**CHAPTER 9**

AVA'S POV

The silence after Lisa left was worse than the screaming.

I stood in the kitchen with my skirt still pushed up on one side and Marcus’s cum sliding down my thigh, staring at the door like she might walk back through it and take it all back. She didn’t. The rain kept falling. The house felt too big.

Marcus didn’t try to comfort me. He just looked at me for a long second, then said, “Go clean up.”

I didn’t move.

“Ava.”

“She hates me.”

“Yes.”

The way he said it — flat, unsurprised — made something ugly twist in my chest. I wanted him to...