Chapter 44
44
Isaac
W hen her breathing finally evened out, I gently unwrapped myself from her and headed downstairs. I felt like an asshole for what I was about to do, especially when she’d been crying, but the urgency to get this done was building inside me.
Downstairs, I grabbed the package I’d hid the night she’d had PMS and headed back up.
Jack had sourced a microchip for me. He’d put one in his own girl’s body, and she still had no idea. I felt bad for the poor fucker when Aviva found out, because there’d be hell to pay. But even knowing that, I was going to do the same thing to Tovah. I’d gone back and forth about this all week, questioning such an unhinged choice, but now I was decided.
She was hiding shit from me; she’d changed her last name—obviously she wasn’t safe. And then there was the possibility of the article…I loved her, but I didn’t trust her. And with the bullshit engagement, she was too much of a flight risk. In case she ever ran, or someone took her…well, I needed to know where she was at all times, didn’t I?
Grabbing what I needed—the microchip, surgical knife, and needle and surgical thread for stitches, I climbed back up on the bed, kneeling over her to prepare the area. I watched her for a bit. She looked so soft and vulnerable in sleep, and I couldn’t help but drop a tender kiss on her lips. Fortunately, she didn’t wake up, although she did moan my name softly. The sleeping powder that I’d dissolved in her water earlier had done its job.
My cock stirred.
I smacked it in reprimand.
Then I lifted her arm, because I wanted to put it under her left armpit where she wouldn’t look—and where she’d hopefully assume the sting was from razor burn.
I looked down.
And sucked in a breath like I’d been punched.
“What the actual fuck?”
There was a birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon.
A birthmark.
In the shape of a goddamned crescent moon.
Oh, I remembered that crescent moon. I’d never forgotten it.
The girl from my childhood appeared in my mind’s eye. Short, dark, curly hair, a feisty grin. She’d lived on our compound, the daughter of one of the staff. I’d even told Tovah about her. About the birthmark. She’d been afraid, and I’d sworn to protect her…until she disappeared.
The same day that my mother had been killed.
Blood. Death. Loss. The memories, the feelings, they came back in waves that threatened to drown me. To take me under and never let me free. Like my father, like my fate, and now, like Tovah—who, by lying to me, had stolen our future and any chance I’d ever have at happiness.
No. Everything in my body rejected what I was seeing. I fell to the floor, my legs no longer holding me up.
It all made sense, didn’t it? Tovah was on the run from my father, she’d gone into hiding. She kept changing her hair color, not out of rebellion, but because she didn’t want to be found. Who else could she be? And the evidence in front of me was irrefutable.
I flashed back to that day in the kitchen where I’d told Tovah about my mom’s death and the little girl. She’d defended her, hadn’t she? I’d thought that was odd at the time but blamed it on her journalism dreams and her big heart.
She was just a kid, wasn’t she? Do you really think she’d plot against you that way? Or was she just an innocent bystander with no control of her own?
For a moment, just a moment, I considered what she’d said was true.
But if that were the case, why lie to me?
Because you would have thrown her to the wolves , my inner voice argued.
No, fuck that. She’d betrayed me.
Maybe Tovah was right, and I couldn’t blame her when she’d been a child. But still, she’d lied to me, hidden the truth. What else was she hiding, while she slept in my goddamned bed?
Denial roared within me, and then betrayal. My goddamn chest felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. I’d been beaten up, shoved into the boards, gotten concussions during hockey. But none of it, not a single second, had hurt like this did.
My stomach roiled, and my dinner threatened to come back up. I couldn’t even stand, so I crawled to the bathroom, barely making it in time to the toilet before I leaned over it and puked my guts out. It felt like it lasted for hours, and when I was done, there was nothing left inside of me.
I was empty.
Tovah lied to me, hidden our connected past from me, fucked me, planned to expose me and my family…had she even let that go? Or had she been plotting against me this whole time? She’d been in the office with Toby earlier—and although she’d told me the exposé was dead, why should I believe her? She’d lied about who she was, she could be lying about that, too.
What kind of viper had I allowed into my heart?
Mine , the monster roared, stopping me from doing anything I might regret.
It was right. She was still mine. I might not be able to trust her, but I was keeping her, all the same.
Slowly and methodically, I finished cleaning the area, quickly cutting the skin, placing the microchip, and stitching it back up. Tovah didn’t stir.
When I was finished, I stared down at her, this stranger in my home.
And I hated that my heart had partially healed, that I even had one. Because the fucker hurt. So much, it was hard to breathe.
I’d never known you could love and hate someone so intensely.
Because I did. I still loved Tovah, with every part of me.
And hated her, equally.
I didn’t have a heart, after all. She’d stolen it from me.
And I wanted it back.
* * *
I didn’t sleep at all. The next morning, I was an exhausted mess. It was a major problem, because we had an away game that night.
Without saying a word to her, I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the shower. She glared at me, arms crossed, also not speaking, as I washed my body and hair, for once not bothering to wash her. It was a ritual I’d come to love, but I didn’t trust myself to not be rough right now. I was too angry.
I stepped out of the spray so she could step under it. I tried not to watch, but it was impossible, and I finally gave up the battle, eyes on her hands as she lathered that perfect body with soap.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“I own that sweet body,” I told her. “I can stare as much as I want.”
“You aren’t staring like you want to fuck me,” she pointed out as she backed away. “You’re staring like you want to stab me.”
“I might,” I said nonchalantly. “But I’m going to use your body to get off first. That’s all you’re good for, isn’t it, little hack?”
Her eyes widened. “What the hell, Isaac? Why are we back to this? I’m the one who’s mad, remember?”
“I don’t give a shit if you’re upset about some girl I might be engaged to?—”
She interrupted. “Might? It’s might now? What happened to ‘the only person I’m marrying is you?’”
“—I don’t care about how you feel,” I spoke over her. “All I care about is how you make my cock feel.”
Her face turned white. “Fuck you,” she snapped.
“Speak like that to me again, and the only time you’ll be opening that mouth is when I fuck it. On your knees.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t understand what the hell has gotten into you, but I’m not putting up with it.”
“You will,” I told her. “Or I’ll call my father right now.”
“You wouldn’t,” she shook her head once, twice, then stopped. “Or maybe you would.” I hadn’t seen hatred or anger like that in them before, not even before we started this whole thing.
“I’m not kneeling for you, Isaac Silver. Not now. You get your cock near me and I’ll stab you.”
“You certainly felt differently last night.”
“Last night was apparently a mistake. I was right, wasn’t I? This whole,” she gestured, “thing between us has been one giant mistake.”
Although I kept my expression blank, her words felt like she’d stabbed me in the heart and then twisted the knife.
I hate you , she’d said.
I hated myself a little, too.
But not as much as I hated her, hated that I loved her.
I stepped forward so I was looming over her, crowding her against the tile. The water poured over her head, her face, practically drowning her.
“Why were you really at the newspaper office last night, Tovah? I saw you working with Toby on something. I saw you close out of whatever it was so I didn’t see. I didn’t press you on it, because like always, I got distracted by your fucking body.” My voice was getting louder and louder, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. “You have some hold over me, and I’m getting sick of it, when you won’t give me more than your body. So tell me, Tovah, are you still planning on publishing a story that will destroy my team, my family, and me? This whole time, have you been planning on betraying what I thought we were building together?”
Her throat worked.
“Fucking admit it. Admit that you betrayed me! You’ve been playing me this whole time!” I was shouting now.
She shouted right back. “No, you asshole. Toby was showing me something else, and I was going to tell you about it, but last night wasn’t the time, and now clearly isn’t, either.”
I paused for a moment, considering this. But no, she was just hiding more shit from me.
I advanced on her, looming over her, aware that I was so angry, the veins were popping in my neck.
“I don’t believe you. You’ve been lying to me this whole time about who you are.”
She blinked. “You know who I am, you know my last name…”
“That’s not what I meant, bashert .” I snorted. She didn’t deserve the fucking endearment, not when we were children, and certainly not now. “I called you that, when we were children, didn’t I? That’s right, I saw the fucking birthmark. I know who you truly are. Who you were. The little girl I trusted who disappeared when my mother was killed. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Her chest heaved. “Isaac?—”
“Wasn’t it?” I roared, slapping the wall next to her. She flinched, lifting her hands like she needed to protect herself from me.
Gulping, I stepped back. I would never hit her, ever. Clearly, she didn’t know that. Because we didn’t know each other.
Not at all.
“It was me,” she said quietly. “I grew up on your family’s compound. My mom was a maid there for a while. But we didn’t leave because we were involved in your mother’s death. We left because it wasn’t safe for us anymore. My stepfather…he was important to your dad, but he was abusive. Murderous, even. We disappeared and have remained hidden for years. That’s who LOML is on my phone, by the way. Not some other man. My mother. We’re always looking over our shoulders, terrified your father will catch up with us. Do you know what that’s like, never feeling safe? Knowing your loved one is never safe? That’s why I escalated things, that’s why I was going to write the article, that’s why I need evidence against your father to put him away for good?—”
I tried to digest her words, to understand her fear, but all that mattered was that she’d lied to me, she’d tried to hurt me, that I couldn’t trust her. And all I could see was my mother’s unmoving body, her eyes blank, forever, my father screaming with her in his arms, both of them covered in blood.
Tovah couldn’t be trusted. I couldn’t trust her.
I’d been right. I couldn’t have a woman in my life.
We were a mistake.
I leaned over her, putting my lips to her ear, relishing the way she leaned into me. She still responded to me, still wanted me, and it would make hurting her all the sweeter.
“You know what the mistake was, Tovah? It was trusting you. It was believing you. It was forgetting who you really are: a lying, conniving hack who will do anything for a story.”
She shuddered, like I’d truly hurt her.
Good.
But then she turned her head, so our lips almost touched.
“You’re no better than your father, Isaac Silver,” she said against them. “My mistake was forgetting that. You are a monster, and not, never, mine.”
She’d twisted the knife again. The words sliced through me.
Angry as fuck, I slammed out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my waist.
“If you really feel that way, you can leave. Take your shit and get the fuck out of my house. When I get back from the game at Cortland, I want you gone.”
She stared at me, her shoulders heaving, water still sluicing over her face, so I couldn’t tell what was shower water, and what were tears.
A small part of me fought to go back to her, to apologize, to do anything to make sure she didn’t cry.
I buried that part six feet under.
“You know what? Maybe I will marry Eliana. She’s beautiful, kind, and most importantly, I know her and can trust her.”
“I hope you’re happy,” she shot back.
“I will be,” I lied, storming out of the bathroom and ignoring Tovah’s quiet sobs as I got dressed and headed out to go meet the team at the bus.
I had hockey.
For now.
That had to be enough.