Scarred Regrets (Bellandi Crime Syndicate 5)

Idropped my purse on the kitchen counter, blinking at it when it tipped over and the contents spilled all over the white marble. My signature red lipstick rolled across the surface, falling to the floor with a small thump on the other end.

I turned away, heading for my bedroom. Stripping off my clothes and quickly pulling on a comfortable nightgown, I moved through the room in the numb trance that had settled over me after Scar’s rejection, after the stinging implication that I’d made myself a whore for him to use.

By trying to be there for him in the way he wouldn’t admit he needed, I’d opened myself up to the heartbreak that came from being nothing. Nothing more than live porn for his entertainment.

I pulled the sleeping pills out of the top drawer of my nightstand as I dropped onto the edge of the bed. Twisting the cap open, I shook two out onto my hand and popped them into my mouth. Swallowing them dry without any difficulty, I returned the bottle to the nightstand and settled back against the pillows.

I didn’t bother to get under the covers, instead staring down at the faint scars on my thighs and running my nails over the sensitive skin. The urge to add to the marks was almost overwhelming, making my fingers twitch with the desire to reach for the knife I kept in the nightstand drawer for the nights when the emptiness became too much.

When even sleep couldn’t seem to shake off that hollow feeling inside me.

Scar’s demand that I go to him when I needed the pain only added to the desire, the reality of that little lie sliding over my skin and making me feel dirty. He knew my darkest truths. He’d used them to make me think there could be something in the future, if he cared enough to keep me from cutting my skin. Knowing it was nothing…that deception hurt worst of all.

It was a reminder that men lied and used, a reminder that they hurt and they took. That at the end of the day, they were all the same.

Just looking for another way to get off.

I dropped my head back to the pillow as my hand wandered to the nightstand drawer, pulling the knife free and switching open the blade. I raised it to my face, running my fingers along the smooth metal surface before I lifted my nightie further up my thighs.

The memory of Scar’s attention fixated on my pussy washed over me, encouraging me to spread my legs as I ran the tip of the knife over the sensitive skin of the scars. Sliding it around to the inside of my thigh, I pressed down just hard enough to draw a small line of blood.

The burn of the cut made me hiss, pushing back the numbness with the force of a wrecking ball. With it came the pain I’d neglected to feel, the agony of mattering so little.

But at least I wasn’t numb. At least I knew I was alive.

It was ironic, to live in a way that I needed to bleed to remember I wasn’t a walking corpse. That I hadn’t risen from the dead without full cognitive and emotional functioning.

I tucked the knife away as tears stung my eyes and streamed down my face slowly. I leaned my head back onto the pillow further, relaxing into the blissful haze of my sleeping pills that would carry me away from this place where I would need to continue to cut myself in order to feel.

I wasn’t the perfect princess everyone thought they saw when they looked at me. I was nothing more than a broken shell of a woman who was so emotionally fragile, one rejection drove me to medication and self-harm.

But at least I wasn’t numb.