CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Adrian
I walked through the woods, my hands buried deep in my pockets, a low whistle escaping my lips. The sound was foreign even to my own ears, something I hadn’t done since I was a young boy. The forest floor was soft beneath my boots, the air crisp and clean, carrying the scent of pine and damp earth.
The night breeze was cool against my face, and the red haze of rage that had consumed me before had dissipated, revealing the forest around me in sharp clarity.
My soft whistling continued as I followed the tracks of my Dobermans in the mud, their paw prints distinctive and easy to trace.
Though my anger has cooled, it has left behind a hollow ache in my chest that seemed to expand with each step.
I inhaled deeply, letting the scent of pine and earth fill my lungs.
“Shadow! Orion!” I called out, my voice echoing through the trees. “Nyx!”
A chorus of barks answered me, guiding me forward. My muscles began to unclench, the tension that had been my restless companion finally releasing its grip. The strain in my shoulders eased.
I inhaled again.
The time that has passed has given me a chance to think more clearly now.
Serafina’s words had driven me to a madness I had kept carefully restrained, waiting for the right moment to unleash.
And this hadn’t been the moment.
It had been too soon.
And it was too late now.
The moonlight filtered through the trees, casting shadows that danced across the forest ground and reality set in… my reality, what I had done…
The pure air of the forest had a way of stripping away pretense, leaving only truth in its wake.
The barking grew more insistent, more urgent. I quickened my pace, pushing aside low-hanging branches as I followed the sound.
And then I saw her.
Thud.
My wife lay crumpled on the forest floor, her body curled into itself like a wounded animal.
Thud. Thud.
Her beige dress, once elegant, was now torn and stained with dirt and blood. Her dark hair was spread around her like a halo, her face so pale it was almost translucent in the moonlight.
Blood trickled from a cut on her forehead, and her arms were covered with tiny cuts from the branches she’d crashed through in her desperate attempt to escape.
Her face, the once perfect skin, was marred with scratches and bruises. Her bare feet were a mess, cut and bleeding, from her desperate flight through the woods.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Serafina looked small, fragile—a stark contrast to the defiant woman who had challenged me in the car. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths.
In the dim light, she looked like a ghost, like death itself had claimed her.
I had done this to her. I had pushed her until she broke.
A sliver of something uncomfortable twisted in my gut. Guilt, perhaps, though I quickly pushed the feeling away. My wife had brought this upon herself with her cruel words, her mocking laughter. She had struck at the one wound I couldn’t bear to have exposed.
A blackness in my soul that I had tried to bury.
I wasn’t worthy…
I hadn’t been worthy.
I failed.
And she reminded me of that failure.
My dogs circled her, their massive bodies forming a protective barrier between her and the dangers of the forest. Shadow looked up at me and barked, a sound that was more concerned than aggressive.
They hadn’t harmed her.
Of course, I knew they never would.
Dobermans are family dogs. They are often misunderstood, but they are extremely loyal and protective to a fault. Scary on the outside, but gentle on the inside.
My three had been with me since they were pups, trained to defend and obey. They had sensed Serafina’s fear from the beginning, her terror of their size and strength. Of what they were capable of, the damage they could inflict.
And my dobermans have apparently taken a liking to my wife.
I didn’t know why… if it was because they recognized that she was now the mistress of the house, or because they could smell my scent on her, therefore in retrospect, that made her theirs as much as she was mine.
But my sweet, frightened wife didn’t know that.
What she didn’t understand was that all they had ever wanted was to play with her, to earn her affection.
Serafina had mistaken their excited barks for aggression, their playful advances for threats.
And I was a cruel bastard.
I had used her fear against her, a weapon in my arsenal of cruelty.
“I got her,” I murmured to my dogs, kneeling beside Serafina. Her breathing was shallow but steady. I brushed a strand of hair from her face, my fingers lingering on her cool skin.
She was so still, so quiet. So unlike the fiery woman who had challenged me at every turn and pointed a knife at me, wanting to spill my blood.
With a sigh, I carefully gathered her into my arms, cradling her against my chest. She was lighter than I expected, her body limp and unresponsive. The smell of her perfume mingled with the metallic tang of blood and the earthy smell of the forest. The musky scent of her fear filled my nostrils.
Poor, little wife.
Nyx, the only female in the pack, barked at me when I lifted Serafina in my arms. “Hey now, I’m just taking her inside. That’s enough damage for tonight.”
Nyx had always been the calmest of the three, but she was the fastest and surprisingly, looked to be the most protective of my wife.
They crowded around my feet, staring at me. Concerned. Suspicious. Of me.
What the fuck?
“Seriously?” I asked them. “You’re protecting her from me?”
Orion barked in response as if he understood me. Shadow sniffed at Serafina’s dangling feet as she remained unconscious in my arms.
I sighed. “She’s fine. Just a little scared. She’ll wake up tomorrow and she’ll be pissed. But what’s new? My wife is always mad these days.”
And that was all my doing.
But I liked her furious, the way her eyes lit up with fire.
She was beautiful in her fury.
And I had been a mad man in mine.
“Let’s go home,” I said to my dogs.
They fell into steps behind me as I made my way back to the house, their sleek forms moving silently through the darkness.
Always protecting.
Always in control
Always loyal.
And I was none of that.
Fuck, I was worse than a dog.
Serafina had been right when she called me a savage, a beast.
The journey back seemed longer than it had been before, each step heavy with the weight of what I had done. A reminder of my cruelty, my rage, my inability to control the darkness that lived inside me.
Serafina’s head lolled against my shoulder, her face peaceful in unconsciousness. In sleep, the hatred and defiance were gone, leaving only the woman I had married.
Beautiful, vulnerable, and utterly at my mercy.
When we reached the house, Elena was waiting at the door, her face a mask of concern.
“Sir, is she—”
“She’s fine,” I cut her off, not wanting to hear the question. “Bring me the first aid kit and some warm water.”
I carried Serafina upstairs to her room and laid her gently on the bed. Her dress was beyond saving, torn and stained beyond repair. I hesitated for only a moment before carefully removing it, leaving her in just her undergarments.
Her body was pale, her curves enticing.
But this wasn’t about desire or possession, it was purely necessity.
Elena appeared with the supplies I had requested, her eyes widening slightly at the sight of Serafina’s battered body.
“I can help,” she suggested, eyebrows furrowed.
“No,” I said firmly, dismissing her with a wave of my hand. This was my mess to clean. “I’ll do it.”
Elena nodded and retreated without another word, closing the door softly behind her.
That was why I liked Edmund and Elena. They never asked questions that had nothing to do with them. They never wanted to know more.
They didn’t care what I did.
The father and daughter duo worked quietly and efficiently, and no one would dare question their loyalty.
I worked methodically, cleaning the dirt and blood from Serafina’s feet, wincing at the sight of the cuts and abrasions that marred her delicate skin. Her arms were scratched from branches and her knees scraped raw from her falls.
Such beauty, so broken.
A hollow ache expanded through my chest, crushing the air from my lungs and filling the organ with poison.
As I placed a bandaid on her elbow, her eyes fluttered open.
For a moment, she just stared at me, her hazel eyes wide and unfocused, a brief second of vulnerability before recognition dawned.
And with it came pure, unadulterated fear.
Serafina scrambled away from me, pressing herself against the headboard, her eyes wide and terrified. The sheet pooled around her waist, leaving her upper body exposed, but she seemed too frightened to notice or care.
I sat back, waiting for her to speak, to unleash the torrent of hatred and accusations I had come to expect. But she remained silent, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths, her gaze fixed on me with undisguised terror.
Had I finally broken her?
The thought should have brought satisfaction, but instead, it left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Thud.
I didn’t care.
I shouldn’t care.
But my beating heart betrayed me.
Thud. Thud.
“What? Cat got your tongue, wife?” I taunted, hoping to provoke her, to see the fire return to her eyes. “No clever retort? No sharp words to cut me down? No threats of revenge?”
She remained silent, her gaze fixed on me but not really seeing me. Such a haunted expression…
Serafina looked broken, shattered in a way that made my chest tighten uncomfortably. The silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Had I extinguished the flame that had made her so captivating, so infuriating, so alive?
Another wave of guilt washed over me, stronger this time, harder to ignore. I pushed it away, burying it beneath layers of anger and resentment.
She hurt me. I hurt her. We were even now.
“We’re toxic together, poison,” I told her, my voice low and harsh. “Fire and water. We can’t exist in the same space without destroying each other.”
I moved closer, watching as she flinched but still didn’t speak. “We’ll never understand each other, never truly connect. We’re too different.”
Too damaged in our own ways.
Serafina remained silent, her breathing the only sound in the room. The rise and fall of her chest, the slight tremble of her lips—that was all she gave me.
“Our reality will always remain ugly,” I continued, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. “This is what we are, Serafina. This is what we’ve become.”
And we couldn’t escape what we were.
We had been born into a cruel, merciless world ruled by fear and bloodshed, building our empires atop piles of corpses. Serafina’s hands might have been untainted by blood, but her soul was woven into this world all the same.
She was no less a part of this darkness than I was. I saw it in her eyes, and I had caught a glimpse of it in her fiery soul.
I finally stood, unable to bear the weight of her silence, her fear.
She was so beautiful, so haunted, it made my chest ache.
I didn’t understand why seeing her like this unsettled me when I had married her for revenge in the first place. To break her. To make her suffer.
Because her suffering would hurt Matteo. And that would bring me great pleasure.
Except…
My fists clenched.
Without another word, I turned and walked to the door, pausing only briefly with my hand on the knob.
“Get some rest,” I said, not looking back. “We’re not done yet.”
We would never be done.
Till death to us part.
I closed the door behind me, leaving her alone in the darkness.
The sound of the lock clicking into place seemed to echo through the hallway, a final punctuation to our twisted story.
She locked her door. Something she hadn’t done since she arrived here.
For the first time since I had set this plan in motion, I wondered if I had made a mistake that could never be undone.