Chapter 4
After Damon broke off his engagement to Chloe, she completely lost it.
She started spreading vicious rumors about me everywhere.
She said I was shameless. That I had cheated within my marriage and seduced my best friend’s fiancé.
Before long, I had become the laughingstock of the entire mafia circle.
And Lucas’s pride had been dragged through the mud right along with me.
He finally called.
It was the first time he had contacted me since I’d been imprisoned.
Damon handed me the phone.
He put the call on speaker and sat across from me, watching me with calm amusement.
“Iris, where the hell are you?”
Lucas sounded exhausted.
“Do you have any idea what people are saying out there?”
“You’ve humiliated both our families!”
Before I could answer, Damon spoke first.
“Lucas. Your wife is with me.”
Silence crashed down on the other end of the line.
A long moment later, Lucas finally spoke again, disbelief laced through his voice.
“Damon?”
“That’s right.”
“How is Iris with you?”
“Exactly how you think.”
Damon said it lightly, as if none of this mattered.
Lucas’s breathing turned heavy.
“Damon, what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly what it sounds like.”
Damon twirled a strand of my hair around his finger, amusement flickering in his voice.
“Your wife is my woman now.”
“Lucas, I assume you don’t mind.”
“After all, the only woman you’ve ever wanted is Chloe, right?”
“I’m doing you a favor. Getting rid of a problem.”
Lucas was so furious he could barely get the words out.
“Damon! Don’t push this too far!”
“Too far?”
Damon laughed coldly.
“When you and Chloe started sleeping together, did you think that was too far?”
“All I did was take what you cast aside, and now you can’t bear it?”
“Lucas, if you weren’t capable of holding on to your own woman, that’s your failure.”
“Don’t blame anyone else.”
And with that, he hung up.
He tossed the phone onto the table and looked at me.
“Now everyone knows you’re mine.”
“Are you happy?”
I looked at him, and all I felt was a chill in my heart.
He had dragged me into public humiliation, destroyed my name, severed every path left to me.
Now he was asking if I was happy.
“Damon… what exactly do you want from me?”
He reached out, gripped my chin, and forced me to meet his eyes.
“What do I want?”
“I want you to stay by my side willingly.”
“I want your heart.”
“I want there to be no one in it but me.”
“In your dreams!”
The words tore out of me.
“I will never love a monster like you!”
His face darkened instantly.
He stared at me with such fury it felt like a storm was about to swallow the room whole.
“Is that so?”
“Then we’ll see.”
From that day on, Damon’s cruelty escalated.
He didn’t just claim my body anymore.
He started tormenting my mind.
He forced me to watch videos of him with other women.
He flirted with them over the phone right in front of me.
He wanted me to understand one thing: I wasn’t special. I could be replaced.
I lived every day in humiliation and despair.
I stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. The weight fell off me so fast it was visible.
Sometimes I thought about ending it.
But Damon wouldn’t let me die.
He had every sharp object in the villa removed.
Bars were added to the windows.
He wanted me alive.
Alive, awake, and conscious enough to suffer everything he chose to do to me.
That was when I finally understood.
He didn’t want my love.
He wanted my surrender.
He wanted to break my wings with his own hands, grind every sharp edge off me, and turn me into a doll that belonged entirely to him.
