Home > Miscellaneous > Blood Will Tell > Chapter 3
"LIAR! You never did anything to stop it! And then you dare tell me you didn't want it? That you didn't want him?" He clenched his hands into fists. "What did he do that I didn't? What did you get from that scum, Alexia? What?"
"Nothing," she whispered, slumping. "I didn't get anything. I just couldn't stop. He wasn't like you. He didn't care if I enjoyed it. He just took what he wanted and left." Alexia looked up, meeting his eyes. "I never came. Not once."
"Why the hell should I believe you?" he asked incredulously. "You're not insane, you're not stupid, you're not on drugs. You admit that you weren't forced. And you never once asked for help." He covered his eyes with his hand, trembling slightly. "Just... get out, Alexia. Go away."
"Damn it!" He glared at her. "What did you expect? Did you really think you could be a whore for him and come home and be treated like a wife by me? Do you think nothing has changed? For your own safety, woman, get the hell out! Because I can't look at you without wanting to hurt you!"
"Then hurt me," she whispered. "Beat me. Whatever you want. Just let me make it up to her." She looked at him. "I know I can't make it up to you, but I'd give anything if I could."
"Alexia..." He gritted his teeth, closing his eyes for a moment. "Just go. I will never be able to look at you again without seeing his hands on you. Without seeing you giving him everything you promised to me alone. You are a liar and a whore," he said flatly, "and I will never be able to see you as anything else. I refuse to treat you as a wife, and right now I can't even grant you the respect due a woman. To be blunt, you are his whore, his property, by your own choice, and I am having great difficulty treating you as a human being. For your own sake, go."
"I can't," she said. "I can't. I may have been his— his slut, but I was never his property." She looked at him, a tear running down her cheek. "Please, if you believe nothing else I have ever said, believe this: He may have had my body, but he never had my heart. He never had my soul."
"He had everything else, though, didn't he?" Rafael asked, his voice dangerously low. "He had every bit of your body. I met him, remember? He was a filthy, disgusting piece of shit." He sneered mockingly. "So, if you really 'couldn't say no' to him, then there's no part of you undefiled. No perversion unvisited. And if he called, you'd go running, like a bitch in heat. Property. Used property."
She shook her head. "I don't know what you mean. I gave you everything he took." She looked at him. "I swear it. Everything he made me do, I've done for you, willingly. I couldn't tell him no, but I love you."
He remained unmoved. "If you'd loved me, you wouldn't have lied to me. I never minded that you weren't a virgin. I treated you no differently because of it. I still seduced you, coaxed and pampered you. I loved you. He degrades you, and you run to him, panting to be his slut. Tell me, did he share you with his friends?"
"Really?" He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "That seems like his type of thing. Would you have done it, if he had?"
"I...." She hesitated. "I think I could have told him no, on something like that. I would have tried." She bit her lip, looking down. "I had a hard enough time with just him. If it had been more..." She shook her head. "It would only have happened once. One way or the other." Her voice was strained, desperate, but somehow he knew she meant it.
"But you didn't try since it was just him?" he asked softly. "Why? I suppose two men were enough for you, is that it? One to pay the bills and one to treat you like a slut? Is that what it took to satisfy you?"
"I did try," she said. "I did. But I couldn't. But I made a point of giving you, willingly, every thing he took from me. I did!"
He laughed bitterly. "You gave him my daughter, you bitch! You gave that piece of shit a way to take her away any time he wanted! You gave him the truth. And loyalty. Obedience. Whatever he wanted. I got his leftovers."
"He never knew. I swear it. And I was loyal, and as obedient as I could be, and— and if you'd ever asked I would have told you. I would have."
"If I'd asked?! I should have to ask if my WIFE is still fucking her ex-boyfriend? I kind of thought you telling me that, yes, you were over him and you'd love to marry me had settled that question!" His eyes were hot, almost glowing gold. "I should have to ask, 'By the way, are you sure our child is mine or did you not even bother to use a condom when you were out whoring?' I should have asked you if you were really what you seemed, or if instead you were some asshole's dirty little sex slave?!"
Alexia shrank back. "Please," she whispered. "I deserve this. I know I do. This and more. I won't argue with you. All I ask is that you let me stay. Let me make it up to her... and to you as much as I can."
"Then you will get what you deserve. Everything you deserve. You will give me the same obedience you gave him. You'll be my property, and I'll do whatever the hell I want to you, punish you however I want. Since it's so important to you that you be a fucking whore, you will be my whore, however I want, and you will be treated like a whore. No, like a slave, because if you stay, you will have no freedom to betray me again. You will be kept chained when I'm not using you. You will have no rights. No respect. You will take whatever I give you without complaint." He stared down at her, his eyes hard as stone. "Or you can leave now."
He snarled, looming over her. "If you stay, then eventually, once you've been punished enough, once you've learned your place, I may let you see her again. Right now, you're too filthy to be in the same room with her. You would contaminate her. You don't deserve to see her. You certainly don't deserve her respect as a mother. You're not her mother. You're just the whore who gave birth to her."
Alexia looked at him and swallowed. "I'll stay, if you'll let me see her. If you'll let me make it up to her. Punish me all you want. Beat me, whip me, hurt me... but don't take her away. That's all I ask."
"If you stay, then you are mine, and you will see her when I say you see her," he snapped. "If she wants to see you. I will not force her to be in the same room as you, but at least you may have a chance that she'd say yes, eventually. Take it or leave it."
"You won't be fit to see her when I'm done with you, Alexia. Don't you get it?" he asked. "I'm trying to warn you. When I think of what you've done, how very long you've lied, all I want to do is hurt you. Make you scream. Over and over again until I can finally stop seeing it. I offer you no guarantees. I don't even promise that I won't break your little neck if you somehow manage to do it again, or if you do something else to hurt her. Your apology would mean nothing. How can you apologize for sixteen years of lies? You can't. You can only suffer, and when you've suffered enough, then maybe you can really understand, really be sorry."
"I don't care what I look like," she said, desperately. "I don't care what shape I'm in. Just let me try, please."
"I care, bitch!" He straightened, sneering down at her. "Do you truly think you're fit to be in the same room with her? Do you think she wants to see you? No, and no! I am not offering you compromises here, Alexia. This is not a debate. This is the way it will be. You take it, or you get the fuck out of my house. You'd do better to leave. Maybe one day she will want to find you."
"Please, just once. Just one chance. Do you want me to beg? I'll beg." She slid off the floor and onto her knees. "Please. If not for me, for her. So that she knows that I know I was wrong, that I'm sorry."
"You think she'll forgive you?" he asked softly. "You think that if she does, I will? That I'll go easy on you because you're her mother and she loves you? I won't. You don't deserve her love. You don't deserve to be her mother."
"If you cared that you hurt her, you wouldn't have done it," he said. "She wouldn't have had to find out from a blood test. You don't care that you hurt her. You care that you got caught."
"Wishful thinking, perhaps," he sneered. "How the hell would you know? When you behave like a whore, you face the consequences of a whore, and one of those is never being able to be sure whose seed took root in your body."
"I've offered you the only choice you'll get from me. Accept my decisions on when and how you see her, or get the hell out," he said.
"If she wants to see you," he said, "I will take her feelings into account. But I won't force her to even be in the same room with you if she doesn't want."
"If she... doesn't want to see me, I can accept that. I just want her to be able to see me if she wants."
"You have no say in what she does. You are not fit to be her mother," he said coldly. "She is my daughter, and decisions about her will be made by me. You have no say in her life, or in mine, or, if you stay, in your own."
He was silent for a long moment. "Nothing will help the pain," he said, finally. "But perhaps it will help the anger that feeds it. I don't know. I don't really care. I just know that if you stay within my reach, you will suffer. Resisting that is beyond my abilities. Just go, Alexia. Please. For your own sake."
Rafael stared down at her, shocked. He hadn't expected her to stay. He'd done everything he could to convince her not to, to scare her away. But... he'd also been telling the truth. The anger was there, and it was stronger than he'd ever felt, and the pain... he'd hurt her if she stayed. And God help him, he still thought she deserved it! When he remembered the fear and hurt in his daughter's eyes, when he pictured the bitch running to that piece of filth, when he thought about how foolish he'd been to trust her, how he'd believed her, loved her, treasured her... She'd made a lie out of his love. Yes, she deserved it. Perhaps forgiveness was good for the soul, but he'd never claimed to be an angel.
His jaw tightened. "Write your letter," he said, pointing at the desk. "You have ten minutes. If you've moved from that chair when I get back, you'll regret it."