wall of torture tools waiting to be used. “Take it, gatita. Take what’s yours by right, as my queen.”
He kisses my neck before releasing me, melting into the shadows and giving me free reign. I move with slow steps, my gaze roaming over gleaming blades, heavy bludgeons, garrotes, saws and axes, and a collection of medieval-looking things I don’t even know how to name, let alone use. I take a hammer and a pair of sharp garden sheers from the wall and turn back to Viktor.
For the first time, he looks nervous, his gaze darting from the hammer I hold in one hand, to the shears I clutch in the other.
My upper lip curls into a sneer as I stand over him, drunk off the fear in his eyes. He was so frightening before, which seems ridiculous now. He smells like a sewer and has lost at least thirty pounds in his time of captivity. It almost seems unfair to attack a wounded animal who can’t put up a fight … almost. I was helpless when he knocked me unconscious and took off my clothes. I was wounded when he slapped and punched me and put his hands in places that made my skin crawl. Now, it’s time for him to pay for it.
His first bloodcurdling scream is the sweetest; uninhibited and echoing through the dark room when I bring the hammer down on one kneecap, then the other. The chair shakes beneath his weight as he thrashes and howls, but it’s nailed to the floor and the straps are buckled tight. He isn’t going anywhere.
“Look at me,” I command, holding up the hammer stained with his blood. “I want you to look at me and remember this moment for the rest of your life … the moment you finally realize that you fucked with the wrong bitch.”
His eyes well with tears and he lets out another pitiful scream, which breaks off onto a broken sob when I drop to one knee and bring the hammer down onto his bare foot—the one he used to kick me in the chest. I shatter his shin next, strangely hypnotized at the way the skin and bone make a hollow dent, like a crater.
“I can see why you get off on this,” I say, as if we’re talking about caviar instead of torture. “It’s intoxicating, knowing someone is at your mercy and can’t escape. Is that what gets you hard, you sick fuck?”
Viktor’s only reply is another chorus of screams as I use the hammer to destroy his left hand … the one he slapped and punched me with, the one that left its fingerprints on my breast. Then, I toss the hammer aside and lift the shears. My chest burns and my arms ache from the effort it took to swing that hammer hard enough to break bones. But I’m not finished with him yet. There’s still his other hand … the one that pawed at me when I was at my weakest. The one that violated me in the worst of ways.
I stare down at that hand, strapped to the arm of the chair, his fist clenched as he squirms and moans in pain. I press the sharp tip of the shears between his knuckles until he uncurls his fist. Then, I grip his index finger between the shears and look into his eyes. I want him to know exactly why I’m doing this, to remember how his own actions led to this outcome. I feel nauseous as I remember him groping between my legs, fingering me through my panties and trying to force his way in.
With a sharp cry, I close the sheers and twist, cutting through flesh and grunting as I wrench and crack the bone. Viktor has lost his voice by now, and his screams are now rasping wheezes as I toss the finger aside with bloody hands and move on to the next. By the time I finish, leaving him only with the pitiful stump of his thumb, he’s out cold, his chin slumped against his chest.
Panting and snarling like a deranged animal, I drop the sheers and stand in my moment of triumph. I thought I had freed myself of Viktor, but Diego knew better. He knew that this was what I needed to truly put it all behind me. Now, I’m ready to live my life as a new woman … with the man who is responsible for making me stronger, harder, fiercer.