Chapter 18 #2
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 her without 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? ”
It’s brutal and it cuts, because there’s truth under his reaction.
I did what I did to make amends.
I did what I did because rage and love are neighbors in my chest, and sometimes their walls are porous.
But I also did it because I was scared. Because losing her once almost undid me, and I swore I would never let that happen again, by any means.
“I didn’t want to own her,” I say, quietly. “I wanted to purchase a space where no one else could trade her away. Her entire life, until she jumped off that cliff, was being broken by other people. It’s twisted, I know. But the alternative felt worse.”
I look at Lottie. Her eyes are wet, her mouth parted like she’s tasting betrayal on her tongue. She still doesn’t speak, like the silence is still safer.
Crew’s voice cuts through it. “So what… she stays married, legally, to you? And we go along with it? We let some paperwork keep Lorenzo at bay while you get… what…possession rights over her and the cemetery plot? You realize how creepy that is?”
“It was never about just the plot.” The word snaps out of me. “It was about making sure no one could erase her. You all know how messy death gets, and Peter was in no shape to give her somewhere worthy, and Tracey couldn’t have given one fuck. I couldn’t stand the idea of her being erased.”
“Legally married to protect a grave,” Oscar signs, “That’s… insane.”
Archer translates, then laughs, but it’s the ugly kind. “You would use marriage as a shield for her because you think you’re the only one who can protect her. That suggests you think she’s yours to protect. She’s not your project, Elijah. She’s a human being. She’s Lottie. Not your wife, Scarlett.”
“Which is why I’m here telling her,” I say. “Not demanding anything. Telling her. Because she deserves the truth, and she deserves to choose what to do with it.”
She does. The fact that she earlier thanked me for getting Peter into rehab makes my chest ache. Gratitude from her is a currency I’ve been bankrupt on for years; her simple, quiet thanks felt like absolution.
I wanted to build from that. I wanted to explain the monstrous things I’d done and why I’d done them, and beg forgiveness in the rawest, bluntest way.
“Divorce,” Archer says, voice single-syllable and heavy. He paces a strip of the room, then stops, eyes locking on me. “Tear those papers up, Elijah. Sign anything. Do whatever.”
Roman’s tone hitches into something colder. “Or what? You’ll take her anyway? You’d rather risk everything because she’s not legally yours.”
Lottie’s voice finally comes, small and hoarse. “If you did it to keep me safe, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
She studies me like she’s cataloging my sins and my merits.
I want to tell her it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever done: to stand in front of everyone and not hide the way I have in the past. I want to tell her that killing my father was the most monstrous and the most honest thing I ever did, because it was proof I would do anything to not be like him.
“Because you hated me, and I got to live in a world where you… My wife… was still mine.”
“Not your anything, Elijah.” Archer’s fingers curl like they’re waiting for permission to punch me. “You married her corpse to control who could touch her memory, then hoarded it for yourself…. I don’t even have words.”
“If having a government form filed in my name keeps Lorenzo’s hands off her… then I’m glad I did it.”
Lottie makes a sound I don’t recognize—half laugh, half sob. “Elijah, you… You buried me as your wife… You claimed me in death. If it was only about a grave, why not have someone else as next of kin? Why you? Why must it be you?”
Because I loved her beyond the edges of what’s sane.
Because the thought of anyone else standing over a place marked with her name made my hands shake.
Because I couldn’t trust anyone else to understand the gutted, brilliant way she existed.
Because I wanted to be the one who kept her memory, even if it made me look like a lunatic.
Her question slices me open.
Why must it be you?
I can’t breathe for a moment. Because the truth is heavy, unspeakable, the kind of thing that makes men like Archer want to split my skull and Crew want to drag her away from me forever.
But I look at her anyway. My wife. My Lottie. The girl I buried and married in the same breath because I didn’t know how else to survive losing her.
“Because I couldn’t let anyone else own your ending,” I finally say.
My voice cracks on the last word, shame clawing up my throat.
“I couldn’t stand the idea of someone deciding what your life meant when they didn’t love you.
They would’ve called you a runaway. A statistic.
A junkie’s daughter who threw herself away.
But I knew better. I knew you were more than what they wanted to reduce you to.
I thought… if I could just hold that space for you, protect it, protect you… Maybe I could live with what happened.”
Her tears spill now, streaking down her pale cheeks. Her hands twist in her lap, shaking, knuckles white. She doesn’t look away, though. She makes me live inside every ounce of her devastation.
Archer studies me like I’m both a puzzle and a threat. His voice slides into the silence. “So what now, Elijah? You want her to forgive you? To accept that you forged her name onto your life like a signature and call it love?”
I don’t answer him. My eyes never leave her.
“I don’t expect forgiveness,” I tell her, voice raw, frayed at the edges.
“I don’t expect you to accept it. If you hate me forever, I’ll take it.
If you never want to see me again, I’ll disappear.
But I needed you to know that you weren’t nothing.
That when the world thought you were gone, I made sure there was proof you mattered. To me.”
Her lips part, trembling, but no words come out. She just stares, tears tracking silently, and I can feel the weight of every unsaid thing pressing down on her chest until it’s too much.
Oscar moves before anyone else does. He’s careful, deliberate, crossing the space with that quiet steadiness that always seems to cut through storms. He crouches in front of her, tilts his head to catch her downcast eyes, and signs slowly, enough.
His hands are gentle, the words softer than any voice could be.
She blinks at him, as if surfacing, and he doesn’t wait for permission. He just slides his hand into hers, firm but kind, and tugs her up. She doesn’t resist. Doesn’t fight. She rises on shaky legs, her whole body trembling, and lets him guide her away.
The sound of her retreating steps is the loudest thing in the room. Each one lands like a nail hammered into my ribs.
The door clicks shut behind them.
The silence after is a loaded gun.
Then Archer moves.
I see it coming—the set of his jaw, the way his fists curl, the coiled violence straining to be let loose. But I don’t stop him. I don’t even raise a hand to defend myself.
His fist slams into my face with the kind of force that makes bone sing. Pain detonates across my cheekbone, white-hot and sharp, rattling through my skull. My head snaps to the side, blood blooming metallic in my mouth.
“I deserved that,” I spit the blood out, wiping the back of my hand against my mouth. “But, until she tells me to leave. That she doesn’t want me here… then I’m staying.”