Dark Revenge Of An Unwanted Wife The Twins Are Not Yours novel Chapter 524

Chapter 524: Captives II

Athena didn’t feel her heart at first. She only felt the absence of it—an abrupt hollowing, a vacuum opening inside her chest the moment her mind understood what her eyes were telling her.

Antonio.

For a long, stretching second, her body forgot how to breathe. She stared at him, unable to blink, unable to form the shape of a thought. The shock didn’t hit like a blow; it hit like the cold of deep water—slow, seeping, paralyzing. She tried to swallow, but her throat felt sealed.

He shouldn’t be here.

He couldn’t be here.

Yet there he was, stepping closer as though drawn by her disbelief, as though he took pleasure in walking directly into the center of her stunned silence.

"You bastard!!" Ewan cursed him through clenched teeth—rage, venom, disbelief all twisted together—but even that couldn’t pull her eyes away.

Couldn’t free her from the sight of someone she had once trusted, once leaned on, once slept with, standing there with that expression. That disdain. That strange, triumphant disgust.

"What..." Her voice broke on nothing. She shut her eyes, once, hard, as if a blink could clear him from reality.

When she opened them, he was closer.

His smirk widened.

"What?" he echoed, leaning in as though savoring her trembling confusion. He reached out and touched her cheek with a familiarity that made her stomach twist. "Surprised to see me?"

She jerked her face away, gritting her teeth, a soft, hoarse sound of refusal clawing its way out of her chest. She shook his hand off her skin as though it were something burning.

Antonio’s expression changed in an instant.

The slap came faster than her mind could register the intention behind it. A hot, violent flash exploded across her vision—light bursting behind her eyelids, sound rushing out of the world.

Her head snapped to the side, and for a moment there were only stars drifting in dark water.

"Athena!" Ewan’s voice cracked into a raw scream. "You cowardly—!"

But the men laughed.

Herbert’s short, cruel chuckle. Antonio’s smoother, delighted one. Their amusement hit her as sharply as the strike had.

Antonio gripped her chin roughly, lifting her face, forcing her gaze upward. His eyes gleamed with something too close to enjoyment.

Ewan fought the ropes until the wood beneath him groaned. His face was flushed red with effort, the tendons in his neck standing out painfully as he thrashed. But the bindings held, cutting into his skin until welts rose, raw and blistering.

Antonio glanced at him, almost lazily. Then he hit her again.

And again.

Not enough to break her—no, he wasn’t aiming for that. He was aiming for humiliation. For fear. For the knowledge that she could not stop him. Each strike landed like a punctuation mark to some private sentence he had long kept buried.

Athena’s lip split. Warmth dripped down her chin. Her nose throbbed in time with her racing pulse.

Ewan’s eyes flooded, helpless tears spilling without permission. His voice cracked into hoarse pleas, then into threats, then into a low, guttural sound that wasn’t quite human.

Antonio didn’t look at him while he grabbed Athena again, fingers digging cruelly into her shoulders, dragging her closer. He didn’t look at Ewan when he forced his mouth against hers—brutal, possessive, meant only to degrade.

Athena’s tears slipped down her cheeks, born of pain, of shock, of the unbearable wrongness of it.

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