Flash Marriage To The Ruthless Predator

gown was two sizes too big, the neckline slipping below her collarbone-she couldn't be bot

use was asleep. Except for the g

he rhythmic creak of a bed frame. She stopped. Over the past four

nd on the heavy oak door. It was

ingers dug deep into the plaster of the wall. A man

ear: "Do you prefer me or that i

her siste

her fianc

did not change. She was not in shock, nor was she enduring-she was jus

newspaper said the eldest daughter of the Navarro family had suffered a mental breakdown. The day after, Angele wept

ed everything. No one suspected a thing, becau

uld believe she had truly lost her mind. So she did not make a scene. She quietly swallowed the pills, quietly endured the treatments, quietly turned her

true self, inch by inch,

she suddenly understood: the momen

ting for this: for Angele and Julian to be completely convinced that she was thoroughly broken, that sh

st lightly, she could

e console table by the door. The porcelain vase of whit

was like

pped. Julian scrambled back, fumbling

folds of her silk robe unhurriedly, her

at the door,

and pinched Isolde's chin, her nails digging deep into the soft

ting her, shoving her, slapping her, pinning her down in the bathtub. Ev

r true self. Th

cle memory-flinching. Angele saw her flinch, a

the

shoved

e staggered backward, lost her balance,

he sharp marble corner of the

g. Warm liquid tric

g in waves. But in that searing pain, her

contracted

e floor was cold, the blood was thick, the light fr

een vacant for four years-not anger, not grief, but something that made

-handed. Angele was half a head taller. Julian stood at the door, pale-face

in her

all puddle of her own blood on the floor. Then she smiled-a slow, h

bled, her voice thic

agged in relief. He

if she had touched something filthy. "Call the maids," she said to J

ook Isolde by the arms, roughly and indiff

. She heard one maid mutter, "Miss Angele really went hard-she's bleedi

r closed. The b

opened

The woman in the mirror was a stranger-pale, gaunt, strands o

lear. M

he back of her head. The bleeding stopped quickly. She looked into the m

Julian to completely forget that she was a person. Waited for them to

enge ha