8. Tati

CHAPTER 8

TATI

"You think I'm pretty?" A compliment from Dante is something I never expected to receive again. The thrill of it sinks deeps into my bones and changes me chemically. I can't believe he's alive and this is real. The embarrassment morphs into a different type of heat after he stands up for me. Who the hell ever has?

His hard cock presses into my back, and somehow, him wanting me means we're both salvageable.

"I think you're so pretty that I texted your friend to come see you in all your glory." Dante leans in farther, speaking just to me as he drags the blade up at an opposite angle. I scream louder, but laughter and chatter fill the room as another wave of people enter and the first group files toward the doors.

"Please leave her out of this," I beg, swinging again as I struggle. He grabs me and holds me still, leaving only the hook creeking.

"She's on her way here to see what a backstabbing little whore you are with your pretty cunt out." I can't help the pleasure flashing through me from him calling my cunt pretty, it's stronger than the pain and my fear for Katie. The second compliment he's given me, and I will savor every one.

"Are you going to scream pretty like that for your audience, Tatiana? We both know how you love to perform."

Three and four? I don't care, it sounds like I'm pleasing him, and that's all I want.

"I don't care about my audience. I told you I want to make this up to you . How do you want me to scream?"

He reaches around, gripping my face and squeezing my jaw.

"It will be made up to me once I ruin you. I want you to scream like you're going to die."

I open my mouth and give him exactly what he asked for, shaking the room with the intensity of my terror, my self-hatred, and how much I deserve to die even if I don't want to.

"Oh my God!"

"Holy shit!" People jump and gasp, not expecting my outburst. Without being able to see their faces, they don't feel real.

"Katie should be here any minute. She was so relieved you didn't skip town. The only reason you didn't is because I stopped you. See how you're always hurting people?"

"Yes."

I really fucking do, but he ignores that entirely.

"Fuck," I groan as his lips caress the spot where my neck and shoulder meet. His gentleness wrecks me so much more than his violence. I don't deserve the orgasms he's given me either, but at least they come with pain. The kisses are pure torture. "You can't kiss me like that."

"I can do whatever I want to you. Don't you get that?"

"That's not the problem."

"Don't want to be kissed by a monster? That's just too fucking bad."

"You're not a monster. Stop it." It hurts my heart that he thinks of himself that way because of what I've done. "I'm the monster, don't you get that?"

His teeth clamp over the spot he kissed. My skin breaks beneath them so much more painfully than it did the knife, and I'm suddenly grateful for the cuts. He pulls away slowly, tugging the broken flesh.

"She really wants to know what happened with that guy at the party that got you so upset. She thinks he's to blame, but I guess your roommate doesn't know you're a murderous little bitch."

"Fuck," I squeal, emboldened by the pain. "I'm sorry, but you're alive if you haven't noticed. Your teeth marks are in my fucking neck. I'm not a murderer, just a backstabber, dramatic fucking Italians!"

I brace myself to die, but instead, he laughs. The sound draws us both up short. It's full of gravel as if rusty from disuse, and I wonder if he's laughed once since the attack.

"This isn't living, Tatiana."

I've spent years regretting my actions, thinking I killed him, but what I've done is so much worse. He's lived in pain and isolation. He's become a monster in his own assessment, and I pushed him to it. He's the ghost of my past here to fuck me raw in front of an audience. Am I already dead? Is this hell, where I pay for my crimes.

"Creepy," one of the passing men comments.

That snaps his control and his free hand flies to my throat, squeezing until I'm disoriented and my lungs scream.

His fingers dig in deeper, choking me harder this time, aiming to harm me versus giving me that pleasurable buzz. It's better than being gutted, which can take hours.

Maybe he knows that if he lets me live I'll never give up on trying to make this right. That I'll do anything to bring him back to the real world.

This is the end.

Lights pop in my vision, and I'm going to die with him saying, "This isn't living" caught in my ears. Maybe that's what I deserve.

"Tati?" Katie's voice echoes down the hall from the opposite side of the main entrance. If she's in one of the other rooms, she must have passed me without noticing. I pray she stops looking and heads to the exit.

Fuck, fuck. I jerk under Dante's hold. I don't want my friend to watch me die. She's fucked up enough from her best friend and previous roommate disappearing. He's right that I'm always hurting people, but I can change.

"You can try to call for help, Tati, but then your friend will see your cunt and how wet it gets for a monster."

Scrambling to think through the intense lack of oxygen turning my stomach and making my hands numb, I can't open my mouth for help. I don't deserve it.

He loosens his grip, allowing me to breathe again, but it takes a minute before I'm able to speak.

"You're not a monster, and you're the only one who can help me now. I get that. Please leave her out of this. Don't make innocent people pay for my crimes."

That knife digs back into my skin, and I cry long and low. Hot blood drips across my thigh, down my calf, and pools beneath my foot. The blade leaves my skin, but the pain lingers, and his hand tightens around my throat once again.

A group of people pass, and I can just discern one of them pointing. My eyes drop to the outline of their shoes as they pass instead. Is this the horrifying Halloween they expected? Am I a disappointment to them too?

"You should know all about making innocent people pay for your crimes."

"You were in the Mafia, Dante. I wouldn't call you innocent."

He slaps my ass hard, gripping my hip with his unscarred hand and stopping me from swaying.

"Is that how you sleep at night?"

"Just because you weren't innocent doesn't mean you deserved it, but you were not innocent."

My legs are spread in such a way that I'm accessible to him from every angle. He doesn't even need to spread me open as he uses the scarred hand to finger my pussy deep. It's rough and debasing, not intended for my pleasure, but I can't control the way I quake around him.

"Talk about not fucking innocent."

I moan as a response.

"Why are you always wet for me, Little Backstabber? Are you that much of a whore?" He's trying to insult me, but there's hunger in his voice. He wants this.

"Yeah, that's it," I agree too quickly.

"You're not that fucking stupid," he answers with a hint of doubt. "Your cunt's just trying to keep you alive. Polish my cock well enough and I'll let you live?"

"Exactly," I grit through my teeth as he presses torturously on my G-spot. I'm not obsessed with him and desperate for his forgiveness.

"Fuck, I can smell her," a guy from the next group comments as they get closer.

Dante growls, the vibrations of his aggression and frustration rumbling through his chest and into me.

The man puts his hands up and keeps walking.

"Are you jealous?" I ask. If I'm going to die anyway, I might as well ask the questions I want answers to.

"Of what?"

That guy smelling my pussy?

"Nothing, I guess."

"Tatiana, where are you?" Katie shouts with real concern, her voice coming from the other side of the room this time. She must be looking for me in the crowd and missing me in the center of the room.

"I texted her that you're waiting here for her. I'm surprised she hasn't found you yet."

A long stroke of his knife splits what's left of my thigh, and I cry in earnest for this one. His fingers don't leave my pussy, though, and the pressure helps fight the worst of the pain.

"Tatiana!" The shout comes from farther away this time.

"Awe, she left," he coos. "Don't worry. I'll make her come back soon."

Another short slice.

"All done! Look, Little Backstabber, look down if you feel so bad. Tell me what you think of your pretty skin now."

His fingers continue their delicious torture, and I don't give in, I can't take it yet. I'm not ready to face it.

"Let me see your face," I counter. I need to look at him to understand what happened to the kind person I destroyed for my own gain. I need to see how he's lived these last two years.

"So eager to see your handiwork?" A forceful thrust. "Is that what gets you off?"

He's what gets me off. If I lived, I'm not sure I could come to anything else again.

"I should know what I'm paying for, shouldn't I?"

He laughs again, but this time it's a sinister sound. It flips my stomach worse than the pain, the suspension, or the hand around my neck.

"I think I agree with you, Little Backstabber. I never thought I would say that."

"We used to agree on a lot," I say, but he ignores me.

"What's a crime paid for without knowing the extent of its cruelty? I've never shown any of my victims what they did to me before, but I suppose the nature of your betrayal was so much more personal, wasn't it?"

I think it's a rhetorical question until he shoves me to answer.

"It was much more personal."

"You should see what you've done."

Part of me is perversely interested; I shouldn't want to look so badly, knowing it's all my fault. He feels it all: my guilt, my concern, my sick interest.

"Try to come after you see this," he says as he steps around me. He's immense, broad, with tousled dark hair, and still beautiful on one side. The scars are faint, distorting the shape of his mouth, but it doesn't seem that bad.

Then he pulls off the mask, revealing the extent of the damage I've done.

He nearly looks skeletal on the bad side. What's left of his skin is still red and pink even after all this time. There's a thinness to it, and I imagine existing with it is painful. There's a distinct boniness beneath it, a lack of soft flesh and muscle, a complete destruction of his once beautiful face.

No wonder he thinks he's a monster.

"Is that what makes you so wet, you dirty little bitch? Knowing you ruined me and I'm sticking my fingers in your cunt instead of my knife in your neck?"

He puts his fingers back inside me, but we're facing each other this time, and there's no escaping him, not physically or emotionally.

Dante thinks he's turned me off, but he doesn't understand how badly I want to make this up to him. He could never understand how little those scars mean to me, how beautiful I still find him, and the way my heart aches to set this right. If I wasn't tied, I would touch him and tell him how worthy he still is.

His fingers plunge in and out of me, and I'm not sure what he wanted, but I can tell by the anger warping the one side of his face he's disappointed. The other side doesn't change much. I'm desperate to touch it, aching to kiss the pieces of skin, the spots where there's almost nothing left. There aren't words for how deeply I'm sorry.

Much to both of our dismay, I'm sure I can come like this. He's fingering me in a way that would be hard to fight in worse circumstances, and the display of his scars had the exact opposite effect of what he was hoping for. I want to prove to him that things can be okay again, and if that takes me dying, so be it. If that means I have to love him, I will.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he demands.

"You don't want me to answer." There's this feeling in my soul that I can bring him back. Intensity passes between us, and it only makes my aching limbs tingle more. If I live, I worry I'll have permanent nerve damage, but I don't dare complain. I doubt I'll be lucky enough to experience the effects of it, and I doubt he would care.

"You think I'm a monster? Like what you did to me?" He's trying to taunt me, but it lacks his previous conviction.

"You know it's not that."

The good side of his face crumples further. Possibly worried he's actually starting to believe me, understanding I acknowledge what I did was wrong and I hold deep and true regret. What would happen if he forgave me?

"I don't know anything since I trusted you." He works another finger deep inside me, and I don't know if he wants to punish me or make me come, but I guess he's getting both. I'm so close.

His words sting almost as badly as seeing his scars, and a tear forms in my eyes. I'm the reason he's alone.

"Don't you dare pity me. I'll kill you right now if you pity me, you little fucking bitch."

"I don't pity you. I pity myself because I know now I could never make this up to you."

"You could at least try. What have you given me but bullshit apologies?"

"I'll suck your cock until you're done with my mouth. I'll let you use me in every way. You can play with my body whether I'm awake or not. You can take and take until all that's left is for you to kill me. And then you can take my life too."

We stare into each other's eyes for a full minute.

"Look at your leg and then tell me you'll give me whatever I want, Little Backstabber."

Since he met the condition I gave him, I see no reason not to oblige. I look down and blood drips from my wounds. My stomach flips, and it takes a full minute to understand what I see. He's cut a heart into my leg, and in the middle, is the letter D.