Page 124 of Deliria

“R-Rafe?” Her voice shakes as she says my name, like it’s a question but also a sharp realization, a brush with something discomforting.

It cuts deeper than it should, but I quickly shove that feeling aside. I’m not here for her sympathy. There’s no room for feelings in what needs doing.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, voice stronger now but laced with confusion as she tries to sit up. “Where’s Alex?”

“He’s on a little excursion,” I reply as casually as I can, leaning back in my chair, arms crossed over my chest to keep from betraying any more of myself. I don’t need her knowing everything that’s going on inside my head. Not now, not ever. “I made sure of it. He won’t be back for a while.”

Her frown deepens, a shadow of suspicion settling over her delicate features. “You, you sent him away?”

“Think of it as... orchestrating a little time alone.” I watch her, watch as she processes my words, but it’s not the cool distance in her eyes that bothers me. It’s the faint flicker of understanding, the way her body tenses as though she’s waiting for something. Something dangerous. “There arethings we need to talk about, Scarlett. Things he hasn’t told you.”

She exhales slowly, almost painfully, and her fingers brush over the diamond on her ring finger absentmindedly like she can’t quite fathom how it got there. “What things?”

I take a moment, trying to find the right response, but there’s no easy way to say it. I’ve been running this conversation over in my head for days now, but it still feels like pulling teeth, like trying to force a car through thick mud. “You don’t have amnesia. You’re not sick, at least not beyond your physical injuries.”

Her eyes snap to mine, sharp, clear. Suspicious. “What are you talking about?”

“Alexander wants you to believe you’re missing time, that your memories are gone. But they’re not.” I lean forward, elbows resting on my knees, dropping my voice, hoping to express the urgency of it. “Scarlett, he’s been drugging you. For weeks now.”

The air feels brittle between us, fragile, like one more word could shatter everything. She shakes her head slowly, unconvinced. “No, no, he wouldn’t…”

“Yes, he would. And he has.” I state, ignoring the edge to my tone. There’s no way to soften this, no way to sugarcoat it. “You didn’t forget anything. You remember just fine when you’re not drugged up to your eyeballs.”

The words are met with silence. Her breathing, rapid moments ago, almost halts. I had expected her usual defiance, the whip-smart retorts that tangled my mind in knots on more than one occasion. Instead, there’s just... stillness. Silence.

Until there isn’t.

Sebastian’s name falls from her lips like the sharp cut of a blade.

“My brother.” It’s not a question but a demand, her voice breaking on the last syllable. The memories are there now, awake and coiled. I can see it in her eyes, the way they darken, harden with waves of fresh realization.

I feel the heat rising in her, simmering just beneath that broken exterior in a way I should have known it would. She’s not a woman that shatters without fighting back. I can see the storm about to lash out, and I’m walking directly into it.

“What happened to my brother, Rafe?” Her words are an accusation, a demand for the truth that I wish I didn’t know how to say. I swallow thickly, unable to meet her full gaze for a few seconds longer than necessary. She’s a woman who can unnerve you even from a hospital bed, with broken ribs and sedatives dulling her defiance, but not destroying it entirely.

I have to tell her this. I have to be honest. To carve out another piece of her heart and bury the knife in the hollow space that remains.

“Alexander didn’t just drug you to keep you compliant, Scarlett. He did something worse.” I pause. She deserves to know, but the thought of telling her rips me apart. “Your brother, Sebastian, he tried to help. The reason you were in that accident in the first place? He wanted to get you away from Alexander. You were both trying to escape him.”

She stiffens. Her frown turns dark and dangerous, like a wild thing cornered. “Where is he now?”

Gritting my teeth, I force myself to say it, because she must understand the gravity of it all. “Sebastian is dead.”

There it is, the shock I’d been dreading. It hits her hard, punching the air from her lungs, and I see the precise moment her spirit cracks under the weight of it. She sits frozen for a long moment, as if time itself has abandoned her. Her lower lip trembles, and for a brief, fragile second, she looks like a girl lost in a world so much larger than she ever imagined it could be.

I expect her to sob. To collapse under the shock. I wouldn’t blame her for it. Only, she doesn’t. The tears well up in her eyes, but she wipes them away with shaking fingers, her face quickly rearranging itself.

“He’s dead.” she whispers, the words meant more for herself than for me.

“Yes,” I reply, forcing myself not to reach out, not to touch her. “I’m so sorry.”

My apology lands flat between us. There’s no way for me to resolve this or undo what my family, what my brother, has done. She folds over slightly in the bed, her hands clutching at her sides as if she can physically hold herself together, as if the weight of what I’ve just told her is going to tear her apart from the inside. For a moment, there’s silence, nothing to fill it but the shallow rasp of her breathing and the soft beep of the heart monitor attached to her.

“Why?” she whispers after what feels like an eternity, her voice raw with the weight of her sorrow. “Why would he... why would Alex do that?”

I swallow, bitter bile rising up in my throat. “You know why, Scarlett. He wants what your father stole from us. He wants it all and you’re the key to getting it back. I’d warned you about Alexander, I warned you that he knew who you really are. Your brother was trying to get you away.” I look down at my hands and realize they’re shaking just a little. I clench them into fists, trying to keep my own emotions at bay. Like fuck my anger will help her now. If anything, it might scare her more, and I don’t want that. “He had his men run your car off the road to make sure neither of you would ever leave him.”

Her breath catches, a ragged sound tearing from her chest. She’s not crying, not openly, but there’s a well of grief building inside her, one I can see threatening to overflow. Her lips pressinto a tight line, and when she speaks, her voice is sharper this time, colder.

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