I couldn’t breathe. The oxygen in the room felt toxic, my lungs burning with each desperate inhale. The scene before mewas worse than any nightmare, and yet I couldn’t wake up from it.
Alaric remained near the bar, even as we turned the corner. His eyes, those beautiful, piercing eyes that had made promises I’d been foolish enough to believe—were locked on us with something dark and another emotion in them I couldn’t decipher.
The door burst open. Cassian stood there, chest heaving, taking in everything at once, trembling in Santos’ grip, Coraline’s bloodied form on the floor, his brother’s frozen stance.
“Jesus shit Christ, what happened?” His voice cut through the room as the door slammed behind him.
Santos guided me toward the elevator, his arm a vise around my waist, his other hand steadying my shoulder like I might shatter at any moment.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When the doors sealed us inside, Santos slammed the emergency stop with enough force to make the metal panel shudder. The elevator lurched to a halt, its mechanical hum fading to silence.
I stared down at my hands. Coraline’s hair twisted between my fingers. My knuckles were split open, blood seeping from wounds I couldn’t remember receiving. The second my breath caught, Santos pulled me against his chest.
“How could he do this to me?” My voice sounded foreign in my own ears—high, reedy, trembling at the edges. Heat flooded my face as I recognized the pathetic cliché I’d become: the betrayed wife, shattered and small, asking the same question every woman before me had choked out through tears and rage.
I could barely form the words. “She braided my hair. She brought me birthday gifts. She—“ My throat closed around the memory of Coraline’s perfume, the way she’d squeeze my shoulder when I was upset.
Santos’s arms became a fortress around me. “I know, El.”
“For how long has she—“ The question died, too painful to finish.
His cheek pressed against my crown, his silence an answer in itself. No platitudes, no empty comfort.
“This rage you feel?” His voice rumbled against my ear. “You’ve earned every drop of it.”
My fingertips dug into my temples until I felt bone beneath skin. As if pressure alone could keep my skull from fracturing. “I remade myself for him. I gave everything. I loved him completely.”
The center of my chest collapsed inward.
“What more could I have possibly given?”
A sound tore from my chest—half-sob, half-scream.
Santos didn’t flinch. “You weremorethan enough,” he said fiercely. “You are enough, El. This wasn’t because of anything you did. It was her. And it was him being a fucking fool.”
“He ruin us.”
“And he’ll pay for it,” Santos promised, each word a vow.
My body quaked, lungs struggling to remember their purpose. Alaric had taken me apart piece by piece. I’d spent my entire life armoring myself—spine straight, eyes dry, heart guarded, only for it to dissolve under his persistent warmth, his relentless insistence that I could be vulnerable with him.
I’d embraced being a Kostas. I’d turned my back on being a Darzi. I’d become someone new in his hands, believing I was finally safe enough to discover who I truly was.
Now I knew it wasn’t him who was the fool, but me.
“Let me take you home,” Santos implored quietly, his voice a rough whisper against the sterile hum of the elevator. “To Nikolai.”
I managed a nod, feeling my neck muscles strain with even this small movement.
His hand reached for the emergency button. The elevator lurched back to life with a mechanical groan, but his grip remained around my waist. The quiet between us felt like another betrayal, heavy and suffocating as a wool blanket in summer.
“Did you know?”
Santos froze, his broad shoulders tensing beneath the charcoal wool of his suit jacket, the fabric straining across his back. His hands found my shoulders, calloused thumbs pressing into the hollows above my collarbone.
“Look at me, El.”