Chapter 42

What worried him was that none of those events were strong or traumatic enough to try and pull him in. What hell had she endured to make those instances mild by comparison?

Almost before he finished the thought, he was violently consumed by another memory.

The leering face staring down at him was twisted in a sneer, but the light in the maniac’s eyes, the sadistic thrill that gleamed in the haunting darkness, made him physically ill.

In this memory, Livia was a woman, yet the body he inhabited lacked the womanly shape she had now, telling him she was late teens, perhaps early twenties at most.

Heart pounding in his chest, he writhed against the ground trying to free his arms from the thick manacles shackling him to the floor. Feet similarly trussed, he was spread out in all directions, vulnerably on display and at the bastard's mercy.

Tears slid down his cheeks to wet the makeshift, dirty rag that had been shoved into his mouth to muffle his cries of agony as