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Dominic's Pov I stood in the middle of the empty foyer, and my boots made a loud clicking sound on the marble floor that had once been covered by a thick blue rug. The house felt like a giant hollow shell now that all the furniture had been packed into crates and the paintings had been taken down from the walls. I had spent ten years of my life in these rooms trying to build a perfect world but all I found was a lot of trouble and a lot of sadness. I looked at the spot near the stairs where I used to stand and wait for Ivy to come home from school and I felt a sharp pinch in my chest. This place was full of memories that I did not want to carry with me anymore because they were tied to a woman who did not care about us. The front door opened and my lawyer walked in with a leather folder under his arm and a very serious look on his face. He was the one who had handled the divorce and the property sale and he was the one who had spent the last month talking to Ivy's mother so I did no

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Ivy's Pov The lights in the youth center were flickering a little bit because a storm was moving in from the mountains and making the wind howl against the stone walls. I was putting the last of the acrylic paints back into the cabinet when I heard a soft tapping sound at the side door that led to the alley. It was an hour after the program had ended and Martha had already gone home to her family in the next village over. I walked to the door and I saw Sarah standing there with a large bruise on her cheek and a small backpack clutched against her chest. She was shaking so hard that I could hear her teeth clicking together in the quiet room. "Ivy, I can't go back there tonight," she whispered as I pulled her inside and locked the door behind her. "My stepdad is in one of his moods and he started breaking things in the kitchen because dinner was late. He told me that if I didn't shut up he was going to make sure I never spoke again. I ran out the back window and I didn't stop until

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Ivy's Pov The wooden floor of the library basement creaked as I walked toward the circle of chairs that Dr. Varga had set up for the Tuesday evening meeting. I had been seeing her alone for a few weeks but she told me that there was a group of women who met once a week to talk about the things they had survived. I was the youngest one there by at least ten years and I felt very small as I sat down in the chair between a woman with gray hair and a younger girl who was biting her nails. The room was warm and there was a pot of tea on the table in the middle but I didn't feel like drinking anything because my throat felt very tight. I looked at the exit sign and I wondered if Marcus was still standing right outside the door like he promised he would be. "We have a new face with us today and her name is Ivy," Dr. Varga said as she looked around the circle with a very calm and encouraging smile. "She is from across the ocean and she has been through a very difficult journey to get to o

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Ivy's Pov I had been back in the warehouse in my sleep and I could still feel the rough fabric of the blindfold against my skin and the way the air smelled like old metal and wet dirt. Usually when I woke up from a dream like that my heart would be racing so fast that I felt like I was going to pass out and I would have to turn on every light in the apartment just to breathe. But tonight was different because I stayed very still and I realized that the scary sounds were just the wind hitting the glass of my window. I sat up and I took a long breath of the cold mountain air and I realized that the man from the dream was not in the room with me. He was in a cage back in the city and he was never going to touch me again. I reached under my pillow and pulled out the leather journal that was getting thick with all the pages I had filled up since I arrived in the village. I didn't turn on the big overhead light because I didn't want to chase away the quiet feeling that was finally settli

All Chapters of Beneath His Rules: Chapter 111 - Chapter 114

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