Page 138 of Outcast’s Vow

SYLVIE

“I told you, next time I won’t hold back.”

That’s all Baptiste snarls as he tightens his grip around Ethan’s neck, his voice rippling with a single-minded and unwavering savagery.

My ex is squirming on the floor of the mansion, eyes bulging out of their sockets, with my husband – former husband – pinning him down with no chance of escape. Baptiste is unrelenting. He’s choking him with all his strength, forearm veins popping under a black shirt. He’s in all-black – black athletic shorts, black sneakers. Fitted for combat.

Ethan never stood a chance.

“Baptiste!”

And with my piercing scream, the entire room finally reacts.

It takes five men to pull Baptiste back from Ethan. Five. And still he struggles against their grip like a man possessed, almost breaking free to continue his attack, but his captors lock down harder. His muscles strain against his shirt. His wrath burns bright like an all-consuming sun.

He’s here. He’s not gone.

Ethan, curled on the ground, now no longer choking, starts crying. I would be helping him – pitying him – if he hadn’t just called me a whore. Instead, I just stand here and look down at Ethan as he sobs in self-misery and Baptiste roars against the strength of five men.

“Take him away. Chain him up. We’ll deal with him.”

It’s Leopold. He emerges into the space between Ethan and Baptiste like a gliding ghost, so calm in the middle of this storm, nostrils flared and eyes wide. Only now are people in the room actually reacting to what’s happened.

Cromwell is standing further back from the commotion with dark eyes, watching, waiting to see what happens next. My father, surrounded by the other Elders, is letting this play out. The Supreme Elder does not need to say anything. Leopold has it covered.

It takes all their power, but the men manage to pull Baptiste back. No matter what he does now, the Castaways have him. They’ll take him to a deep room in this mansion and make him truly disappear.

He lost. He might’ve punched Ethan, and he might’ve impossibly fought his way into the building, but he didn’t fulfill what he came here to do. Save me from the system. Save me from the Order.

And the Castaways will do what they always do.

But not if I can stop them.

“Wait...”

Leopold turns to me. So does Baptiste.

A silence falls in the room.

“Don’t hurt him,” I mutter. “Not Baptiste.”

Leopold shakes his head.

“It’s too late, Miss Levine. Both you and Mr. Tremblay have dug your graves, and now you both must lie in them.”

“There’s a killer on the loose, and this is what you’re focusing on?”

“You’ve done enough damage to our Order, Miss Levine. Time for you to close your mouth.”

“You’re going to marry that man?” my husband says at me through the arms of five men, ignoring Leopold. “You’re going to marry the man who cheated and hurt you?”

It’s not a question. It’s a statement of pure disbelief.

And I am crying. Not because of what’s happened to Ethan, but because I feel like I have failed Baptiste. I’m not the girl he thought I was. I wasn’t strong enough to resist my father. I was going to marry the man who cheated and hurt me.

I gave in.

“I have no choice,” I reply through tears. “You left. You disappeared. What else was I supposed to do, Baptiste? You abandoned me.”