‘Don’t look at me like that, you pathetic bitch. You brought this on yourself.’
The words fell out of his mouth on the back of a ragged breath.
Through the tears that blurred her vision, Megan Fuller watched him straighten up and step away from her. She wanted to plead for her life, to beg for forgiveness, but she couldn’t speak because her mouth was filled with blood and fragments of broken teeth.
She had never known pain like it, and it pulsed along every nerve in her body. From the demented look in his eyes she could tell that he had completely lost it. The red mist had consumed him. He was in the grip of a dark rage, and not for the first time. She’d seen it happen before and had likened it then to someone being possessed by the devil.
He gave her a look of sneering contempt as he stared down at her, his face tense, jaw locked, blue veins standing out on his neck.
‘I warned you,’ he yelled. ‘It didn’t have to be like this.’
Every molecule in her body was screaming, and hot tears spilled from her eyes.
She should never have let him in. It had been the mother of all mistakes. He was fired up before stepping over the threshold, intent on making her regret what she had threatened to do to him.
After slamming the front door behind him, he had launched into a furious rant, accusing her of being a money-grabbing whore. She had tried to calm him down by offering to make him a cup of tea.
But it wasn’t tea he was after. He wanted her to tell him that she was backing down and that he didn’t have to worry. But her refusal to do so had wound him up to the point where he’d snapped.
He’d smashed his fist into her face. Not once but twice. The first blow struck her mouth and stopped her from screaming. The second blow broke her nose and sent her sprawling backwards onto the kitchen floor.
Now she was at his mercy, unable to cry out as she watched him reach towards the knife block on the worktop. He withdrew the one she used for cutting vegetables. The sight of it paralysed her with fear.
‘You were a fool to think I’d let you get away with it, Megan. The others might cave in, but I fucking won’t.’
His voice was high-pitched and filled with menace, and his chest expanded alarmingly with every breath.
Panic seized her, and she tried to push herself up, but he responded by stamping on her right arm.
There was no stopping him now, she realised. Even if she could talk he was too far gone to listen to reason.
‘You’ve always been a frigging liberty taker,’ he fumed. ‘But now you’ve overstepped the mark big time.’
The knife was above her now, and as he squeezed the steel handle the blood retreated from his knuckles.
She tried again to scream but it snagged in her throat and suddenly she couldn’t even draw breath.