“That is what I’m marrying,” Vincent said.
Humiliation scorched my face. My eyes stung; I blinked hard. I wanted to scream I loved him. Apart of me that grieved for months didn’t want to give up on him. As if I still knew him.
“That’s not a marriage,” I whispered. “That’s theft.”
“It’s enforcement. Marcellus doesn’t get a back door into Villain. Your father doesn’t get to gamble my city as collateral. The sovereign families don’t get to watch us tolerate it.”
“Vince—” The name slipped out, reflexive, ruined.
His eyes flashed, sharp and dangerous. “Vincent.”
I ignored the correction because grief made people stupid.
“Vince, please. Remember you lov?—”
His palm slammed down onto the table.
I flinched hard enough that my chair jutted back an inch.
Instinct shoved me closer to Uncle Zeke, like his shoulder could shield me from Vincent’s rage.
“You’ve been warned. Repeatedly. Stay silent.”
I nodded so quickly I was embarrassed.
His eyes were so cold, so unlike the ones I’d lost myself in, that for a moment the room faded and I saw another one—another table, another argument, another slammed hand and another command to be quiet.
He’d told me then that I would never sit across from him and see his wrath. That he was a monster in rooms like this, and I would never be put in front of that monster.
And yet here we were.
It wasn’t the dynasties that were being humiliated it was me. I flickered a look at Nikolai then Vincent. Did he laugh with his brothers with what he could get me to do. Look at little desperate Madeline, begging for attention.
He told me he was bored. Translation. I got everything from you. There was nothing left for you to give. Me. Nothing left to laugh about with my brothers.
“You have options. You can sign, attend the appointment, and walk into this with what dignity you have left. Or you can run. Then I make it expensive. For everyone who shares your blood.”
I stared at him.
I’d been stupid enough to mistake possession for protection.
The man I had loved—the one who made me eat, made me rest, made me feel like I mattered—had never existed outside the fantasy in my head. The creature in front of me was real.
I took in the smell of the room. The shine of the table. Everything. I made it sharp, made it strong.
Because I would never let myself forget who he was.
I wanted to imprint this moment on me. So the next time I smelt his cologne, I recalled who he really was. A fucking monster.
The Vince I loved had been a story I told myself about a man who liked control.
Nothing more than an over controlling dom I’d mistaken for love.
Never again.
51
Madeline
