Page 97 of Broken By Silence
It’s a sickness that’s eaten me alive because shewasmine once. Not in a way that was right or fair, but in my head, she was mine and only mine.
Soft footsteps alertme that she’s here, but I don’t look up right away. The tap runs. A glass clinks.
I lift my head, and for a second, I just watch her. The way the low light wraps around her, the way her hair catches against her shoulder. She looks tired… not from the dance, but from everything else.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask, trying to keep my voice low.
Her head tilts slightly, “You either, apparently.”
I almost smile. “Not much rest for the damned, Lottie. I thought you knew that.”
It earns me a quiet exhale, that’s a half laugh. Her eyes meet mine, and I swear my chest forgets how to move.
Lottie Reyes.
Alive. Breathing. Sometimes I have to remind myself that she’s not a ghost, or a memory, not one of the hundreds of photographs I made myself sick over.
She’s right in front of me. I push away from the table and stand. “Come with me.”
Her brows draw together, but she doesn’t say no. I think she sees something in my face, the edge I’m trying to hide, the crack that’s been spreading since the moment she stepped back into my life.
I lead her down the hallway to my room. It’s darker here, quieter. The only light comes from the window. When the door shuts behind us, she crosses her arms, her chin tilting. “You want to let me know why you dragged me into your room?”
“I want you,” I start, but I hold up a hand before she can say anything else. “Not like that… not yet. I want you because you’reyou. You’re my wife, but I don’t deserve you. Not yet.”
“Elijah—”
“I’m serious, Lottie.” The words come out fast, tumbling over themselves, like I’ve been holding them for years. “I’ve done things you don’t know about. Things that would make you hate me if youknew, and how can I possibly ask you to forgive me with all these secrets?”
“Then tell me.”
I shake my head. “You’ll hate me, and I don’t know if I can handle that.”
“Maybe,” she says quietly, shrugging. “But I’d rather hate you for the truth than for what I’ve already imagined. It can’t be that bad.”
I laugh, but it’s humorless. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
For a moment,I can’t move.
Then, I reach for the hem of my shirt and pull it over my head. Her eyes drop to my chest, and she goes still.
There, inked across my skin, is her face. Not as we knew her before, but as somethingmore. Her eyes are covered with a blindfold, her mouth carved like fury, her hair like smoke.
Nemesis. The goddess of retribution and vengeance.
Her. Eternal. Untouchable. A reminder of why I took my father’s life.
She steps forward, hand hovering. “Is that?—”
“Yes, and no. It’s what I made of you,” I whisper. “What you became when I thought I’d lost you. I made you the goddess of revenge, because if I couldn’t have you, then I wanted to ruin everyone who stole you from me.”
“Elijah–”
“I had a plan for every single one, even Roman and Crew… myself. I bought your childhood home.”
All the words I never thought I would get to say break out of me before I can stop them.
She freezes. “What?”
