Page 45 of Prince of Wrath

“You really want to be there?” he asks, but it sounds like a fact sinking in with difficulty. “It’s a masquerade ball. You’ll have to disguise yourself, sweetheart. I’m not taking any chances on anyone recognizing you.”

“It’ll be fine, really,” I lie, wanting the sweet relief of closure perhaps more than I fear the sheer brutality of my stubbornness.

“If we do this, if something happens to you…” His eyes turn glossy, and I reach for him, both hands around his neck, nudging my nose against his and letting a featherlight kiss take his worries away. His pupils dilate, the other side of him coming alive, afraid and primal, leaking through as he crushes his lips to mine, deepening the kiss until we are nothing but chaos made of breath and the sound of fabric being tugged.

And one more time, like the other night, without expecting anything in return, or perhaps because he finds satisfaction in leading me to heaven, he sets me on a bench that still has round, heavy weights near it on the floor, the surface just wide enough for my back to lie down. He kneels before me as I close my eyes. Metal clinks.

“Wait,” he mutters. I hear a weight or a metal bar meet the ground. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he blurts out, like he forgot something was in the way and only nudged it aside. Metal. metal. That sound. So similar to the door opening in my cell.

Hose, moldy food, floor, cold so cold, beg, cry, sleep, repeat.

I snap my fingers several times to catch his attention as I push back, slipping off the bench, and rushing to the opposite corner of the room, behind the weights and the treadmill. Sliding down the wall, I curl my knees under my chin and press the side of my body to the wall. Hiding my head, I roll into a fetal position, or perhaps the shape of an animal trying desperately to protect itself from inevitable danger. Eyes close. If I cannot see it, then it cannot see me. Danger. This half-alive, half-human thing, shadowing me everywhere I go, into the hidden rooms of my subconscious, into the most intimate parts of my life, where I should be free from it.

Light footsteps come toward me, unrushed, stopping a meter away.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, but I hear in his voice the pain he wishes he could carry on his own. “I’m sorry, I rushed you. I didn’t mean to…” I shake my head, lifting my face from the makeshift hiding place between my chest and knees.

“Metal,” I sign, hoping he will catch on to the crumbs of explanation.

“Shit. I should’ve…” He exhales sharply, running his fingers in his perfect dark hair. “I should’ve known.” He curses, angry at himself for something he did not do. “Ella, I… No matter what’s going on in your head right now, I hope you know. I hope you know how much I…” His voice catches. “I love you. And we’ll find a way for you to get better. With time, sweetheart. With time, it’ll get better.” I tug at his hand, and he falls back on his heels as I nestle into his chest, clinging to his neck, hiding in the safety of his skin, daring a small, teary brush of my lips against his shoulder.

“I love you too,” I say against his skin. But he does not see it. He does not hear it. And still, I hope he knows that with every day that passes, I am trying my best. That this hell that has been my life is slowly, slowly becoming my past. I guess time is all I have now. To learn that I can become someone else, and that I do not have to remain this version of myself forever.

In two days, I will get closure.

In two days, my life will forever change.

Chapter Thirteen

Tristan

In the book of how to be a decent human being, which I truly wish existed, there is no chapter on how to tell the love of your life that her dad has been poisoned by her stepmother for the last two years. Ella suspected it, and her dad’s nurse did too, but suspicion was not enough to build a case. So I paid for every specialist available in the city to find tangible proof of Mara Brooks’s involvement. Now a thin sheet of paper with numbers and percentages and substance names I can hardly pronounce is resting in my hand, the last line indisputable, confirmed by a renowned drug specialist: Subject suffers severe injection-related complications from repeated exposure to a paralysing drug. From the amount present in the patient’s blood, it is most likely the poison has been injected daily for at least the last two years. Two years and hundreds of milliliters of poison later, causing bone atrophy and irreversible full-body paralysis, this is all we have now. The lab report came back an hour ago, and since Ella had asked me to read it before she did–a request I deeply regret now that it has confirmed the worst, I have to stand here and watch my woman discover the horror that had been happening in plain sight in her home for years.

We are only a few hours away from the ball tonight, and she is wearing nothing but silky shorts and one of my large T-shirts that basically turns into a makeshift dress on her. Barefoot, she runs her fingers over the roses in the garden, fighting off the cold despite my reluctance toward her sweet escape this morning as I watch her from the heated living room. She glances over her shoulder, catching my attention with a sweet smile that would make any man fall to his knees.

Today shines differently, as if the sky decided we had endured enough rain and that sunshine would do her good before tonight. She comes back inside, and I wait a minute until I hear her footsteps behind me.

Paper in hand, I stand near the window, already in my suit and ready to spend the rest of the day fixing, hiring, buying back shares, and doing press conferences I hate in pursuit of this everlasting rebuild of the Ashford empire. Tonight, I intend to use my last card with investors and peers, making sure it is hammered into everyone’s skull that we are standing tall, ready to do business. But first, I have to break her heart again.

“Ella,” I call. A strand of hair crosses her face. I tuck it behind her ear, her breathing quickening as I get closer. Since no words can express the fury and injustice of what happened to her father, all I do is hand her the report and stand next to her. If I could be the one getting hurt instead of her, I would. I really would. A silent gasp escapes her lips as she crushes the sheet in her palm. Then she unfolds it in panic.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got copies,” I murmur. She grips the paper again until it disappears inside her fist. Shutting her eyes hard, she looks at me with a determination I have never seen from her before, then signs abruptly.

“Will it be enough to make her…fall?” she asks, her jaw shaky.

“Let’s say she won’t ever be able to do business or show her face in this city again. I can send it to the press, and you’d have a front seat to her public downfall.”

“I… It’s so harsh.” Guilt grips her, and for a moment, I find one single inconvenience to her good nature: her ability to give mercy to evil. “I’ll give her one last chance, but if she comes for me, then I won’t have another choice but to use this.”

“One last–what about what she did to you? You’ll really let her go like that?”

“I think…” She looks at the rose bushes outside. “Hurting people…hurt people, and one day, I’ll be a mother, I hope. And that day, I want to know all this violence ended with me.” My eyes soften as I picture her pregnant, but I also register her words, the fact that she is picturing more to life than her recovery.

“So you’re…thinking of the future.” She nods.

“With you, if…if it’s not too bold to say. And if it’s not too bold to assume we’ll both be alive after tonight.” My lips press into a hard line, and I give her a nod. I am standing with both feet in the same boat as her, aiming straight at a storm, and there are no words that could prevent what will unfold tonight. Nothing is in our control but us. All I can do is stay by her side and hope I can do so for the rest of the time we have. And if I do not make it tonight, at least I will know I did everything in my power, until my last breath, to give her the life she wants. To study, laugh, work wherever she pleases, get her father the best care until the end, and to inherit everything I spent my lifetime building. All while refraining from saying that I will make sure her stepmother pays for what she did, along with everyone else involved, because her heart is too good for this world, and givers need protectors. So I’ll be hers. Sliding my hand to the small of her back, I feel her breath catch.

“We’ll go to the ball and come back home right after,” I declare, trying to add reassurance to something we both have so little control over. After kissing her soft lips and deepening the kiss for a minute, as she rises onto her tiptoes and my palm finds her hair, catching her off guard, I excuse myself to call my lawyer in my office, leaving her panting, her mouth dangerously sanguine. Once in my office, I make sure everything in my will is in order in case something happens tonight. If I do not make it tonight, at least I will know I left the love of my life everything I could to start over.