Page 234 of Maddening Fixation

His grip was brutal.

His breathing was ragged, like an animal barely holding itself back.

“This is the second time you’ve physically hurt her!”

His voice shook with fury. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Tears burned my eyes.

Not from fear.

From the unbearable ache of realizing that even now, even bleeding and terrified, he saw me as the villain.

“Just because I let the last incident slide,” he snarled, “doesn’t mean you should keep testing my patience.”

His fingers tightened around my shoulders. “You don’t understand, do you?”

His eyes were filled with rage. “Yarina means everything to me.”

The words cut deeper than the knife.

“You cannot keep wishing her dead just because you married the man she loves.”

My tears finally spilled free as I stared at him, at the man who was supposed to be my husband but had become the person who hurt me most.

My stomach was bleeding.

The reality of it was almost impossible to comprehend.

There was blood beneath my hands. Blood soaking through my clothes. Blood that belonged to me—and possibly my baby.

Fear unlike anything I had ever known clawed through my chest.

But Romeo didn’t see it.

Or worse...

He saw it and didn’t care.

The monster standing in front of me, consumed by rage, looked at me as if I were the danger.

As if I were the threat.

I hadn’t attacked Yarina.

Not this time.

I had defended myself.

But he didn’t care about the truth.

He only cared about her.

“I’m bleeding.”

The word barely left my mouth.

It came out as a broken gasp, forced out by the terror of the fury burning in his eyes.