The Last Time I Cried Your Name novel Chapter 15

The bathroom was a chaotic mess, bottles and towels scattered across the tiles, water pouring endlessly from the shower above. Thick steam filled the air, turning what should have been a spacious bathroom into something small and stifling, almost like the walls were closing in.

Petty’s slender wrist was trapped, caught in Franco’s strong grip.

“Let go of me!” she shouted, her words sharp and furious. “You make me sick. Get out of my room. Let go!”

Franco just stepped in closer, ignoring her anger. He wiped the water from her face, his thumb brushing over the cut on her cheek. His voice was low and rough. “This whole place, Misty Vale, belongs to me. Since when is there a room here that’s yours?”

“Franco, you bastard!” she spat, the words coming out like venom.

He didn’t even flinch. One hand still held her, the other pulled off his glasses, now streaked with water. He tossed them aside without a glance.

Petty was pressed against the cold wall, arms forced apart. Bruises covered her skin, ugly and dark against her pale body, and now there was nothing to hide them.

Franco didn’t need his glasses to see the damage. From her left shoulder down to her arm, the bruises looked almost like a twisted tattoo, purple and blue against white skin. Her waist and back were even worse, the marks even more painful to look at.

He turned her around, pinning both wrists over her head with one hand. His eyes drifted down to her left leg, where the bruises were the worst. Deep, dark, nearly black, they stretched around her thigh, and in a few places, the skin was broken, faint shoe prints still visible.

A man’s shoe. Large, unmistakable.

With her back to him, Petty couldn’t see his face, but she heard his cold, humorless laugh.

She burned with humiliation. “Let me go!”

The more she tried to pull free, the tighter his grip became.

He cut her off, pressing his mouth to hers, his lips cold and forceful. He pried her mouth open, swallowing her words. Tears slipped between them, and the taste was bitter for both.

For a second, he hesitated, but then his hand slid behind her head, holding her in place. Petty had no choice but to tilt her face up, forced to take all the anger he threw at her. It crashed over her, filling the steamy, suffocating bathroom.

He pushed her back, pinning her against the wall again and again, steam rising all around them.

His wet shirt landed somewhere on the floor, the sound of his belt buckle hitting tile echoing in the haze.

Soft whimpers escaped her lips. Through the fog, the shape of her foot—small, delicate, caught in his hand—came in and out of focus. Her pink toes curled tight as she struggled.

Sweat or water, who could tell? As a droplet slid down, Petty blinked, and it slipped straight into her eye.