Chapter 33 Elijah
Elijah
Isit in the kitchen, elbows on the table, staring at the grain in the wood.
The low hum of the refrigerator is the only thing keeping me grounded. My glass sits in front of me, untouched, and my knuckles ache from how hard I keep clenching my fists, desperate to get rid of the tremor in my hands from watching her on that stage.
Every movement she made showed us that she was unbroken and strong.
She wasn’t dancing for us. Not really.
She was reclaiming herself in the only way she knew how to, piece by piece, and we were just witnesses to her rebuilding herself after Lorenzo dared to put his hands on her.
And still I wanted her. God help me, I want her like nothing I’ve ever wanted in my life.
I called her my wife, knowing it would piss the others off, but I couldn’t help myself.
It’s a sickness that’s eaten me alive because she was mine once. Not in a way that was right or fair, but in my head, she was mine and only mine.
Soft footsteps alert me 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’re you. 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 you knew, 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 something more. 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?”
“I bought it,” I repeat, and I can hear how insane it sounds.
“Under an anonymous name. I didn’t want anyone to know my plans.
I was going to destroy it. Level it. I wanted to erase the place where you had been broken by people who should have loved you.
” My voice catches, as her hand comes up to cover her mouth.
“I thought if I burned it to the ground, with Tracey inside, I could make the pain lessen. But I couldn’t do it. ”
“Why not?”
“I went inside once. That’s all it took.
Your room still smelled like you, the horrible yellow paint was still on the walls, and the floor creaked right under your window, where I used to sneak in and hold you.
I kept hearing you laugh after years of silence.
” I run a hand through my hair, pacing. “So I left it standing, because I remembered that tiny room was the last place I ever held you as Tracey screamed at Peter, and I swore I would protect you. I broke that promise.”
Lottie’s quiet. Her breath is steady, but I can see her fingers trembling slightly at her side. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing yet,” I murmur, voice rough. “I’m confessing my sins to you, and I need you to listen, Lottie.
Really listen.” I swallow hard, forcing the next words past the lump in my throat.
“You were my Mouse once. So quiet, so soft, so small, I thought I could protect you just by keeping you hidden. But we ruined that. We took the names that once meant something gentle and turned them into weapons. We used them to break you.” My breath shudders out.
“And now I can’t say them without tasting the guilt in my mouth. ”
I look up at her, eyes burning.
“You’re not Mouse anymore. You’re more than what we made of you. You’re my goddess now. The only one I’ll ever worship. The only one I want to fall to my knees for. Because you’re my wife. My one. My only.”
I pick up my phone from the nightstand and hand it to her.
My final secret.
She hesitates, then takes it.
The screen glows. She scrolls once, twice, then she freezes. “What is this?” Her voice is barely a whisper.
I know what it is. On the screen are photos. Dozens… maybe hundreds.
Our wedding day, or what looks like it. Life.
Her in a white dress, me in a suit, smiles so real they could fool anyone. A church, a reception. All of it looks perfect. Believable.
Except none of it ever happened.
“I made them,” I finally break the silence.
“I needed to believe I hadn’t lost you. That the ring on my finger wasn’t for a ghost. So I made a world where we got to have everything we were supposed to.
I hired people, edited photos, and paid artists to make it look real. I even had an album printed.”
Her thumb brushes over the screen. Her breath trembles. “You’re insane.”
“I know.”
She looks at me then, and her eyes. God, her eyes are everything. Fury, heartbreak, and disbelief all tangled into a storm.
“I lost it after you. I thought I’d gone through every kind of pain before, but nothing compared to losing you. So… I built this world where you were still mine. My wife. No one else’s anything, but my everything.”
The silence stretches until it hurts.
Then I sink down to my knees in front of her. The phone slips from her hand and lands on the carpet beside us. Her breath catches. “Elijah. Get up.”
“No. Hate me if you need to,” The words scrape up my throat. “Just do it to my face. I deserve it after everything I’ve done. But please, Lottie, just let me love you. Let me be free of this pretend world I created, and let me have the real thing. I need my wife.”
For a heartbeat, she doesn’t move. Then her fingers curl into my hair, pulling my head back just enough that I’m forced to meet her eyes.
It isn’t forgiveness I see. It’s fire. Grief. It’s everything that’s been buried for years, rising to the surface like a tide that won’t be stopped. Her breath trembles. “You shouldn’t call me that.”
“I know, but I can’t stop.”
Her hand tightens, but I enjoy the pain. She leans closer, her forehead nearly touching mine. “You don’t get to break everything, and then ask to love what’s left.”
“I’m already broken, Lottie,” I whisper. “All that’s left is you.”
“I’m supposed to hate you.”
“I know.”
Her voice breaks, just once. “I hate that I missed you.”
I swear my heart stops. I reach for her wrist, not to pull her closer, just to hold on. To anchor myself. Her pulse beats against my fingertips, wild and alive. “Let me make it right.”
Her eyes flicker over my face, searching.
Maybe for the boy I used to be.
Maybe for the proof that he’s gone.
After what feels like forever, she exhales. “You can’t fix what you broke.”
“I know, but I can rebuild.”
“It’s not supposed to work like that.”
Her words splinter through me, but I don’t move.
I can’t because if I do, I’ll lose the thread that’s holding me here with her.
She’s still so close that I can feel her breath against my lips.
Warm, uneven, trembling like she’s fighting every instinct to stay.
My hands hover near her, careful not to touch. Not unless she lets me.
“Maybe it’s not supposed to. But we’ve never done anything the way it’s supposed to be done, have we?”
Her mouth parts, and for a second, her eyes soften like she remembers. The nights I held her, the way she fit between us all seamlessly. Until we ruined it…
“Stop. Don’t say things like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you love me.”
My jaw tightens. “I never stopped.” Her breath catches. She shuts her eyes, shaking her head. But I see it, the crack in her armor. “You can hate me all you want, Lottie. You should. I deserve every bit of it, but don’t lie to me. You still feel it.”
“You think that makes it better? You think I want to feel like this about the men who ruined me? Who drove me to jump from that cliff?”
“No,” I admit. “But it means there’s something left to save. Something for me to fight for. The rest of it I can spend the rest of our lives apologising for.”