Fourth Debt (Indebted #5)(73)

I continued to stare blankly.

Take what you want.

I no longer cared.

“Marquise, hold up his hand,” Bonnie ordered.

Marquise spun V around to face away and splayed his fingers. I glanced at the swollen blue digits from being tied so tightly. My own fingers felt the same—numb and dying from lack of blood.

“Hair or his finger, Nila. That’s the deal.”

His voice sliced like a sickle through my blankness. But I didn’t move.

Daniel vibrated with anger. “Hair or finger, bitch.” He gnashed the shears together. “One or the other. You have ten seconds to decide.”

I didn’t need ten seconds.

I already knew my decision.

I wasn’t vain enough or alive enough to care.

“Hair. Take my hair.”

Daniel scowled. “Where’s your fight gone? You’re being a f*cking wet fish.”

I found a magic in ignoring him.

He couldn’t torment me anymore.

None of them could.

I didn’t think about Jethro or Jasmine or home. I didn’t think at all. About anything.

Prowling behind me, he gathered my hair in his fist. “You have such beautiful hair. Last chance to change your mind, Weaver.”

My voice held no fear or objection. If my tone were a colour, it would be colourless. “Do whatever you want.”

I’d never cut my hair.

Ever.

It was a stupid reason but one I’d done for my mother. She’d loved to play with it. To plait it, thread it with flowers and ribbon—show me off as her little princess.

That was my last remaining memory of her, and Daniel had stolen that, too.

“Gonna slice every strand off your head,” Daniel promised. His touch tugged on my hair, twining it into a rope. “Ready to say goodbye?”

My heart didn’t hurry. My eyes didn’t burn.

“Don’t f*cking answer me. See if I care.” Daniel’s fingers yanked harder and the rusty yawn of the scissors bled through my ears.

My eyes closed as the first snip turned me into a stranger.

Physically, I couldn’t feel pain, but spiritually, I howled in anguish. It hurt. It hurt so so much to have such a poignant piece of me stolen without fighting, without screaming, without protecting what made me me.

The second snip broke me.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

The third snip destroyed me.

Stop, stop, stop…

The fourth snip completely annihilated me.

I have nothing left.

“Can’t tell you how satisfying this is.” Daniel laughed, cutting with no finesse, hacking through the thick black strands.

I was alone in this.

Alone and shorn like some animal for slaughter.

All I could do was mourn silently.

Snip, snip, snip.

My curtain of ebony hair disappeared with every scissor-slice. Cascades of thick blackness puddled, devastated and dead, on the blood-red rug. I’d given up the last part of me—the final toll for my brother’s freedom.

I’m doing it for him, for love, for family, for hope.

I said goodbye.

To my youth.

To my childhood.

Snip, snip, snip…

This was the end.

Snip, snip, snip…

It was over.





I BECAME SOMEONE I never knew I was capable of.

A monster.

An avenger.

The hero I needed to be.

Nobody would touch her again.

Not me.

Not my family.

Not even pain itself.

I stepped onto Hawksridge land. My land. My legacy.

I’m here for you, Nila.

I’ll fix this.

I just hoped I wasn’t too late.





SLEEP.

It was the only peace I got these days.

Peace from my fracturing soul. Peace from breaking.

They’d won.

They’d finally broken me. Finally proven that no one had unlimited resources to remain strong. That we all break eventually.

I wasn’t proud of myself.

I hated that I’d lost.

But at least Vaughn was safe. At least I’d done right by him.

I had no weapons to defend myself. No energy to push aside the dresser and protect myself. My belief that I could ruin them disappeared into dust.

Nothing mattered anymore.

I was theirs to do with what they wanted. And my heart was officially empty.

My reflection in the bathroom mirror showed a terrifying transformation. Hollows existed in my cheeks, shadows ringed my eyes, and the blood on my chest glowed with crimson fire.

But it was my missing hair that hurt the most.

Ragged and shorn, my glossy black strands were now in tatters. They hung over my ears, all different lengths, hacked into dysfunction by Daniel’s sheers. I no longer looked like Nila Weaver, daughter of Tex, sister to Vaughn, empress to a company worth millions. I looked like a runaway, a slave, a girl who’d seen death and no longer existed with the living.

I look ready to pay the Final Debt.

I feel ready to pay the final price.

There was no power left inside me.

Staring into my black eyes, I shivered at my listlessness.

They didn’t even let me say goodbye.

The moment the last strand hit the floor, Marquise had marched Vaughn from the room without a backward glance. I’d never seen V so wild or so helpless.