I lower my arms alongside me and gaze down at myself, suggesting with my hands.
“The fucking Mafia queen.”
I laugh and raise my head, with my eyes returning to his and my face falls.
“And what a pathetic Mafia queen she is. What kind of badass queen is repeatedly raped by her future husband?”
His eyes close in response to my truthful wordsand he looks away.
“What kind of queen is frail, useless and has not an ounce of strength inside her?”
“But you will.”
I just stare at him, my jaw tense as he continues with his chin raised.
“You will be whatever the fuck you want to be because everything you go through you always overcome and become stronger.”
I face away, my teeth grinding.
“You’re delusional, Reign.”
“No, you fucking are. You’ve been through something fucked-up and it will take time, but—”
My eyes flash to him and I narrow them, becoming irritated and I raise my voice.
“And you’re going to help me with that, are you, superhero?”
He inhales deeply, his jaw now tight, while I raise an eyebrow and continue.
“You know, when he first started doing the horrific shit he was doing, I used to focus on you and Chaos to blur it out, but I soon realized I couldn’t."
He stares at me, shoving his hands in his sweatpants pockets.
“I learned it gave him the quickest ability to make me.."
I squeeze my eyes shut, my gut churning as I think about it before I whisper.
"Through no fault of my own."
When I gathered myself, my eyes snap open, ready to continue.
"That is when I realized it was your plan all along. All our memories were sexual. I couldn’t think of much else of how we spent our time together, which is fucked.”
His eyelids drop and he lowers his head.
“So, do you know what I did?”
He doesn’t look at me now, seemingly avoiding eye contact which annoys me, so I scream at him.
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT I DID?”
Tears stream from my eyes, my voice cracking with pain, and he finally raises his eyes to mine when I point at him.
“I had to hate you both for the things you have done. I had to remember why I was there in the fucking first place. Why I was being punished. All the betrayal, the lies, the deceit. I had to remember it all to stop feeding myself false hope that you two were what I wanted and hoped for. Trustworthy and loyal. You wanted to damage me just as much as Maddox did. You bothmade me vulnerable so I could never handle him. You made sex seem so amazing between the three of us so that he could snatch that intimacy and love away from me. You wanted me to die in the hands of that monster!”
I notice him well up as he stares deep into my angry, pain-filled orbs, the guilt settling in his dark eyes before he glances away, sniffling, but willingly taking the hurt that I am projecting onto him. After a moment of silence between us, I continue with a tremble in my throat.
“You two should have left me alone when I was sixteen and you should have left me alone when I was with him. I do not want your or Chaos’s games anymore.”