Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Madeleine
Numbers stare back at me from my laptop screen as I try to make sense of this quarter’s profits from the casino.
“It says we’re almost two million short from what was predicted, but how?” I ask aloud, tapping the tip of my pen against my chin in frustration.
It’s not like me to make such a massive error.
But maybe with the stress of my upcoming wedding, I let things slip by unnoticed. Or maybe I just wasn’t on my A-game.
Maybe if you had spent more time in your casino and less time fucking your bodyguard, you wouldn’t be having this issue…
I groan in frustration, slamming my laptop closed. I need to go to the casino and have a word with Angelo, our manager. If anyone knows what’s going on, it would be him. But he sees the numbers, too, so why hasn’t he called to inform me of this situation?
I quickly send Reginald a text to let him know my schedule for today before sliding my phone into my back pocket. As I walk up the stairs, I take the printed reports with me to skim through them.
“Eli,” I call out as I approach his doorway.
“I need to go to the casino.” There’s no answer.
“Eli?” I knock and wait for a response, but there’s no sound or movement on the other side of the door.
Hesitantly, I push it open and step inside.
I’m immediately hit with the familiar smell of cedar and spice.
A scent that wraps around every part of my soul, tantalizing my senses.
“Eli? Are you—” Right. I forgot he went to talk with my brothers. I rub my temple as stress builds behind my eyes.
It’s not as if he’s going to confess to them that he loves me or something… Right? No. No. Definitely not. I assume he’s just going to explain that it was all one big misunderstanding and that he was only being slightly overprotective because another man had put his hands on me.
And I’m certain they aren’t going to kill him.
Well, almost certain.
Curiosity piques my interest, and I step closer to the bed, running my fingers across the smooth comforter that’s perfectly fitted to the mattress. But, of course, it is.
Eli would never leave his bed unmade.
I’m sure that’s a bit of the military life that will forever be instilled into him.
I stop in front of the nightstand, drop my reports, and pick up the book that lies on top of it. I flip through the worn pages, noticing words like life after the military, relearning civilian life, and PTSD.
My chest constricts, and I absent-mindedly rub a hand over my sternum. The unknown of what he’s had to face over all these years makes my heart feel too heavy.
And just thinking about the burns on his back makes me see red.
It fills my veins with a need for violence and vengeance.
It makes me want to find the men who tortured him and kill them all with my bare hands.
I want to make them suffer. I want them to feel every ounce of pain that Eli had to endure. I want to—
I close my eyes and take a deep breath as I place the book down.
Eli will get his revenge.
Maybe not today or tomorrow.
But he will. I can feel it.
Opening my eyes, I look down at the drawer and grin as I begin to open it. “What secret sex toys are you hiding in—?” My words die on the tip of my tongue as the solo object that sits before me causes my heart to race faster than it should.
I pick up the black square box, holding it protectively in my hand as if it might jump and make a break for it.
This can’t be what I think it is…right?
I swallow hard as my fingers tuck between the opening and lift the cover to reveal…
My heart stops beating.
Everything around me blurs as I stare at an engagement ring.
A beautiful, delicate oval ring with a thin band covered in evenly spaced-out diamonds.
“It’s stunning,” I whisper in awe, envisioning this ring on my finger instead of the ghastly one currently residing in its place.
And then it hits me…
This ring is for someone.
Someone who isn’t me.
Swiftly, I drop the ring back in the drawer and slam it shut, my chest heaving as if I had just run a full-on marathon.
My knees shake, and a tremor travels through me, forcing me to sit on the side of the bed before I collapse to the floor.
As much as I would like to convince myself Eli got this for me, there’s just no way that he did. It’s not possible, and it wouldn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t get me an engagement ring, not when he knew I was engaged to someone else.
My heart feels as if it’s cracking, splitting forcefully in two.
He loves someone else.
I lie back on the bed, my palms pressing against my chest. My heart is beating so loudly that it drowns out everything else around me.
I turn to my side, burying my face into his pillow.
His familiar scent only makes my eyes blur with an onslaught of tears as my hand rubs over the ache in the center of my chest.
What did I expect?
For him to remain single for the rest of his life while I marry Alastor? Yes, I admit to myself selfishly.
I grip the pillow, curling into a fetal position.
But if he’s in love with someone else, why would he be sleeping with me? Was everything he said to me a bunch of lies to get what he wanted—revenge for me being engaged to another man? Why would he play with my heart and make me think there was ever a chance for us when there never was?
Because you’ve been doing the same thing to him.
“But I didn’t mean to,” I breathe out through tears, fighting back a sob that takes over my whole body from my head to my toes.
Anger begins to swirl with the sadness inside me, creating a ball of anxiety I can’t control.
How could he do this to me?
I signed over my life for his, even after that damn letter he sent me, the one I’ve been purposely trying so hard to forget about these past few weeks, the one with four words that were burned into my soul, and he does—
He doesn’t know what you did to save him.
“He doesn’t know, and he can never know,” I whisper, wiping away the tears that crawl down my cheeks.
I hide my face in my hands, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders becoming unbearable.
The only person I have a right to be mad at is myself.
But I wouldn’t change anything I did.
In fact, I’d do it all over again if it meant he gets to spend the rest of his life living while I spend the rest of mine surviving.
Because that’s what you do when you love someone: you sign your life over to the devil to save them from hell.