Semua Bab Dear Ex-Husband, Revenge is Mine!: Bab 171 - Bab 178

IRIS The first thing I felt when I woke up was pain.It started at the base of my skull, spreading all the way to my forehead. But that wasn’t the only thing I was feeling. There was a dull ache in my limbs and arms. It felt like something was holding them in place.And when my eyes finally adjusted to the dim lights in the room, I realized two things.The first was that I wasn’t in the pink room anymore. This place was darker, colder, no designs or art in the walls, nothing else except for the chair I was sitting on.And the second thing I noticed, was that I had been tied up. My ankles were bound to the legs of the chair, and my arms were tied behind me.Fuck.I felt the panic slowly rise from the pits of my stomach, clawing its way up to my chest. And then my throat. I tried to force it down, taking deep breaths.I’d gone through this before when Quentin had me kidnapped, and I could definitely do it again.I wasn’t going to let myself break. Not now. And certainly not after every

MAVERICK I promised myself that I would never do this again. That I would never go down this road. Because it ruined me in ways that I hadn’t even known it could.But as I stared into the glass containing the amber liquid, I began to wonder if I could just backtrack. Just a little bit.After all, I’d already failed at getting the most important thing I needed in my life right now. I’d failed to save her. I had no idea where Iris was or what was being done to her.I had no fucking idea if she was okay, and now it had been nearly two weeks since she was taken away, and about a week since Layla disappeared on my watch.I wondered if Iris finally broke.If her mother’s death had gotten to her and she completely lost it.I was supposed to be around her when that happened.But I wasn’t. And now she was alone.My phone screen lit up with a text from Dwayne. He wanted to know where I was. I’d told him that I was coming over to his bar to talk, but I’d branched out at the last second.And now

IRIS I was surprised at how emotionally overwhelmed I felt about seeing my father. When he walked in, it felt like he was reopening wounds in my heart that I’d spent years trying to heal from. Wounds that I thought I had healed from. But obviously, I hadn’t. Harold Windsor still stood near the door despite my protests, watching me with an unreadable expression in his eyes. Not cold. Just… unreadable. “I know you must be angry with me—” he started. “Angry with you?” I muttered as something bubbled in my chest. And then before I knew it, I was laughing. Laughing at this massive understatement. I turned away; laughing so hard that tears started to slip from my eyes. “You think… you think I’m just… angry with you?” When I turned to face him, his brows were furrowed, like he was worried about me. Well, he was about twenty years late on that front. The laughter ceased, and almost immediately, I felt my lips pull down in an ugly scowl. “I’ll give you two options, Harold,” I s

IRISIt was too much. It was all too much. Rhoda had wanted to die. My father had asked her to kill herself, and then he had killed her, and he… he was telling me.I froze when I felt a hand pull my hair back softly. Panic rose in my chest, and I couldn’t breathe properly. All I did was heave into the toilet seat.There wasn’t much in my stomach, and the little that I had in there, I’d passed it out as vomit.And my system still wasn’t ready to give up, because now I was throwing up air while my father held my hair back.And then he spoke. “Shhh, you’re okay, baby girl.”I tensed. Baby girl…This wasn’t my father. It was Ryan.So much warmth and relief filled me that I didn’t even think before I made my next move. I turned around, throwing my arms around his neck and burying my face in his chest.Ryan hesitated for a second before his arms wrapped around my waist, and he held me tightly.One of his hands rubbed my back and stroked my hair while the other remained on my waist.And th