Page 48 of Broken By Silence
She stares at me like she doesn’t know whether to cry or scream.
And I know this is the moment. The one I’ve been holding like a live wire, waiting for it to burn me.
“There’s something else,” I say, quieter now. My hands shake, and I ball them into fists to hide it. “Something you need to know.”
They’reall watching me now.
Archer’s body is a coiled thing, practically vibrating with a fury he can’t shove down. Roman sits back like he’s got a front-row ticket to whatever mess I’m about to make of myself. Oscar’s face is pinched in the way it gets when he’s trying to put new facts into an old, broken map. Crew has gone quiet, elbows on his knees, the math already running behind his eyes—what this means, how it fractures alliances, what advantage it might hand someone.
But I look only at her.
Lottie sits with her hands folded in her lap, thumb and forefinger worrying the seam of her jeans. Her face is pale,the kind of white that isn’t just from shock. There’s exhaustion under it, and something raw, like a stitched wound that someone keeps picking at.
When I tell her what I did, I’m not asking for absolution. I don’t expect a gold star. I expect the room to break me open and for everyone to see the parts they already assumed were ugly.
I expect Archer to want blood.
Still.
She looks at me, and for a second, I forget the rest of the world. That look—part question, part accusation, part helpless child—cuts me through the gut in a way nothing else ever has.
“When you died or when we thought you died, there wasn’t a body,” I say. My voice is rough with sleep deprivation and whatever I’ve been swallowing for the last two years. “They found your shoes, your backpack. Nothing else. They said it looked like you’d been taken by the sea. They said you were gone, but I couldn’t let you be nothing. I couldn’t let the world file you away, put a number on your death, and carry on. You deserved more. You deserved a name… a place to rest. I wanted to be someone who would make sure that you didn’t get buried like you didn’t matter. I know I’ve said all of this before, but the idea that you… that all that would have been left of you was some waterlogged belongings… it drove me mad.”
She goes still. A desert still. Her mouth opens and closes without sound. “Elijah…”
That’s when I drop it. The thing that has been a lead weight in my chest for two years.
“So I married you.” I finally say, and it’s as if the room holds its breath. “Legally. I signed the papers. I paid someone to forge yours. Dates were filled out from before you died. I filed the forms. You were my wife, on paper. It gave me the power of next of kin. It gave me the right to decide how you were buried.”
Silence hits like a physical thing. Archer’s body snaps upright as if my words were a slap. Roman’s lips press together; there’s calculation in his expression now, like he’s tasting the advantage. Oscar looks like he’s going to kill me once Archer finishes signing everythingI’ve just said. Crew doesn’t move; he never does until he’s figured out where he stands.
“You what?” Archer snaps. “You married her? Without—what the hell, Elijah?”
“She was mine,” I say before I can stop myself. Possessive, ugly, the word tastes like something between prayer and confession. “She is mine. Even when she was gone, she was mine.”
“Bullshit,” Archer stands, and the room tilts. He steps toward me like he’s going to kill me. “You’re going to divorce her, and then stay the hell away from her.”
Roman cuts in, his voice sharp as a knife. “Hold up. Think for a second, Archer. Hear him out. Lorenzo’s not sentimental. He doesn’t want a wife because he loves her. He wants to own her… he wants an heir. If Lottie is married—legally married—he has something standing in the way of all of that.It protects her.”
Archer’s face twists. “So you want to gamble with her life on a legal technicality?” He growls, fists tight at his sides. “And you’d rather her be chained to him?” He jabs a finger toward me like I’m filth. “The son of the man who raped her?”
“I’m not him,” I bite out, my voice raw. “I killed him for her. I bled for her. I’ve done nothing but try to give her back pieces of her life.” My chest heaves, the words tearing free. “And I’ll keep doing it, whether you like it or not.”
Lottie’s hands tremble in her lap, her face white as paper, eyes wide and glassy as she stares at me.
Finally, her voice cuts through the chaos. Quiet. Shaking. “Elijah… why?”
And this time, I can’t stop the truth.
“Because you’re mine,” I whisper, the words trembling with both obsession and despair. “You always were, even when you hated me. Even when you were gone, and I’ll spend the rest of my life proving I deserve you. Or I’ll die trying.”
Crew’s voice is low as he shakes his head at me. “You married herwithout her consent. That’s—” He doesn’t finish. The ethical arguments are obvious.
It’s ugly.
“I know,” I respond. It’s the only honest answer I can give the room. “I know what it looks like. It looks like control. It looks like possession. And it’s both of those things. But it’s also a legal barrier.”
Archer takes a step forward until we’re inches apart. “She said she doesn’t want you in her life, Elijah. She didn’t consent to being your anchor, your property. You think because you killed your father that gives you the right to own her? You think because you bled for her, you can decide for her what she needs?”
