Chapter 33
After two nights of unadulterated misery, there she is, and I can’t stop looking at her. I peruse every inch of Mia. Her hair is unkempt, falling lifeless to her shoulders, her face is pale, and dark circles are under her eyes. She’s wearing the same dress she was wearing three days ago, but it has lost most of its sequins and appears grimy—just like her. Her feet are bare, and trails of dirt cover her legs.
To avoid losing my shit and doing something I might regret, all I focus on is that she’s alive. The organ in my chest that slowly died resurrects when our eyes lock. Her silver ones brim with emotion, making me want to get to her by any means necessary.
One more fucking guard keeps me from her, but that fucker has a gun trained at her head, and I can’t risk it. I could easily take him down, but not when one wrong move could cost me everything.
My friends are on the way. They’ll be here soon, making the decision easier. The only thing that matters for me right now is her well-being. She has to survive this.
Placing my gun down, I even kick it to the side and lift my arms in surrender.
“Let her go. Now.” My voice doesn’t tremble, helping me to keep the facade up that I am not fucking losing my shit by the second.
Every fiber in me yearns for her.
Caleb jerks her to his side, and the guard gives him the gun.
“That won’t happen, son,” he spits. I know I can’t appeal to his fatherly side. Not that I would have even tried.
When the guard bends to pick up my gun, I curl my hands into fists at my sides. How easy it would be to pummel his face in until he was nothing more than a bloody, limp mess. But my father is anything but stupid, and he digs the gun even harder into her temple to keep me in check.
“I’m here, Silver. It’s going to be all right,” I say, focusing all my attention on her, so much that I momentarily forget where we are.
She gives me a bright smile that revives my damn spirits.
When the guard tucks the gun into the back of his pants, he pats me down and finds the ammunition and the dagger, throwing them to the side as well.
“He’s clear, sir,” he says, then strips me of my jacket and bullet-proof vest and jerks me toward Caleb.
“Pick up the dagger,” he tells the guard, who pockets it and goes to him.
She wrenches herself from his side, but my father pushes her in the guard’s direction, who has such a tight hold on her, she winces.
Cracking my neck, I try to keep my emotions in check. Driven by rage, I channel it into focus and plan my vengeance. I am going to make him suffer and kill him slowly for hurting her. Both of them.
Caleb looks at me. “I can’t believe you betrayed me for her.”
“Sir, we should leave. This location has been compromised,” the guard suggests.
“There’s time,” Caleb says, voice ringing with excitement. “I’m going to make my son pay first.”
He pushes me in front of him. The fucker has no physical power. If it wasn’t such a delicate situation, I would laugh in his conceited face. The more I prolong this, the better our survival chances are. But my father can do a lot of harm in an hour.
Pushing us into an elevator, it descends to level minus three.
I brush my pinkie against Mia’s, and she grips it before I interlace our fingers.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she whispers.
“For you, I’d breach fucking hell,” I say, not caring that Caleb can hear me.
He turns to me, wearing an evil smirk. “I’ll remind you of those words later, son.”
Mia flinches next to me, and then she’s so still, she resembles a statue. Before I can comfort her, the guard pushes us out of the elevator, revealing a wall of windows. Beyond them is a laboratory, and when the doors slide open, I see dozens of vials lining the walls behind glass cabinets.
Horrified, I can’t help but stare.
“I did it, son. I finally perfected it.”
This is not fucking good. Now, it’s more than just about us getting out of this alive. I have to dispose of everything. He forces us in two separate chairs, and metal restraints snap around our ankles and wrists. The torture will begin any second now, but then his phone rings.
“Watch them,” he tells the guard before closing the door behind him.
The guard nods dutifully, staring at us from the other side of the glass door.
“Silver.”
“Blake.” We both speak at the same time. I try to wiggle out of my bindings, but I already know I won’t be able to free myself. How the fuck can I save her now?
“Are you hurt? What did they do to you?” I ask, terrified she’s injured in places I can’t see.
“I’m fine. I’m more worried about you.”
“You know I can’t feel pain.”
“That doesn’t make you immortal.”
I love that sassy mouth of hers.
“Our friends are on the way. We’re going to be okay.”
She tilts her head and sighs. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for being too damn good for this rotten world.”
Her face lowers, and I add, “Please look at me. I’ve missed seeing my life.”
She lets out a sound that’s half melodious laugh, half agonizing groan, before our eyes meet.
“I forgive you for anything. Don’t let him break you, please. What he’s planning to do… that won’t be you. I know you’d never hurt me.”
My heart rate spikes, and my pulse thunders in my ears. A dreadful realization sinks in. Caleb is going to make me pay for my betrayal by making me do the unthinkable. And if the first time didn’t fucking kill me, this one will.
“It won’t come to that,” I say. This is not how we’re going to end.
“How did you find me?”
“I’ll always find you. But I followed the trail left in the woods, and they led me to one of the students. After I bought all the intel possible, Bailey found this location. There was another, but I went with my gut and came here.”
“Felix and Caleb separated,” Mia says.
These two fuckers adapt easily, like damn cockroaches. They’ll survive a global extinction.
“I must look horrible.”
“No, you look like my dream woman.”
“Sure.” She rolls those silver eyes at me. This is not how I imagined finally telling her how I feel about her would go.
“I love you. Actually, no, forget that.”
A contrite expression takes over her features, her brows furrowing as she tilts her head to me, holding in a breath. Fuck, I am butchering this love declaration already. Inhaling deeply, I continue, “What I feel for you goes beyond love. Believe me, because I tried to analyze it and figure it out until I gave up. My love for you is embedded in my cells, threaded through every one of my heartbeats, wiring my synapses. All I know is you. All I want is you. All I’ll ever worship is you. My love is mixed with obsession and madness, and a whole lot of possessiveness. But yes, if I’ll ever live for someone, it will be for you because you’re my life, and I am too damn selfish to let you go. I’ll never do that, so don’t you dare leave me. No one wants to see how far I’ll go to keep you,” I say, and she smiles so radiantly it lights the entire room—my personal sun. I’d never lose myself in the darkness of my mind. That would be impossible with her at my side.
I keep babbling as she doesn’t say anything, she just keeps beaming at me. “I’m sorry it took me so long. I am even more sorry that I can’t even touch you or kiss you when telling you I am irrevocably in love with you. I love you so damn much with everything in me. I’ve never wished for anything more than to do life with you and love you every day a bit more, every night a bit harder until we become one. Maybe then I could quench this need to possess you in every humanly way possible and beyond. But I doubt it will ever happen, Silver. So I hope this is the man you want, completely mad and even madder for you.”
“I love you, too, Blake. So much. And you’re perfect, just as you are. I love you for exactly who you are, and I wouldn’t change a thing, absolutely nothing about you. Once we escape, show me how much you love me, because I’ll take it and join you in madness with open arms. If I’m your life, then you’re my world.”
“You’re not mad at me for waiting so long?” I ask, choked up, surprising myself that I can form words when emotions overwhelm me.
“Why would I be? You showed me through actions, and you told me every night, baby.”
“I’m sure the guys in your romance books do it better.”
“No. None of them could even come close to you.”
Our moment is cut short when my sperm donor struts inside.
“I raised a damn weakling,” he says, followed by the guard carrying two syringes filled with a transparent serum and placing them on the counter.
It takes everything in me to force my eyes off of her and stare him down.
“He’s someone you could never be,” Mia says.
He strides up to her, and I shout, “Don’t you fucking touch her!” I grit my teeth, my chest heaving. I thrash in my bindings, to no avail.
He grips her chin tight enough that his fingers dig into her flesh.
“You think so highly of him. Hmm, I wonder if he has told you everything.”
That’s why I wanted to wait because I still haven’t told her about my greatest crime.
Squeezing my eyes shut, his sardonic laughter hits my ears. Pleading wouldn’t help. Instead, I open my eyes and hope to convey with them that I am sorry for waiting so long. For not being the one to tell her. It should have come fucking first, before my love declaration.
“Nothing you tell me will change how I see him or my feelings for him,” she says so resolutely, hope fills up my chest.
“So much love and admiration for a traitor.” He tsks.
My mouth clamps shut as if there’s an invisible fist squeezing my lungs, and only a dejected puff of air escapes.
“He’s not a traitor.”
I love this girl so much––this spectacular woman who owns me irreversibly.
“Should I do the honors?” he asks with a tone of superiority that makes me want to strangle the life out of him until his eyes pop out of their sockets.
Caleb has never shown me any fatherly affection. Not even when I was a small child, asking about my mom. He would shut me up immediately. He never allowed me to cry or grieve.
I don’t show him any reaction. That would only please the bastard. Instead, I look at Mia. If I weren’t a coward, I would have confessed what I did a while ago.
“Let me hear it, asshole. It’s the only thing you still have on him,” she tells him, and my fascination for her is boundless.
“I killed Grandmother,” I say, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.
She whips her head to me. Inhaling sharply, she blinks at me but masks her expression quickly and stares him down.
My father was so busy watching my reaction that he lost the chance to see hers.
“Always ruining my fun.”
“Let me see how many fucks I have? I just ran out of them,” I say, looking back at her.
I expect her to tell me any moment that I am a monster, that she can’t love someone like me.
“Sir, we have to leave,” the guard says, coming inside, but Caleb waves his hand dismissively.
“When I am done here. Inform the pilot to get ready for takeoff.”
He hurries out, and I say, “Where’s your boss?”
“Felix is not my boss. We’re equals.”
“Ah, Father, you can’t be that stupid to believe that.”
“You insolent and ungrateful bastard.”
My father, who has dedicated his life to erasing emotions, is the most easily riled-up person I know, and it gives me great satisfaction.
“I planned to do this differently, but I can’t lose any more time. You could have led the Family with me, instead you betrayed me.”
“In order to betray you, I would have had to be loyal to you. I had to protect my friends, the people to whom I am loyal.”
“I thought you’d get over that. I blame that waste of space called your mother and her weak genes.”
“Don’t fucking call her that.”
“I thought you’d toughen up once you tasted real power.”
“Killing the matriarch just made you into rats. None of you has any moral code or spine.”
His features contort, pulled taut with disappointment. “That fucking witch sure had the will to live. And that could have been your place. You have to take it if you want it.”
“I never fucking wanted it, you delusional piece of shit.”
Nothing was more torturous for me than having to face Grandmother, knowing they were poisoning her bit by bit. And I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it. The treason ran too deep. I couldn’t risk her not believing me or the impending bloodbath that would have ensued if she did. Too much was at stake. The only thing I regret was not killing them myself before I left.
He slaps Mia so hard, the side of her face thumps against the headrest. I let out a roar, my insides quake.
“It’s okay. I am okay, baby,” she says, trying to comfort me as I lose any semblance of control.
“Truly pathetic. You had potential, Blake. I wanted to make you into someone no one would dare touch physically or emotionally.”
“I pity you, Father. You chase after power when nothing could fill that void inside of you. No one loved you. No one will miss you.”
“Your friends don’t even know, do they? Of course not, because then they would see your true colors. Do you know why we picked poison for the matriarch? To test you. Felix said you wouldn’t last under the pressure. But you proved him wrong. I even took away from you the only coping mechanism you had—alcohol.”
I will carry the guilt with me all of my life for not stopping them. Yet, in all that hell, Mia came into my life, and that’s something I won’t regret.
“This is on you, son. I’m going to make you watch me torment your precious girl, and then I will move on to you.”
“Let her go. You can do anything you fucking want to me.”
“But you don’t feel pain. She does.”
My head snaps towards her and my soul wails. Our eyes lock—she’s giving me strength, not the other way around.
Despair tears me apart, but rage patches me back together knowing what comes next.
Not fucking again.