Chapter 18 Dancing With My Monster

• Xandros's sick, mind-gnawing madness wasted no time in making me pay for a single sentence I'd uttered to Ian. The moment I spoke to Ian, the moment I told him about my childhood dreams and said, "I don't want bloodshed on our wedding day," Xandros imprisoned me in that exile in the deepest, darkest room of this mansion, that luxurious dungeon with iron bars he called the "golden cage."
• The muffled, brutal sounds of pounding and Ian's agonizing groans echoed off the walls of the room. Xandros was beating him with the butt of his own gun, perhaps trying to keep his obsessive promise not to kill him, but he wasn't compromising on the brutality of the execution. The horrific sounds of bones breaking from the corridor made my fingers tremble as I gripped the iron bars, while I listened to Xandros's guttural, poisonous whispers from outside.
• "That doesn't mean you can't have a near-death experience, you bastard!" "This is the price of approaching what is mine, of making her dream of transatlantic dreams. I must introduce her to a hell where she will not give her breath to anyone but me..." Xandros roared outside, amidst Ian's groans.