CHAPTER FOUR .

Alyssa

I stayed in that prison for a week I told Marcus no every time he came, I didn’t deserve to be bailed out.

I deserved the cold metal bed and the thin blanket ehe bland terrible food.

I sat in the corner of that cell and let the feelings drown me.

The regret was the worst.

I remembered every time Marcus warned me and I never listened,

I was so stupid.

So unbelievably stupid.

And the betrayal… it was a physical ache in my chest a constant sharp pain that made it hard to breathe.

I thought about all the times I felt I was not enough, unable to make Damon a father unownen to me that all that he never wanted a family with me, he never wanted me.

All of it together was just too much.

It made me numb, I couldn’t cry anymore instead I felt hollowed out like a shell.

I hated myself.

I hated the person I had been—so blind so trusting and weak.

But then everyday the numbness started to crack and underneath it was extreme rage.

A rage so hot and so deep it scared me of who I may become.

I wanted revenge.

I didn’t just want Damon to feel a little bad, I wanted him to feel the same soul-crushing pain I felt I wanted him to lose everything while he stare at it and can’t do anything about it.

The thought was the only thing that kept me from completely shattering.

A guard unlocking my door snaps me out from my train of thoughts, he walked in with a smug look on his face and put the tray down with a clatter.

“You should eat,” he orders.

I didn’t look at him, keeping my eyes on a crack in the wall tracing its path with my eyes.

He laughed a short ugly sound. “You look miserable sitting here all day feeling sorry for yourself. Eat something before you kill yourself, you’re going to be here for a long time”

I stayed perfectly still like I was a statue.

He didn’t leave instead he took a step closer.

I could smell his cheap cologne. “You know,” he said his voice dropping to a leer. “For a miserable woman you’re still pretty sexy maybe you and me should have a little fun in here. No one has to know.”

His hand thick and rough reached out to touch my cheek making something in me snap.

My body moved before my mind could catch up my hand shot up and I grabbed his wrist twisting it hard until I heard a pop.

“Ahh” He yelled in pain and surprise.

I drove my other fist deep into his stomach the air left his lungs in a whoosh.

He bent over and I hit him again and again.

He fell to the dirty floor, I lunched on him punching all the anger, hurt andall the betrayal—it all poured out of my fists.

I hit his face.

“Fuck!” He spat.

I felt the crunch of his nose under my knuckles the bright red blood spill from his lip and splash onto the concrete.

I couldn’t stop.

I wanted to break him as though he was Damon, I hit him the way I wanted to with Damon.

“Alyssa! That is enough!”

Marcus’s voice cut through the red haze in my brain.

I looked up.

He was standing at the open cell door his face like stone.

“Let him go Alyssa,” he said his voice firm.

I looked down at the guard.

His face was a bloody swollen mess.

I hissed pulling my arm back and threw one last punch putting all my weight behind it his head snapped back before I stood up with my chest was heaving.

I looked at my hands my knuckles were raw and stained with his blood.

Marcus walked in.

He didn’t even glance at the groaning man on the floor he pulled a clean white handkerchief from his inside pocket and handed it to me.

I took it without a word and started wiping the blood away.

The white cloth turned pink.

I wasn’t always weak.

My father made sure of that from the time I was eight until I turned eighteen I trained in martial arts with a man named Master Ares.

He was severe and strong and he didn’t go easy on me because I was a girl he thought me how to fight and defend myself.

I bit on my lower lip as I remembered the night of my eighteenth birthday when I asked him to take my virginity.

He was twice my age but it didn’t matter to me cause Master Ares was a devilishly handsome looking man that exuded dominance, I desired him.

He rejected me saying I was to young to contain him, and I was only a lost child, he looked disappointed.

He quit not long after that and then I met Damon and I forgot how to be strong.

I let myself become soft.

“I am bailing you out right now,” Marcus said his voice pulling me back to the present. “There is no way the heiress to the White Empire can be stuck in this place. I don’t know what Damon said to you that made you want to stay here and rot but I won’t allow it.”

I just shrugged.

What was there to say? I followed him out of the cell my steps steady.

The outside air felt strange and clean in my lungs.

We got into the car the silence in the back seat was heavy but it was a comfortable silence.

Marcus understood.

When we got to my house I finally spoke my voice sounding hoarse and cold It didn’t even sound like me.

“Marcus,” I said. “Gather everything all of Damon’s companies, his business affairs. Every contract, every loan, every dirty little secret I want it all and email everything to me.”

A look of pure pride flashed in Marcus’s eyes before he simply nodded. “It will be done.”

I walked into my house and went straight upstairs to my bedroom.

I went into the bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as I could stand it I stood under the spray letting the water wash the prison stink off my skin.

Inside I was burning the water was cold compared to the fire of revenge raging inside me.

I was going to destroy Damon Johnson.

I was going to take his company, his money, his prideI would leave him with nothing.

I would make him beg for mercy.

The weak poor pathetic woman he married was gone.

She died on that prison floor.

The woman stepping out of this shower was Alyssa White.

The sole heir to an empire.