Page 116 of My Dark Divine
“What have you done?!” she demands, scooting closer to him, her hands cupping his face. The shock in his eyes shines brightly under the basement light, illuminating my flickering hope for a better future. An involuntary smile creeps onto my face, warmth flooding through me and igniting a long-buried sense of possibility that I’ve desperately needed for years.
“He’s dead!” she wails, hysteria completely overtaking her. “You killed him!”
“No, I didn’t,” I reply calmly, the initial idea in my mind gaining traction. I’m still uncertain about what to do with Stella, but after taking the step I’ve long wanted, it feels as if the sun is breaking through the dark clouds, washing away the storm.
She doesn’t retreat as I draw closer, utterly devastated by the loss of her lover. Her face is swollen and red, with streaks of mascara running down her cheeks. Snot drips from her nose, trailing down to her lips and chin, making her look just like me—both of us bearing the marks of Zayden’s effect.
“You wanted him to divorce me.” I kneel before her, inching closer, even as the smell of sweat and blood makes me want to pull away. “You even forced him to draw up the papers. But at the last moment, he refused.”
She finally meets my eyes, confusion etched across her features. She struggles to keep up with my words, her mind consumed by sorrow.
“He refused, and you got angry. So angry that you lost your temper and shot him.”
As the realization dawns on her, her brows shoot up in shock, and disbelief twists the corners of her lips. “No,” she mumbles, choking on her snot and tears. “No, that’s not?—”
“It is true,” I cut in, dispelling any lingering doubts. Staging this the way I want won’t be easy, but it’s far from impossible. There are plenty of people who can confirm seeing her with myhusband, attempting to seduce him and pull him away from me. I can pay the ‘Rats,’ and the guy who sold me this gun will tell the police whatever I want him to. He’ll say that Stella showed up and bought a weapon from him.
And I just… came home to find this gruesome, insane scene with her above my dead husband.
I was able to get away with killing Mark fucking Cameron and destroying all the evidence he had against Zayden, and I don’t think this task will be more difficult.
And since no one but me and the man I hired knows what truly happened to Cameron, I can figure out how to feed the story of Stella killing the poor guy to get my husband’s attention.
“You were so obsessed with him,” I continue, my voice rising as more ideas flood my mind on how to achieve my goal. “You wanted not only his money but his love—the one thing he could never give you.”
I feel like I’m fucking thriving with each word that leaves my mouth, as they inject life into my veins, filling me with a sense of freedom.
Stella breaks down completely, her cries morphing into desperate screams that somehow fill me with more hope. She’s nobody—a homewrecker without a family business, without any support—nothing. She’s not even from this fucking town—she flew all the way here for a job opportunity my dear husband surely set up after they met online.
And me? I am Venetia Ross, the wife of one of the most influential men in the city.
And I’m finally ready to embrace that fucking title.
Istare at her, speechless, my mind a blank slate, unable to comprehend what I’ve just heard. It’s as if a chasm has opened between us, an unbridgeable gulf of shock and disbelief.
All I can do is listen as her remaining strength breaks apart and sorrow pours down like a relentless flood. Even after she’s done speaking, the sobs continue, wracking her body and sending violent shudders through her frame. I know this isn’t the moment to remain silent; she needs my comfort and my words. But I can’t muster a coherent sentence when a searing rage fills me, both from within and without.
She was fifteen when he came into her life and shattered it. I struggle to accept the story she shared: the lies he spun, theway he manipulated her into questioning her reality when he and his friends fucking raped her for years before she put the end to it. Nausea rises in my throat as I picture the horrors she endured and the confusion she felt when she woke up from it all. The aftertaste of her words hangs heavy in the air, vivid and palpable, as if I’ve lived through her pain alongside her.
She faced this nightmare alone, convincing herself she had to endure the torment inflicted by her parents.
“Are you afraid of me now?” she asks, her fragile voice slicing through the blurred red haze clouding my mind. “Afraid of what I really am?”
In an instant, my hands reach for her face, cradling it gently as I brush my thumbs across her flushed cheeks. “Don’t you ever say things like that, do you understand?” She wraps her hands around mine, seeking solace in my touch and nodding hesitantly. “I will never be afraid of you. I’m fucking proud of what you did. You hear me? The only thing I regret is that I won’t be able to kill the fucker myself.”
A chuckle rises in her throat, followed by a sniff, and fresh tears seep through her long lashes. The sight makes me feel as though I’m being carved open from the inside. I can’t bear to watch her cry.
“I still don’t know how I managed to pull it all off,” she admits. “It feels like a blur. My dad helped me, and I had a lot of support from the sidelines. I thought I’d won the war. I thought I could live freely, that the past wouldn’t catch up with me, but I was wrong.”
As her hands drift away from mine, they trace down her body, her face contorting with disgust as she tightens the sheets around her. “I can still feel their touch on me,” she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut as if to block out the memory. “It’s like their hands are fucking imprinted on my skin, tattooed so deeplythat I can’t cut them out. No matter how hard I try, Ican’tget rid of it.”
The urge pulsates within me as her sobs echo in the air. My anger builds, a storm brewing inside, and the itch in my hands becomes a desperate plea for release.
I’m going to enjoy killing them.
“They knew. And now they want to expose me. They have Stella’s texts, in which she talks about how afraid she was for Zayden and how crazy I acted toward him. They want to prove I killed him and destroyed her life.”
Logan exploits Venetia’s fear and paranoia, poisoning her mind with the belief that it’s all over. It’s clear he doesn’t need to do much to instill fear in her—his mere presence turned her world upside down. I’ll never forget the look on her face when she saw him in the meeting room.
