Page 53 of Condemned By Pain
Heartbroken?My sanity answers.
Yeah, right. Thanks.
“If you don’t like what I say, you can ask me to leave. Please don’t kill me.”
He frowns but stays silent.
“I’m really sorry that my father killed yours, and that you and your mother had to suffer. But I don’t think killing my father will change anything. What will you get from this revenge?”
His face darkens with pure hatred and anger, directed at me. I clamp down on my fear, refusing to tremble after daring to put my hand in a lion’s mouth.
“What will I get?” He takes a step toward me. I stay rooted, even though every survival instinct screams at me to run.
His mouth twitches with rage. “I’ll get the fucking peace I haven’t felt for a single day since your father killed mine.”
“You won’t find peace. You never get it from killing.”
Even if he ends up killing me after this, I won’t back down without saying what I came here to say.
He scoffs. “Easy to say, Princess. It’s not your nine-year-old self hunting you. You think I want this revenge to satisfy my ego?”
I don’t answer. The fear drains from me, leaving a suffocation that thickens the longer I hold his gaze. There’s too much anguish in them, and it reverberates in my chest.
“I fucking need this revenge.” The anger in his eyes fades into desolation. “I fucking need it—to die, or to even think about living.”
He looks at me coldly, stepping back.
“But you can’t understand this. You can’t understand what it feels like to live with a misery that nothing can stop.” His voice is lifeless.
What has this man gone through that has crushed him this much?
I take a step closer to him, my heart breaking under the weight he bears alone. He takes another step back, then turns and walks into the bathroom, locking himself behind the door.
I don’t know exactly what he’s been through, but one thing is clear: he’s carried so many open wounds for so long that the pain has become part of his existence.
I stare at the closed door. I want to take this pain from him. But I can’t let him kill my uncle. And I know it won’t erase his suffering, he just thinks it will. It doesn’t work like that. He’ll only feel emptier afterward.
Shoulders slumped, I leave his room.
???
He wasn’t at breakfast, and he’s not here for lunch either. But Antonio is.
“Where is he?”
“Must be in his study,” he answers calmly.
I settle into my chair. “Isn’t he coming for lunch?”
Antonio thinks for a moment, then frowns and shakes his head.
My mood falls deeper.
“I think he’s in a bad mood.”
He nods slightly. “He is.”
Not feeling any appetite, I rise. Antonio regards me with a questioning look.
