A dark chuckle slipped past my throat before I let the truth bleed out. “We did meet, Acelynn. Once.”
Her brows furrowed, confusion flickering through her grief.
“You were maybe eight. I was thirteen. It was at a club meeting at your family’s home.” My voice drifted, memories surfacing like ghosts. “I’d been begging my old man to let me sitin on a meeting, and he finally caved. But really? All it amounted to was me and your brother getting tossed out of the room so our fathers could talk behind closed doors.”
A faint shadow of a smile tugged at my lips, though it never reached my eyes. “But I remembered you. Even back then. You had this stubborn little fire in your eyes that reminded me of every trouble I wanted to start but couldn’t because my dad would have my ass scrubbing the bar floor with a toothbrush if he caught me. I couldn’t forget that night.”
I let the words hang there, heavy and unspoken. Because the truth was simple. I hadn’t just agreed to the marriage for business, for power, for some twisted idea of her safety. I’d agreed because deep down, I remembered the girl with fire in her eyes, and I’d been a fucking fool to think I could ever burn her out of my system.
The whizz of a football cut past my ear, close enough to clip the side of my head. Alec had overthrown the ball again by a mile. I rolled my eyes, biting back a curse. He couldn’t throw straight to save his damn life. With a sigh, I started jogging after it, only to stop short when a small hand lifted the football toward me.
“You are supposed to catch it when he throws it,” she quipped at me.
I just stared down at her in wonder. Her blonde hair was now pushed back in a plastic headband that was similar to the tweed skirt she had on. A matching jacket hung open, revealing a white blouse underneath. But what really caught my attention were her bright blue eyes. They matched Alec and his mother’s, but there was something about hers that seemed to stand out. Maybe it was the mischievous glint that shone brightly for me, but I knew that I would never forget them.
“Emersyn,” Alec’s scolding voice called out behind us. “You know you aren’t allowed to be out of your room when the clubs are here.”
“You’re not the boss of me, Alec,” she snapped at him, shooting him a fiery glare.
Alec shoved past me and towered over his younger sibling. Emersyn lifted her chin in defiance, challenging him to do something. I had to hold back a laugh as I watched the interaction. This girl would make a brilliant club president. Too bad for the fact that only men were ever patched into the clubs. Misogynistic bastards.
“Go in the house now,” Alec growled at her, his hand coming down to lightly shove her shoulder in that direction. She scoffed at him, which only angered the boy. “Now, Emersyn.”
Emersyn threw down the football, and it bounced a few times before landing directly in front of my feet. She crossed her arms over her chest, standing her ground against her older brother. He reached out this time with two hands and shoved her. The girl stumbled backward but didn’t fall over. I opened my mouth to say something, but the crack of Alec’s nose rang out over my words. Emersyn was shaking out her hand as Alec clutched his face in pain. She turned her gaze to me, shrugging lightly before making her way back into the house.
“I don’t remember that,” Acelynn whispered, voice so faint I almost thought she was speaking to herself. Her lashes were wet, eyes downcast as though she were afraid of what she might see if she looked too closely at me. “Why don’t I remember anything from my childhood that doesn’t include Alec being a great older brother?”
The question hit like a knife in the ribs. I dragged my tongue across my lips, searching for words I wasn’t sure she wanted to hear.
I murmured finally, my voice low, steady—like I could soften the truth if I kept it calm. “It could be your brain protecting you from reliving the trauma that occurred when you were young.”
Her brows pinched together, deep lines creasing the delicate space between them. She was clawing through the fog of her past, desperate for scraps of memory, but every time she reached too far, I could see the pain strike her.
“You said…interactions?” she asked, tentative, like a girl testing the ice of a frozen lake. I only nodded once. Her gaze drifted somewhere past me, inward, chasing shadows. Then, suddenly, like a spark catching dry kindling, her eyes lit. “The laundry chute.”
A ghost of a smile tugged at my lips. Of course she’d remember that. The one moment carved into both our childhoods. A memory I’d kept buried in the quiet corners of my mind. I gave her the smallest nod, confirmation without words. For a long heartbeat, she just looked at me. Really looked, like she was peeling back the years of heavy armor piece by piece. Her eyes, glazed with unshed tears, held mine with a weight that was almost unbearable.
“I’ll be your bargaining chip to get Astoria back since I am currently out of cards to play.” Acelynn’s words were a mere whisper. She held my gaze. “Logan is predictable. He will come for me sooner or later. Wait for my call, then try not to get killed when saving your sister.”
Then, slowly, Acelynn stepped back. Her hand found the door, pushing it open, the night air spilling in around her like an escape she wasn’t sure she wanted to take. I wanted to stop her. Wanted to drag her back into my arms and lock the door behind us. But my boots stayed planted, heavy with the truth of what I had done, what she had done. And how it was about to destroy us both.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
acelynn
A girl stared backat me through the glass of my back door. Her dark hair clung in wet strands to her face, rainwater dripping off the ends and bleeding into the neckline of her shirt. Mascara streaked down her cheeks in jagged lines, the ugly remains of tears that had long since dried. Her skin was pale, her lips chapped, her eyes hollow. She blinked once, slowly and mechanically, the way a doll might. No expression. No soul. I hated her.
A burning anger rose sharp and hot in the center of my chest, spreading until it felt like my ribcage might crack from the pressure. How could she be so calm when my entire life was falling apart yet again? Doesn’t she care at all? Hot, burning tears filled my eyes, and I swallowed a sob that threatened to escape me. How many more blows could a person take before they simply allowed the next one to take them out? How manymore times would I feel completely and utterly alone in this world?
Kaius’s words still echoed in my skull, cold and final. He had demanded I leave Lovelen, as if exile was the only mercy he could give me. I knew it was the right choice, for him, for me, for whatever fragile peace remained, but some dark, twisted part of my soul rebelled against it. That part of me wanted to stay. Wanted to fight him. Wanted to force his hand until he put me down like the traitor he believed I was.
The scream ripped free before I could stop it. It tore out of me raw and violent, slamming against the glass door and rebounding back through the room in sharp echoes. It sounded like someone else’s voice, animalistic and broken.
I spun, hands searching blindly for anything to throw. My fingers caught on the smooth neck of a white vase sitting pretty and useless with its bouquet of long-dead flowers. Without thinking, I hurled it. The porcelain smashed against the wall, exploding into glittering shards that rained down like angry stars.
Somewhere between the shattering and the silence, I blacked out. When I came to, I stood in the middle of a ruin. The once-perfect living room had become a war zone. Picture frames hung broken and askew, their glass teeth glinting in the low light. Canvases were ripped wide open, gaping wounds of fabric exposing drywall. Feathers drifted lazily around me, torn free from pillows I must have gutted in a frenzy, each one falling soft and weightless as if mocking the storm that had birthed them. Glass crunched beneath my boots, mingling with shards of fake fruit spilled across the floor.
The rage bled out of me all at once, leaving only the hollow ache. My knees buckled. The impact cracked through me, bone meeting hardwood with a sick crunch, but I barely felt it. My body toppled sideways onto my hip before curlinginward, instinct pulling me into the smallest shape I could make. Bringing my knees to tuck to my chest, my arms wrapped around them tight as I rocked back and forth like a child desperate to self-soothe.
