Page 129 of Shattered Souls
Squaring my shoulders, I push away from the door, bending to place my heels on the floor. I slide my feet into the shoes as I smooth out my wrinkled dress. I’d ducked into the bathroom to fix myself up after picking myself off the dining room floor before I put Aurora to bed. Only, neither it nor the time spentreading her a story did anything to abate the frenetic energy buzzing beneath my skin.
Since I didn’t manage to eat or drink during dinner, I stop by the kitchen and fill a glass of water before downing the entire thing. Setting it by the sink, I stare longingly at the block of butcher knives taunting me.
Too obvious.
Not that I would have anywhere to hide one where he wouldn’t find it.
Especially givenwhyI’m going to his room.
Shuddering, I force myself to turn my back on the knives and leave the kitchen.
Each step I take echoes through the dark, empty hallways of the mansion, the sound bouncing off the walls and amplifying the dread curling in my stomach. The air feels thick and suffocating, as if the house itself is aware of the terror brewing inside me. At this point, I’m pretty sure my fear is embedded in the walls.
The hallway is dark when I reach the top of the stairs and turn toward where the primary suite is located. The double doors loom ahead. I’ve never been inside the suite before. Never had a reason, never mind awantto peek into that room. One of the doors is slightly ajar, forming a slither of light that runs down the wall and across the floor.
The sight is deceptively inviting. So at odds with what waits beyond. My footsteps falter just outside the door. A blade is lodged in my chest, the pain sharp and foreboding, making it impossible to suck in a full breath.
The longer I stand there, the louder the silence becomes.
“Don’t keep me waiting, Riley.”
His voice cuts like a knife. I can feel it flaying me open.
With a last, futile inhale, I tuck whatever fragmented pieces of my sanity still exist back into the safe corner of my mind,along with thoughts of my guys and Aurora, and I reach for the door, as ready as I’ll ever be to face the horrors that await on the other side.
The smell of expensive cologne and something more sinister hits me first, flooding my mouth until I want to gag as I do a quick sweep of the room. It’s dimly lit, the bedside lamps casting a warm glow over a large, perfectly made bed.
At first, I think the room is empty. That perhaps he is in the bathroom, but a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye has me whirling in my heels. Cast in shadows, he sits like a king on his throne. Beady eyes trained on me, his arm resting on the arm of his straight-backed chair, a glass lined with an amber-colored liquid dangling from his fingers. He’s still dressed in the suit he was wearing at dinner. Not even his tie is loosened or top button undone.
For a long moment, we remain there. Him sitting. Me standing as we stare at each other from across the room. There’s something different about this time. Perhaps it’s the fact there’s a light on, no matter how dim, as opposed to the shadows he would sneak around in when he’d slip into my room in the middle of the night.
It could be that I’m inhisroom instead of him being in mine.
Or that it’s four years later, and regardless of my life choices—or perhaps because of them—I seem to have come full circle in some cruel twist of fate.
Have I been naively foolish all these years to believe I had a say in my future? For all I know, it would never have mattered what decisions I made in the last four years; I’d still have ended up right here. In this moment. In this room—with him.
Knocking back the last of his drink, he discards the glass on an end table before getting to his feet and stalking toward me. He doesn’t stop until the tips of his shoes touch the toes of my heels.
Reaching up, he toys with a strand of my hair, twisting it around his finger. “There’s my good girl. I knew you were still in there. Waiting for me, just like I’ve been waiting for you.”
His hands glide over my shoulders and down the backs of my arms as he eliminates the scant distance between us. My breasts brush against the front of his shirt, his cologne damn near suffocating me in its overwhelming stench. “Your hockey player doesn’t make you feel this.” There’s a snarl behind his words. “Or that tattooed thug.”
He’s vibrating with his rage… or maybe it’s me who's shaking as he wrenches my face up to his.
“Now there’sonlyme and you.”
“What about my mom?” As I said earlier, I don’t give two shits about that bitch, but I’m all about buying time, and if I have to talk about her to do it, then I will.
“We don’t need to worry about her anymore,” is Bertram’s vague response.
“Because she’s in Europe?” My gaze darts between his. There’s something benign about the way he dismissed my concern. Something more… permanent than Lydia simply being out of the country. “Right?”
Bringing his hands to my cheeks, he strokes his thumbs across them.
“There are no more obstacles standing in our way.” Another stroke of his thumbs. “I should never have married her, but I had to keep you close, you understand? Once I saw you, I couldn’t let you slip through my fingers. There was no other way…”
The lump in my throat solidifies.
