When He Forgave, She Was Gone

Chapter 6

Scarlett let out a self-mocking laugh, the sound brittle and hollow in the tense air.

Maxwell's icy glare locked onto her again. "Scarlett, it's just a damn rosary. Stop acting like you matter. Don't think I don't know about your miserable mother and the terrible things she did."

Scarlett trembled violently, her eyes burning crimson as she stared back at him. "Do you even hear yourself right now?"

Maxwell let out a cold laugh. "Did I lie? Wasn't it your mother who used cheap tricks to worm her way into my father's bed, just to scrape together a pathetic place for you in the Owen family?"

"Maxwell." Her voice cracked, then broke entirely. "You've gone too far."

She swung at him, her palm cutting through empty air.

At the last second, Grace threw herself between them, taking the full force of the slap across her cheek. The sharp c***k echoed through the room.

"Grace." Maxwell's fingers brushed her reddened skin before his murderous gaze snapped back to Scarlett. "Restrain her."

Scarlett tried to run, but bodyguards seized her arms instantly, their grips like iron vices.

"Scarlett, you're asking for it." Maxwell stepped forward, his hand shooting out to grab her hair.

Clumps came loose in his fist.

His brow furrowed as he stared at the strands caught between his fingers. "Shedding this much hair?" He flicked the hair away, then gripped her chin hard, forcing her to meet his eyes. "What, are you trying to pull some terminal-illness sympathy act now?"

Scarlett met his gaze, her voice barely a whisper. "Tell me, Maxwell. If I died tomorrow, would you regret how you treated me?"

For a fleeting moment, his pupils constricted. Something flickered behind his eyes, there and gone in an instant. Then his lips twisted into a sneer.

"Regret?" He laughed, the sound devoid of warmth. "Who do you think you are? If you dropped dead, I'd throw a party for a week straight to celebrate."

His sculpted face, the same one that had once gazed at her like she was the only woman in the world, now radiated nothing but pure cruelty.

"Scarlett, you're going to pay for that slap a hundred times over."

Her blood turned to ice. She'd always known he could be ruthless, but she'd never imagined that ruthlessness would be turned on her.

Her voice cracked. "Do you really mean that?"

Before he could answer, Grace stepped forward, cradling her cheek with theatrical tenderness. "Please, Maxwell. It's fine, really. The skin grafts on her face are still healing. Another beating might..."

"Good." His voice was flat, final. "Maybe then she'll stop making trouble for everyone."

His hand snapped up.

The first slap landed hard against her cheek, the sound sharp as a gunshot.

"This is for touching Grace."

The second came before she could recover, snapping her head to the side.

"This is for your backtalk."

The third knocked the breath from her lungs.

"And this one's to knock some sense into that stubborn head of yours."

She bit her lip raw, blood bitter on her tongue. Pain radiated through her like wildfire, no pause, no relief. Even as her vision blurred from the searing agony, even as warm blood streaked down her battered face, she didn't make a sound.

Each slap landed with brutal precision. Each one split her skin and shattered her heart along with it.

Images flickered behind her eyes, unwanted and relentless.

At fourteen, trembling in a school hallway, his jacket tied hastily around her waist to shield the stain of her first period, his ears red as he mumbled that it was nothing.

At sixteen, him standing like a shield against vicious rumors, his cold glare silencing the whispers that tried to tear her down.

At eighteen, him staggering under a mountain of birthday gifts, one for each year of her life, his smile so wide it crinkled the corners of his eyes.

And now. The man who had once hung the moon for her was burning her world to cinders with every strike.

Blood seeped between her teeth, metallic and thick, as she choked out the words.

"Maxwell." Her voice came out wrecked, barely audible. "I wish I'd never loved you. Not even for a single heartbeat."

The words tasted like blood.

And like the truth.