Chapter 45

Mirabelle

The walk upstairs is long and torturous. It feels like everything around me is running in slow motion. Each step is painstaking, filling my body with nervous anticipation, but I don’t stop. The only sound filling my ears is the wheeze of air entering and exiting my lungs. It’s like the chugging of a steam locomotive quickening and gaining speed as it goes. Much like the beat of my heart.

Her words skitter across my mind, over and over, until I’m standing on the other side of his door. I know what I must do. My task is clear.

My body shifts into autopilot, and it begins.

He doesn’t stir at the sound of the door opening and closing, or the soft tread of my feet carrying me across the room. He doesn’t hear the soft beep of the six-digit code when I enter it into the gun safe. He’s oblivious to it all, and I use it to my advantage.

It isn’t until I’m hovering over him with the gun pointed down at him that he senses there is danger swirling around him, and he wakes.

He blinks trying to focus on me, but his age shows as it takes a beat too long. I can’t help feeling a surge of strength fill my body as I gain a further upper hand over this poor excuse of a man.

“Bella?” he croaks, and I see the moment his eyes and his brain connect. His focus is solely on the cold metal barrel pointed directly at him. He freezes in his spot on the bed. “What’s going on?”

“Tell me I’m a good girl,” I whisper, placing the gun against his temple. A rush of adrenaline races through my veins when he flinches from the cold steel touching his skin. I’ve only ever dreamt of this moment, and while I should be nervous, I’m not.

He swallows hard, nearly choking on his on spit.

“Tell me,” I screech, feeling the sudden high of power. Power over him. Power over his fear of me. He has no idea the monster he’s created inside of me. He should be scared.

“You’re a good girl,” he mumbles.

“Tell me I’m your good girl,” I laugh, holding myself back from dancing on the balls of my feet. This is fucking fun. Why didn’t I do this years ago?

“Pet—” he starts, but I press the barrel harder into his skin, cutting him off. The smile on my face falls.

“No, you don’t get to call me that anymore,” I inform him with a dead calm taking over my body now. “You never get to call me that again.”

“Please…” he begs, his eyes searching for me in the dark room. “Belle, my sweet girl, don’t do this.”

“Do you know I’m like you?” I laugh maniacally. “Of course, you know. Silly me. You made me. You found me, and you made me—no that isn’t right. You bought me, and you made me. Right? You bought me, just like all the others, only you kept me for yourself. Didn’t you?”

He shakes. Hearing the words from my mouth strikes him where I want them to.

“Didn’t you?” I scream, teetering on the precipice. The monster inside me rages to get its hands on him. He nods, and a small sob escapes his chest. “I was nine when they took me from my family. We were on vacation. The first my parents had ever been able to afford. Did you know that?”

“Bella…”

“Shut up.” I cock the gun and feel a tear fall from my right. Then another from my left. “My older brother let go of my hand for one second, and they snatched me up. I tried to scream and get away, but they were too strong. By the time my family realized I wasn’t there, we were racing out of the parking lot.”

The memory of that fateful day fills my veins with a power I’ve never felt before. For too long I’ve been powerless. A victim of this man and his people. A captive. Even to the man who claimed to love me and married me, I was a prisoner. I was wrong to believe him when he said we’d go away together and live a real life. I don’t know what hurts more; his lies or the fact I allowed myself to fall in love with him.

No more.

“You saw me. You bought me. You kept me. You don’t know how much I wanted to believe you when you told me I was safe, that you wouldn’t hurt me. I was a little girl, Charles. Nine years old. But that didn’t stop you, did it? My age only fueled your disgusting fantasy.”

“Bella, don’t—”

“Don’t what, Charles? Say it out loud? You know, I never have. Have you? I bet it’s cleansing.” I lean in a little closer, careful to keep the gun at his head, ready to pull the trigger if he tries anything. At first, I say it in a whisper, so soft I want him to remember the face of the child he defiled. When I say it again, I let the monster free, screaming it out loud for the entire world to hear me.

“How does that feel? Was it cleansing? It was for me.” I lean back, running my free hand down my face and torso. “Do you believe in God? Are you praying to him right now? You should. He heard me say the words, Charles. He saw what you did to me. You’re going to burn in hell for what you’ve done.”

Saying it out loud did everything I thought it would do.

It freed me. From the past. From the memories. But most importantly, from him.

It gave me the fuel and the strength to pull the trigger. Ending his life with a single bullet.

It happens in slow motion. I watch as he closes his eyes, squeezing them tight, because he knows what’s coming. The bullet leaves the chamber of the gun, and it vibrates against my hand, travelling the length of the barrel, exiting, then entering his flesh. It exits the other side of his head, spraying blood and brain matter across the room.

Charles’ body slumps forward and falls to the ground with a lifeless thud.

The rush of the moment roars through my body, empowering the beast to a whole new level. But I’m gone to it. Victim to myself now and the demons that haunt me, even after his death.

The monster isn’t done.

Far from it.