Ashley's POV: (Continuition of last part)
She turned the corner—
—and froze.
The kitchen, once the warm heart of her home, was a tableau of horror. Her parents were bound tightly, their eyes wide with terror. In the center, under the cold, flickering light, stood Roman, the pistol resting casually in his hand.
Ashley's final surge of defiance fueled her forward. Her voice was raw with fury.
"You're insane! Stop it right now! The police are coming, I told them everything! You touch them, and you're finished!"
Roman watched her approach, his smile chillingly calm. "Still so much noise, sunbeam. You still don't grasp the lesson."
He raised his voice. "The lesson is obedience, and you failed!" he hissed, his eyes burning with maniacal fire. "She took the mark of ownership—the evidence that she belongs to me—and threw it out for your inspection! That intimate secret? That was my property! For exposing my property, she forfeits your safety."
Ashley screamed in pure, defensive fury. "They didn't do anything! It's me you want! Leave them out of this!" She slammed into him.
Roman barely swayed. He caught her wrists easily, his grip instantly bruising. His eyes went black with dark, maniacal pleasure. "Feel that, Ashley? This is what obedience tastes like. You love fighting me; you just don't know how much you love losing." He flung her away with a brutal shove, her shoulder striking the counter.
Before she could even gasp, Roman took a slow, deliberate step toward her father.
Ashley's spirit shattered. She scrambled across the floor on her knees, latching onto his legs, burying her face against his trousers.
"Please, Roman! No! Stop! I'll go with you! I'll do anything you want! I'll be good, I promise!" she wept, her body shaking violently, completely undone. "Please, I beg you!"
Roman ignored her desperation. He bent down and seized her father's bound hand.
"STOP IT!" Ashley screamed one final time, pulling uselessly at his leg.
Then came the sickening, muffled snap.
Ashley's father's body arched, a raw, strangled sound tearing from his taped mouth. Ashley watched the broken, twisted finger, and she broke completely.
Roman slowly detached his feet from her grasp, stepping back to watch her shattered state.
He delivered the lines, his voice dripping with sadism.
"Now, here is where the fun begins. You have a choice, sunbeam: Do you accept your punishment, or do I start taking things from them? I could snap one finger for every time you defied me. Or maybe a whole hand. I could certainly use your mother's screams to remind you of my authority."
He looked from Ashley to her parents, savoring their shared terror.
"Which is it? Do you accept your collar, or do I start collecting bones?"
Ashley looked up, her vision blurred by tears. Her mother's eyes, wide and frantic, met hers—a silent, desperate plea to choose herself.
Roman knelt, placing the cold barrel of the pistol against her cheek. He used his other hand to cup her chin, gently forcing her ruined, tear-filled gaze up to meet his.
"Choose fast," he commanded, his voice intimate and lethal. "The longer you wait, the more of your father's body I decide to keep."
The choice was torture.
"Me," she choked out, the word a final, breath-shattering whisper of defeat. "Choose me. Punish me."
A slow, utterly satisfied smile spread across Roman's face.
"Good girl."
He didn't speak again. He hauled Ashley up by her waist, easily hoisting her over his shoulder in one swift, brutal motion. She hung there, silent, limp as a sack of potatoes, her humiliation complete.
Roman walked past her parents, ignoring their presence as he carried his conquest—his property—out the back door. He dropped her onto the passenger seat of the car.
Ashley landed with a jarring thump, instinctively recoiling and pushing herself against the window. She was still sobbing, the sound trapped and muted in her chest.
Roman didn't go to the driver's side. Instead, he leaned into the car, his body overwhelming the small space, the scent of his cologne suffocating her.
He reached across her chest.
Ashley's entire body locked. Her breath hitched, anticipating a strike, a final violation. Her eyes, wide and terrified, focused on his face. She braced herself.
But Roman was simply reaching for the seatbelt.
He pulled the strap across her body, his arm brushing her, an intimate, violating contact. His face was inches from hers—close enough for her to see the dark, victorious gleam in his eyes. He clicked the buckle with a sharp, final snap.
Ashley flinched violently.
Roman paused, his thumb lightly stroking the taut strap of the belt across her collarbone. He leaned closer, his voice a low, intimate promise of terror.
"Easy, sunbeam," he murmured. "I know what you're waiting for. But that is the reward for the drive. Not yet. First, you get to sit here and remember who owns the air you breathe."
He straightened, pulled the door shut with a heavy thud, and walked around to the driver's side. The engine turned over, and the car pulled away from the house, carrying her into the inevitable, consuming darkness.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Author's Note:
The Total Breakdown 💔
Whew. If you made it through Chapter 11, take a breath. That was brutal, and it was supposed to be. 🥵
This scene is the Point of No Return for Ashley. The entire sequence—from her last defiant scream to the sickening snap of the finger—was engineered by Roman to shatter her will.
The moment she chokes out "Choose me" to save her parents, she accepts his narrative. Roman's silence and the non-verbal action of throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes 🥔 is the ultimate display of dominance. She is no longer a fighter; she is his property, taken by force.
The car scene is the chilling cherry on top: the close proximity, the fake tenderness of buckling her in, and the final promise: "Not yet." That's the real terror.
We've now crossed into the deep end. Her journey from here is about survival... and maybe, just maybe, finding a new way to fight back from the absolute bottom. ⛓️💥
PS: Want to read the next chapter faster? I'm committed to posting the fastest updates on Wattpad! Follow my account with the same author name and book name and add the book to your library so you don't miss a single chapter as soon as it drops!
Hold tight! The nightmare is just beginning. 😈
— Vaanni