Of course, Kevin wouldn't let me leave.

After all, he still needed me to be Audrey's shield against his enemies.

He locked me up in the villa like a prisoner and assigned two bodyguards to watch me round-the-clock.

I tried escaping more than once, but each attempt ended in failure. I'd barely made it past the gates before being dragged back, or I'd arrive at the airport only to be told my flight had been mysteriously delayed.

The only time he let me out was for his grandfather's birthday.

That day, he leaned in close, his voice low and venomous beside my ear. "Be good now, and don't run."

His hands rested lightly on my shoulders, but I stood frozen at the door, trembling.

Someone glanced at me, puzzled. "Cate, is it the cold? Why are you shaking so much?"

I didn't dare say a word.

It was only in those days that I began to understand the true extent of Kevin's methods. The moment he realized I wanted to break up with him, he didn't hesitate. He kicked me down into the basement, shackled me to the headboard with a pair of custom-made handcuffs, and stood over me with a sneer that could chill the blood.

"Cate, do you have any idea how badly I want to strangle you every time I catch you staring at that man on your phone?"

My eyes flew wide open. "You've been spying on me?"

"On my birthday, I said I'd be back late. Did you sleep with him?" His voice turned lethal. In a blink, he unfastened the watch from his wrist and hurled it at my forehead. The sharp corner split my skin, and warm blood trickled down, matting my hair.

It turned out that everything that night had been a trap. A perfectly orchestrated trap—and he'd been waiting for me to fall.

But I hadn't. I swear, I hadn't.

I never slept with anyone.

Still, he humiliated me deliberately, tearing off my clothes, forcing me to stand undressed before him like some prostitute on display. My pride in tatters, I retaliated. I looked him dead in the eyes and taunted, "That's right. He's better in bed than you ever were. How could I not sleep with him?"

His face contorted with fury.

He stormed toward me, yanked off his tie, and in one swift motion, pinned me beneath him.

His lips crashed onto mine—ice-cold, foreign—and a shudder ran through me from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I tried to pull away, but my wrists were still bound to the bedframe.

"Cate, you're mine. You hear me? Mine!" he growled.

I turned my face away, refusing his kiss.

That only made him snap harder. He grabbed the back of my head, slamming it down against the pillow, forcing his mouth against mine, prying me open, taking what he claimed was his.

He watched me—watched the tears fall from my eyes, watched my body tremble under his weight.

With callused fingertips, he wiped a tear from my cheek. The gentleness of the gesture only made my shaking worse.

Then he laughed.

"What are you shaking for? Were you just as filthy in his bed? But it doesn't matter. Dead or alive, you're mine. You want to break up with me? Over my dead body!" he sneered.

He was mad—completely, terrifyingly mad.

He shut me away in a basement that only he could enter, and he'd watch me from above, laughing while I begged beneath him, powerless.

And I—fool that I was—I once believed there was love hidden in that obsession.

They say there can be no hate without love.

He hated me deeply, endlessly… so perhaps, somewhere in that darkness, he loved me just a little too.