Page 124 of Maddening Fixation

A thin crimson line appeared before splitting open.

Blood welled instantly, bright against his pale skin, spilling over his fingers before falling onto the pristine white marble beneath our feet.

One drop.

Then another.

Then another.

Each one struck the floor with a sickening rhythm that seemed impossibly loud inside the hushed sanctuary.

Gasps rippled through the guests.

Several Bratva soldiers instinctively reached for concealed weapons before realizing Romeo wasn’t attacking anyone.

Not yet.

The priest stared in stunned disbelief.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

Romeo ignored him completely.

His eyes never left mine.

The hatred burning within them stole the breath from my lungs.

It wasn’t the sudden anger of a wounded man.

It was something older.

Something that had been festering for years.

When he finally spoke, his voice was almost quiet.

That somehow made it infinitely more terrifying.

“You selfish, worthless little thief.”

Every word landed with brutal precision.

The microphone, though no longer directly before him, still caught enough of his voice for every person in the church to hear.

“You are the reason that I cannot marry the woman who stood beside me while the rest of the world buried me.”

His chest rose sharply.

“The woman who carried me through the darkest years of my life. The woman who gave me a reason to survive prison.”

A painful knot formed in my throat.

He thought...

He still believed Yarina had been the one writing back to him while he was in prison.

She never read a single letter.

Not one.