Chapter 153: Tender Monster
Aurora’s POV
I stared at him, my vision slightly blurred, but my heart as sharp as a sharpened blade. Anger and hate boiled in my chest, hotter than the throb in my skull. He was looking at me with those eyes—eyes that suddenly seemed so full of regret—but I didn’t care. I didn’t believe him.
I was here for one reason, and one reason only: to kill him.
To make Raymond pay for what he did, for the secrets he held, and for the lives he ruined. I wouldn’t rest until his blood was on my hands. If that meant I had to bear his insults, if it meant he viewed me as a whore or a foolish girl chasing a man who didn’t want her, then so be it. I would be anything. I would play any role. I would let him break my body a thousand times over if it meant I could finally get close enough to end him.
"Are you okay?" he asked again. His voice was no longer that terrifying growl; it was cracked and shaking.
I didn’t respond.
Slowly and painfully, I forced myself up from the floor. My head was throbbing with a rhythmic, sickening pain that made the room spin, but I gritted my teeth and pushed through it. I staggered to the bed and sat on the edge, forcing myself to stay upright.
He squatted before me, his hands hovering near my knees as if he wanted to touch me but was too afraid to try. Strangely, through the holes of that dark mask, I could see a look of pure worry and regret in his eyes. It was so real it almost felt human.
But I looked away, staring at the far wall. He is a monster, I reminded myself. An assassin. A killer. They don’t have a conscience.
"You have to go to the hospital," he said, his voice urgent. "The way you hit that wall... you could have a concussion."
"I’m fine," I snapped, looking away.
"You aren’t fine, Aurora. There’s blood." He stood up, pacing the small room like a caged animal. He looked like he was fighting with himself. "Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll be back."
He turned and bolted out of the room, leaving the door ajar.
As soon as he was gone, the silence of the room felt heavy. I slumped forward, burying my face in my hands as hot tears finally welled up in my eyes. I felt so small. So lost. Because of this obsession with revenge, look where I had landed myself. I was lying to the man who loved me, and I was being physically tossed around by a man I hated.
I thought of Oliver. My sweet, kind Oliver.
What would he think if he saw me right now? If he knew his Aurora was sitting in a dark club, bleeding and bruised because she was playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with a killer? The thought of him made my heart ache with a different kind of pain—the pain of guilt.
Should I come clean to him? I wondered, a sob catching in my throat. Should I just tell Oliver the truth?
I wanted to run to him. I wanted to tell him everything—that I had to become Raymond’s sub just to get close to him, just to find a way to carry out my revenge. But fear held me back. What if he didn’t understand? What if he couldn’t see past the fact that I had been in another man’s room, under another man’s touch? What if he hated me for cheating on him, regardless of the reason?
I couldn’t lose Oliver. He was the only light I had left in this dark world. But the longer I kept this secret, the more I felt like I was drowning.
The sound of footsteps approaching the door made me stiffen. I wiped my eyes quickly, my face hardening back into a mask of cold hate.
Raymond walked back in. He wasn’t empty-handed this time. He held a large first-aid kit in his hand, and he moved toward me with a quiet, focused energy that felt dangerously familiar.
He didn’t speak. He just sat on the edge of the bed next to me and began to open the box, his gloved hands moving with a gentleness that confused my heart as much as it enraged my soul.
I kept my gaze fixed on the wall, refusing to look at him, even as I felt the bed dip under his weight. My skin crawled at his proximity. Every instinct told me to recoil, to scream, to sink my nails into his throat—but I forced myself to stay still. I had to stay close. That was the only way this worked.
"This will sting," he murmured.
I flinched as the cold, wet cotton touched the cut on my temple. He was right; it burned like fire. I hissed through my teeth, my hands clenching the duvet. He immediately pulled back, his breath hitching behind the mask.
"I’m sorry," he whispered. It was that same voice again—the one that sounded broken, the one that didn’t belong to a monster. "I’m so sorry, Aurora."
"Don’t call me that," I snapped, finally cutting my eyes toward him. "Don’t say my name like you care. You threw me against a wall."
He flinched as if I had struck him, but he didn’t argue. He went back to work, his touch so light it was almost a caress. He cleaned the blood away with agonizing slowness, his eyes fixed on the wound with a focus that felt... intimate. It was terrifyingly different from the violence of moments ago.
As he reached for a bandage, my eyes drifted to his hands. Even through the black gloves, I could see they were trembling. This man, this legendary assassin who claimed to take lives without a second thought, was shaking because he had caused a small cut on my head? None of it made sense.
"Why did you return?" he asked suddenly, his voice barely audible over the thumping bass of the club outside the door. "I’ve insulted you. I’ve rejected you. I just hurt you. Any sane woman would have run out of here and never looked back. Why do you keep coming back to me?"
My heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t tell him I was waiting for the perfect moment to slip a silver blade between his ribs.
"Because of the contract," I lied, my voice cold. "I don’t leave things unfinished."
He let out a short, dry laugh that sounded more like a sob. "The contract. Right."
He finished taping the bandage into place and sat there for a moment, his hands resting on his knees. He looked exhausted, his shoulders slumped as if the weight of the world were pressing down on him. For a split second, I saw a flash of the man underneath the mask—not the Dom, not the killer, but someone deeply, profoundly lonely.
I hated that I saw it. I hated that for one tiny moment, I felt a flicker of something that wasn’t pure hatred.
He stood up and closed the first-aid kit. "I’ll drive you home."
"Are you worried about me, Raymond?" I mocked, trying to regain my edge. "Or are you just afraid of what Oliver would do if he found out you touched his woman?"
He froze, his back to me. His entire body went rigid, and for a second, the cold, deadly aura of the Alpha returned.
"Go home, Aurora," he said, his voice returning to that low, warning growl. "Before I change my mind about being sorry."
I stood up, my head still swimming, and walked past him toward the door. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I needed to get out of this room, out of this club, and back into the arms of the only man who made me feel safe.
I stepped out of the club, the bright afternoon sun blinding me for a second. My head was still spinning, and the bandage on my temple felt heavy, like a mark of my failure. I just wanted to disappear. I needed to find a taxi, get back to the apartment, and figure out how to hide this from Oliver before he saw me.
I started walking toward the curb, my hand shielding my eyes as I looked for those familiar yellow lights. But before I could even reach the edge of the sidewalk, a voice sliced through the air, dripping with a poisonous sweetness that made my blood run cold.
"Well, well, well... who do we have here?"
I froze. My heart hammered against my ribs as I slowly turned around.
Standing just a few feet away was Cassey. She was leaning against a sleek red car, a cruel, triumphant smirk stretched across her face. But it wasn’t just her presence that made me feel sick—it was the phone she held in her hand, the camera lens pointed directly at me.