The air stirred as he retreated. I heard the door slam shut, and he must have taken the lantern with him because the never-ending darkness came back. I pushed to my hands and knees, limbs quaking under my weight, and struggled to the cot.

I sprawled on that bed for hours, maybe even days, months…a whole fucking lifetime, and as I drifted in and out of consciousness, images of Nikki’s murder infiltrated my nightmares. So did Alex’s broken pleas for me to save her. I also dreamed of Cleft’s cock in my ass, the strong grip of fingers holding me down.

And the laughter. Always the fucking laughter.

Time passed in a jumbled mess of nightmares that never failed to spring me up from bed, drenched in sweat and shaking to my bones. I was pathetic. I couldn’t even protect the woman I loved.

I loved Alex.

Fuck.

I’d never told her.

I’d also loved Nikki, maybe not in the same intense, out-of-my-fucking-mind way I did Alex, but I’d loved her.

Had I ever told her? Even once?

I’m pretty sure I hadn’t. I was a fucking pussy incapable of telling anyone how much they meant to me. I didn’t need a shrink to tell me I had abandonment issues. I could blame it all on my mom for leaving the way she had, but I was an adult, even if I’d grown into adulthood on the inside of four prison walls. Even if I didn’t remember that transformation, I was twenty-nine fucking years old.

So where did that leave me?

Alone, fucked, and about to die without having ever said those important three little words to anyone.

To my own son.

I held my breath, heart thudding so hard, I thought I might save Perrone the trouble of killing me.

I had a kid.

Nikki.

Holy fuck.

I gripped my head and squeezed my eyes shut. I remembered nothing else, but I knew it was true. She’d had a son, and he was mine.

And now he was motherless, about to be fatherless. But he’d been fatherless all along. I wasn’t fit to be a parent anyway. I wasn’t fit to be loved by Alex either.

Fucking dying down here was for the best.

Eventually, that door opened again, but I didn’t move or acknowledge whoever had ventured into this shithole. Part of me wished they’d just end this hell already.

“You here to kill me?” I asked, a challenge in my tone.