“What are you doing here, Princess?” he asks, waving his hand for me to go to him.

I gulp. “I’m sorry, Carter. I just needed the bathroom,” I explain apologetically, walking over and taking the hand that he is offering.

“It’s okay. Take a seat there, I’m almost done,” he instructs, nodding towards the couch.

I gulp and obediently sit. Mario’s shoulders loosen as some of the tension leaves him. Clearly he thinks he is safe now that I am here, possibly thinking that Carter won’t kill him in front of me. Obviously, he doesn’t know Carter very well.

“I’m sorry, boss, it won’t happen again,” Mario apologises.

Carter nods in response, bringing the pistol up and aiming for the middle of Mario’s face. “I know,” he states as he pulls the trigger.

As the shot rings out, I whimper and try to look away, but I can’t. It is the single most disgusting and horrifying thing I have ever seen in my life. In an instant, half of Mario’s face disappears to be replaced by a bloody, soft, ragged, oozing mess. His body twitches a couple of times before falling backwards to the floor, making a loud thump.

Carter touches my face. I can barely breathe. “Princess, I told you to wait outside for me,” he coos lovingly as he leans in and kisses my cheek.

“I… I know, I… I’m sorry,” I stutter.

“Hmm, it’s no problem. I missed you anyway,” he purrs as his fingers move to the zip of my dress, tugging on it gently. While he slides the straps of my dress over my shoulders and kisses the side of my neck, I can’t focus on anything other than the pool of blood that is forming under the dead body. “Mmm, you are so f**king hot. I love you,” he whispers as he pushes on my shoulders, guiding me to lie back onto the sofa. The buttons pop on his jeans as he wrenches them open before settling himself on top of me. “Do you love me?” he asks, slowly lifting the skirt of my dress so that the material bunches around my waist.

The pool of blood is so big now that it is almost touching the rug on the floor. As I ponder over how much blood can be left inside him, a sharp pain resonates across my ribs and I gasp, whimpering. “I said do you love me?” Carter repeats, pressing on the bruises that I already have across my ribcage.

“Of course I love you, baby,” I lie quickly. The words still feel as though they rip my heart out, even though I’ve said them every day for the last six months.

“Hmm, good,” he whispers, easing my legs apart and settling himself between my thighs. When Mario’s leg twitches, I squeal and look at it with wide eyes, knowing I will have a fresh nightmare tonight instead of the usual ones. “It’s normal,” Carter says quickly. He grips my chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning my head towards his and crashing his lips to mine.

As he uses my body, pleasuring himself like he does every day, all I can see is the dead man’s foot twitching, his one lifeless eye staring up at the ceiling, and the dark blood that is slowly congealing on the tiled floor.

Finally, he reaches his cl**ax and slumps down on top of me, crushing me with his weight. When his breathing has slowed and the dead man’s blood has reached the edge of the expensive-looking cream rug, Carter moves to nibble on my earlobe. “I love you so much, Princess.”

Numb. I’m numb and emotionless. I barely even feel the pain between my legs where he’s just used me for his own sick satisfaction.

He smiles against my neck. “You know, I was thinking about something earlier.” He pulls back and grins down at me, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “I think we should get married.”

My mouth is dry. I have no words.

He strokes the side of my face softly. “Annabelle Thomas. I like it. Maybe we’ll go to Vegas tomorrow,” he suggests, grinning at me.

I don’t feel anything. I am dead inside. He has killed me. I honestly don’t care if I am married to him or not, there is nothing I can do about it either way.

Screaming, someone was screaming. I jerked up in the bed, only to realise that it was me. Fumbling behind me, I grab the pillow and press it over my face to muffle the sound as the scream slowly subsides. I didn’t want any guards to burst in and see me like this, and I also didn’t want it getting back to Ashton in the morning that I’d had a nightmare. Helpless tears flowed down my face at the memory. I panted, trying to calm down. My heart was crashing in my chest. After what seemed like forever, my body slowly started to return to normal. My muscles unclenched, my jaw loosened and my tears dried up. Glancing over at the clock, I saw that it was only three in the morning. I groaned and rolled over, squeezing my eyes shut, hoping for more sleep to find me.

“So, all we need is some identification, and then you’re all set to go,” the guy says from Carter’s window.

Carter grins at me excitedly as he squeezes my knee. I smile automatically, knowing that is the response he wants from me. He grabs his driving licence and my fake one that Jack got for me for the club, and then he hands them to the guy at the drive through, along with a wad of cash.

I stare at my nails, picking aimlessly at the skin down the side, making it bleed. When the car rolls forward a few minutes later, I glance up, emotionless. This was what it had come to. Getting married in a drive through chapel in Vegas because he doesn’t trust me to get out of the car, so he’d found a place where minimal contact with people was needed.

As we pull up at the next window, a guy stands there in a white robe. As he talks, I can’t even pay attention, so I pick aimlessly at the skin on the edge of my nail again. A sharp sting on my wrist distracts me from my task. I look down, seeing that Carter is squeezing my wrist, digging his nails into my skin.

“Say your words, Princess.”

I look up expectantly at the man in the booth, not even bothering to beg for help. If I did, Carter would shoot him dead – he’d already told me that several times on the way here.

I repeat the words after him. “I, Annabelle Spencer, take you, Carter Thomas, to be my lawful wedded husband. To have and to hold from this day forward. For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” As I say it, I pray the last part, the part about death, comes soon for either me or him. At this point, I’m past caring who.

I feel nothing. Ever since he’d made me lose the baby, something had been terribly wrong with me. I just don’t care anymore, nothing matters to me. I don’t even feel pain like I used to. Sometimes I long for pain to give me something else to think about, so I provoke him into beating me. Even that pain doesn’t last long enough anymore though.

Carter grins and I plaster on a fake smile as he says his words to me and slips the expensive-looking gold wedding band onto my finger. I study it, emotionless. It is set with little diamonds all the way around it, and probably cost him more than the car we were driving in.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride,” the man says happily, utterly oblivious to my waking nightmare that I can’t escape from.

Carter lets out a triumphant growl and grabs me, kissing me, hard. After a few seconds, he pulls back, grinning from ear to ear, looking happier than I have ever seen him. “You’re officially mine now, Mrs Thomas.”

I gasped and sat up. I was sweating so much that the bed was damp, and the sheets were stuck to my body. My hand was hurting for some reason. I turned the light on and looked at my left hand; it was clenched in such a tight fist that my fingernails had cut into my palm, drawing blood. Groaning, I pushed myself out of bed and take a deep breath. Dizziness overcame me, so I put my hand on the bed to steady myself as my legs wobble. I hated to think of the fact that I was married to the man that caused my life to spiral out of control. No one knew. I had never told anyone, not even my parents, and I didn’t ever plan on it either.

I knew deep down that the marriage wasn’t legal. I was sixteen when it happened and we’d used a fake ID. I could easily have it annulled, but that would mean I would need to tell people, and I didn’t want to do that. I couldn’t talk about it, I couldn’t tell people what I went though, couldn’t admit the shameful things that had happened to me under his hand. There was no way I was strong enough to look my parents in the eye and tell them that I’d married him. I couldn’t ask them to help me get it annulled because I didn’t want to see that pitying, horrified look that made everything worse. So I buried it so deep that the only outlet it had was through my night terrors. I hid the shame and the terror, and I never let it out. Not ever.

Once my dizziness had subsided, I headed to the bathroom and ran my hand under the cold water, rinsing the blood away, and then pressed it onto a towel until the bleeding stopped. My gaze drifted up to the mirror behind the sink. I frowned at my own reflection, hating myself. I looked like a complete mess. My mascara was smeared under my bloodshot eyes, and my face was pale and sweaty. I splashed some cold water over my face; it felt so good that I decided to go for a shower.

After a long shower, I stepped back into my room. It was barely five in the morning, but I didn’t want to go back to sleep, I couldn’t dream again tonight. Throwing on some jeans and a new shirt, I grabbed my iPod and then headed out of the room. As I opened the door to my hotel suite, I stopped short as Mike looked up at me with wide eyes.

“Annabelle? Is everything okay?” he asked, frowning down at my fully dressed body.

I nodded, sidestepping him and heading for the elevator. “Fine. I’m just going for a walk. I won’t leave the hotel, don’t worry.” I waved my hand over my shoulder dismissively.

He made a kind of scoff sound in the back of his throat as he stepped to my side and reached out, pressing the call button for the elevator for me. “Not on your own, you’re not,” he stated flatly.

I didn’t bother to protest, I knew it was useless anyway. As soon as the elevator arrived and the heavy doors slid open, I slipped in and pressed the lobby button and tried to ignore him as he stepped in beside me.

Unfortunately for me, because of the early hour, the salon and spa were all shut, so the only thing I could do was sit in the lobby and have a drink while Mike went to stand against the wall about twenty feet from me.