Chapter 26
Chapter 26
There was no moon in the sky. Gusts of winds rippled through the trees as thunder rolled in the distance. It was the calm before the storm, hours before a hurricane was set to land on Castillo.
I was working alone in the greenhouse, grounding dandelion roots for the new batch of pills. It was risky to skip out on them, even though it had been weeks since Meroveo touched me. He had been distracted, dealing with the horrific aftermath of that night.
The prime minister called it " an act of terrorism, a call to war" on the nation. Explosives, setting off like dominoes one after the other, with military precision, the coordinated assault was a ruthless act that claimed the lives of innocent victims who were caught in the crossfire. I remember the chaos that night. The streets filled with smoke as Meroveo's security ensured Thalia and I were safe.
It was a personal message of violence towards Meroveo. He hadn't been home since.
Turning up the volume on the radio, I listened to the news, wanting to know more about the kidnapping of a woman who had gone missing on the neighboring island of St. Domingue. Her disappearance came at a time of political strife and violent turmoil in the nation that was seeing massive spurts of civil unrest and prompting an international outcry for an investigation. Her case quickly gained notoriety, dominating nearly every news cycle.
I felt him before I saw him, like always seemingly appearing out of thin air, moving like death itself.
He watched me silently, never revealing his feelings, brooding over something pensive, his mood terrifying black.
"Her family must be devastated," I said, breaking the heavy silence as his eyes settled on mine.
"Depends on who you ask." He answered with cold indifference. His jaw ticked the way it did when he was in deep thought.
I had been waiting to confront him, needing him to say out loud.
"Not too many perspectives where kidnapping can be a good thing," I responded.
"Nothing is as ever black or white as it may seem. What you call the good and evil are one and the same. Interchangeable, constantly molding and growing into one." He lit a cigarillo, inhaling deeply, and couldn't agree with his thwarted philosophy.
"There are some things that are just evil, things that a person could never recover from, " I responded.
"I agree." Meroveo's eyes glowed with malice.
I hated how he sat so calmly, always unfazed and in control. The silent innuendo of this conversation was pointless.
He chuckled, blowing the smoke my way.
My mind replayed Kallisto's vindictive smile and his mother's words ringing viscously in my ears. The truth of my own emotions evaded me. "What does she mean to you?" I asked abruptly, glaring, refusing to look anywhere else except into his eyes.
"Are you sure this is a conversation you want to have now?" He raised a single dark brow, questioning me. I needed him to say her name.
"Kallisto is an old family friend, a means to an end, something I fuck when I'm bored." He sighed, taking another drag, no emotion in his cold, hard eyes.His words hurt more than I was expecting.
"I'm not staying in this marriage to end up like your mother," I seethed angrily, knowing I was provoking the devil and tempting mercy. But I wanted it. I wanted to see the monster inside him, the darkness within him.
An ominous silence reigned over the room.
"Dove," he sighed deeply, rising to his full height. He held me in place with his gaze, daring me, begging me to run from him. I struggled to breathe, my body paralyzed to the chair, as I watched something in him snap, the control slowly bleeding from his eyes. "I'm going to teach you a lesson about that sweet mouth of yours—one you'll never forget," he promised.
His eyes were no longer recognizable to me, an unforgivable black. "Remind you who you belong to," he smiled. But all I wanted to do was run.
There was a quiet horror spreading inside throughout my body. His hands moved down to my neck and closed around my throat.
He pulled my head back, forcing me to look up at his eyes, which glowed unnaturally. I winced, gasping as his hands twisted in my curls.
"I'm never letting you -" He pulled tighter. There was no need for him to finish his sentence. He was satisfied with the tears that silently fell from my face. I had been caught up in the illusion in the past few months, never truly knowing who my husband was
Somewhere in our warm conversations, he held me, deceived by his gentlemanly manners, the serpent's whisper in my ear when we were tangled in the sheets.
I had deluded myself, forgetting the evil in his soul, the otherworldly shadow that glowed horrifically from his eyes.
"You are the only good left in me," Meroveo said. His words were a confession to absolve him from what he did to me next.