"I don't want anything."
"But leaving the country? That's not happening."
"Don't push me, Rebecca."
She stared right back at him.
"Go to hell."
"Get out of my sight right now."
"I never want to see your face again."
"Get out!"
She screamed the final words with every ounce of strength she had left, her throat tearing with a desperate, ragged fury.
His expression instantly turned lethal.
The hand gripping her wrist trembled ever so slightly.
He had never seen her like this.
"Don't force my hand."
"Doctors Without Borders? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"
He glared down at her. "Stop acting like a spoiled brat. Grow up."
"As long as I'm breathing, you aren't going anywhere."
With that, he released her arm so violently she stumbled backward, her shoulders slamming against the hard wood of the door.
He gave her one last, terrifyingly complex look—a volatile mix of agony, resentment, love, and sheer madness, all ultimately freezing into predatory hostility.
Then, he turned on his heel. Without a single glance back, he strode into the shadows, his broad silhouette quickly vanishing at the end of the hallway.
A stark red bruise was already blooming on her skin, throbbing with numbness.
But the aching in her chest was a thousand times worse.
What gave him the right?
Why did he get to treat her like this?
Why should she be locked in his cage for the rest of her life?
She wouldn't accept it.
She flat out refused to accept it.
She stood there for a long time, weeping until there were no tears left to shed and her throat felt like sandpaper, before slowly pushing herself upright.
She unlocked her door and slipped into her tiny apartment.
Closing it firmly behind her, she shut out the cold, suffocating presence of the man who had just stood in her hallway.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABEL
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: The Wife You Buried Is Back from Hell