“And that you didn’t attack Leo with the fork.”

Leo. That was the other man’s name. What was Death’s name? And why the fuck was he wearing that mask again? It worked as a barrier, shielding him from me, keeping him separate from me. And looking at it terrified me.

“I don’t like the mask,” I said, my voice coming out small.

“Don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

He unbuckled his belt and pulled it through the loops, holding it like he had that night he’d whipped me, with the buckle in his palm. He then raised his other hand and curled his finger, motioning for me to go to him.

“Kneel.” He pointed to the spot by his feet.

I watched him, beginning to tremble, unable to take my eyes off that terrible mask.

“Gia.”

“Take it off. Please, take it off.” I gripped the rungs of the headboard when he placed one knee on the bed as if he were going to come get me. “Please, just take it off.”

In an instant, he was on the bed, one hand fisting my hair and dragging me off and toward the floor.

“I said fucking kneel!” he roared.

I cowered at his feet, covering my ears as best as I could with my wrists still bound together, my heart hammering against my chest, tears spilling down my cheeks, screaming at the searing burn of the belt across my ass.

“When I say kneel, you fucking kneel!”

He lashed me twice more, his anger a palpable thing, his rage so real, so fucking terrifying, I did more than kneel. I crouched down at his feet, my forehead on the floor, then on his boot. I knew he was punishing me not only for disobeying his first command to kneel, but for the last time he was here, for what had happened then, for how he’d left, for his having stayed away. He was punishing me for his own weakness, his own sin.

When he stepped back, I kept my head down, whimpering, my chest heaving with heavy breath, my back and ass throbbing with the lashes he’d delivered.

“Up on hands and knees.”

I obeyed, moving as quickly as I could, not earning a stroke this time. He took two more steps away.

“Crawl to me.”

I did, I crawled. I covered the space clumsily with my hands bound, all of my limbs trembling, and when I reached him, he took another two steps back, then another, taking me in circles around the room.

“Now bend over the edge of the bed.”

“Please don’t whip me anymore. I’m doing as I’m told. Please.”

“You’re not doing as you’re told now, are you?”