull me back in.

Rick used to be nice sometimes ... to get me to come out. Pretend to care, pretend he was going to
stop. It was always a lie.

I try and block him out and jump when I hear his shoes on the floor, scraping on the hardwood making
steps. Except they're leaving and not coming closer, and everything in me pauses as I listen to them
departing. Stilling all of me, as I hit full alert once more and just hold very, very, still. He walks out of the
room leaving me here to sob into my own legs and hate him with every ounce of feeling I have left. Torn
between dreams and reality and trying to claw my way back. Honing in on the room around me and
clawing back out of that sense of insanity that had me falling into a black hole of confusion moments
before.

He retreats, leaving me alone with my misery to ponder what I have got myself into, what I have
allowed to happen to me. Alexi is not my happy ever after—he’s my abuser, my enemy. He became
what he is by inflicting suffering his whole life until he became immune to the effects of seeing it.

I became what I am because I endured the suffering my whole life until I became numb to the effects of
feeling it. Normalising what happened to me.

We are what we are because of people like each other, and we exist because of one another. Both on
opposite ends, yet the outcomes are always the same. Humans devoid of real feelings and empathy
that cannot function like normal people. Neither of us can ever have a normal life or a normal
relationship, we don’t play by the healthy rules and guidelines, he just reminded me of that.



Alexi wants to control me and punish me; I want him to just let me go and leave me alone now that I
have been faced with a manipulator I have no skill for. I don’t want what I once did where he’s
concerned. To use him and get what I want from him because I know now it’s a completely delusional
dream. I stepped into his world and realised I was a complete amateur in every way.

He demoralises with so little effort and inflicts mental scars from people’s own issues—that’s a master.
That’s someone who is well versed in his craft, and I am not willing or able to live alongside it anymore.
He is destroying what’s left of my mental state and it affects him in no way at all. I have no coping
mechanism for someone who uncovers my darkest fears and uses them against me.

As soon as Alexi leaves the Hamptons I’m going to start devising a plan to run. I did it once before,
scraping together what money I could and changing my fate. Knowing when to get out has saved my
life so many times. I found the courage and I ran from Rick, he owned me too; he had done since I was
eleven years old. He made all my nightmares seem like fairy tales in comparison and then some, yet I
managed to outrun him and disappear into the world. I could do it again, run further this time.

Alexi has way more reach, but I’m sure I could find a way, escape and just blend into some other world
if I try hard enough. Lose the red hair, lose the accent and lose my name, taking the skills I have and
get out of the grasp of Alexi Carrero in any way I can.

If I stay this will only escalate, and he will destroy every last piece of me. I don’t want to live in fear for
the rest of my life or have an inhumane devil destroy the little tiny parts of me that I managed to
salvage through the years of hell I already lived through. I deserve to find some sort of refuge,
somewhere in the world. I’m not so worthless that I shouldn’t have at least a respite from always being
hurt.

 


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