Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
“What in the hell are you doing?” Dario blasted at Victor.
Victor ignored the prick, for the moment, because he didn’t matter. What mattered was Melody. Convincing her to stay. Proving to her that she was the one who had always mattered to him. She always would matter.
“You’re starting to remember, aren’t you?” Victor asked Melody. She had to be remembering because she was saying some of the exact words they’d used before in this very room.
Did he remember every fucking conversation of his life? Hell, no. But he did remember that one. Because he’d asked her to marry him. Because she’d said yes. Because Melody had said that she loved him. All things that had made the moment play in his head again and again.
And because…
Because she’d vanished after that talk. He’d gone from heaven to hell, and the words before the trip might as well have been tattooed on his freaking soul.
She rubbed her left temple. Dark shadows had swept under her eyes even as the rest of her face seemed far, far too pale. He wanted to grab her, swoop her into his arms. Run the hell away with her and never, ever look back.
But…
Tread carefully. Because the events in this room would send her running. Either to him or away from him.
Run to me, baby. Always, to me. He pulled in a long, deep breath. “Nothing ever goes according to plan.” He’d told her that before, one year ago. Because he’d had such great plans in place for his proposal. Only she’d stood in that boardroom and said they were done.
We can’t be done. I need you too much.
“I don’t have a ring with me this time.” He looked at her left hand. The one that still rubbed her temple. No ring there.
But…she lowered that hand. Frowned at it. “He took my ring away,” she whispered. “He yanked it off my finger when he tied me to the chair.”
Footsteps clattered. Victor’s gaze darted to the door. Olivia had just rushed away. She’d shoved past Calista and Luis.
“I was wearing my engagement ring when he took me.” Not a whisper. Stronger.
She had been wearing it. An engagement ring with three diamonds.
Two matching square cuts on the side of a large oval.
He’d picked out those diamonds for her. Been so nervous to propose, but he’d had his plans in place.
He’d been intending to propose on Christmas Eve, beneath the Christmas tree at his house because she loved the holiday so much.
Only she’d been breaking up with him in the boardroom. He’d had to prove that he loved her.
I never gave her those damn words last year.
Because he hadn’t said “I love you” to anyone back then.
He hadn’t said those words since he’d been taken away from his mother.
Even though she’d been in a drugged haze when the ladies from DHR and the cops came to get him, he’d still raged and begged and…
“Mom, Mom, don’t let them take me! Please! I love you, Mom! It’s going to be better! I can make it better!”
But she’d looked right through him. Muttered something about a cousin who could take him.
Saying I love you hadn’t changed a single thing that day.
He hadn’t been sure that he could actually love anyone. Not until Melody.
I told her this time. I told her at my house, I told her that I loved her.
But she’d just found out about the secrets he’d worked so hard to keep. Maybe love wouldn’t matter.
It hadn’t mattered before.
She crept closer to him even as Dario wrapped his hands around her shoulders. Victor couldn’t control the growl that broke from him. If Dario didn’t move those fingers soon, Victor would be removing them for the prick.
Stay focused. Melody matters. Melody. “I have the Mage company.” He shook his head. “But I will sign it over to you right the fuck now if you want.”
“Yes!” An excited shout from Dario. “It’s what she wants. Do it. Do—”
Hunter shoved Dario away from Melody. “You need to settle your ass down.”
Victor hated having eyes on them. This moment was for him and Melody alone. “Everyone but Melody, out. Now.”
Hunter hauled a protesting Dario to the door.
“No, no, Melody wants me here—”
But Melody turned to frown at her stepbrother. “I want to talk with Victor. Alone.”
He broke from Hunter and lunged toward Victor and Melody. “You can’t trust him., Melody! What if he is the one who took—”
“No.” Certainty. “Victor didn’t have anything to do with my abduction. He loves me.” Simple. Like she was stating a fact that she knew with complete certainty. “Please leave, Dario.”
His jaw dropped. “But—but—”
Victor surged to his full height. “You heard the lady.” He grabbed Dario and shoved his ass toward the door—then through the doorway and into the hall. “Don’t let the door hit you.” Because it was about to be slamming. A snap of his teeth. “Get your ass out of the building. Now.”
“You sonofabitch!”
“I’ll escort him,” Hunter offered. He exited the boardroom and took up a position right near a red-faced Dario.
Victor waved to a watchful Calista and Luis. “Go with them. Detective Clinton is probably arriving any damn minute. Keep the cop busy until I come downstairs.”
But Calista angled around him to look back at Melody. “Are you sure this is what you want?” Calista shrugged. “Because I don’t give a shit who signs my paycheck. You want to leave, then we’ll walk out right now.”
“I want to stay with Victor.”
He grabbed the doorframe because those words burned through him. She was choosing him. She believed in him.
“For what it’s worth,” Hunter said as he wrapped a hard hand around Dario’s shoulder. “I think that’s a good choice. He never gave up on you.”
And I never would.
The fight seemed to go out of Dario. “The whole company…” He turned away, body hunching. “It’s all his.”
Victor shut the door. He saw the faint tremble in his fingers, and his hand flattened on the wood. “Where were we?”
“I…remember.” Halting.
He’d thought as much.
“This room. Being with you. You told me that you almost had everything you wanted.”
Now he turned toward her. She stood in front of the boardroom table. Last year, she’d said that she loved him. He’d lifted her onto the table. Wanted nothing more than to fuck her right then and there. He’d almost had his dream. Her. A future. A life with the woman he loved.
Then, that dream had been gone in a blink. “You’re what I want.”
She rocked forward onto the balls of her feet. “You hate the Mage family? Because of what happened to your dad?”
“I thought I did.” Slowly, carefully, he went back to her.
Back to the woman he loved more than anything in the world.
“Hate was my purpose. I was a dumbass kid who was drowning in rage. I had to channel it. Had to get out of the nightmare that kept pulling me under. After Colton Crane…hell, I had to be different. I could feel my own violence and rage, and I knew something had to give. So I made a goal. Get out. Get strong. Go after the company that had sent my life careening into a nightmare.”
She watched him with her deep, incredible eyes. Eyes that had stolen his soul long ago.
“I got my education. Became smarter. Sharper. Obtained a job at Mage Industries. Worked my ass off and…got close to Sebastian Mage. Only I realized something as I was working with him.”
Melody didn’t speak.
“He’s a tough bastard,” Victor said. “But he was fanatical about safety.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“He’d go out and inspect facilities himself. Every single time. Over and over again. Told me that we had to put employees first. People mattered. Lives mattered. It was only after he got sick that I understood the full truth.”
“What truth was that?”
“He blamed himself. Guilt has eaten him alive. Guilt for the accident at the factory. Guilt for your mother’s death.”
“My mother?”
He nodded. “Guilt for your disappearance. He blames himself for everything. The nurse with him? She’s there because he’s been on suicide watch.”
“What?”
“I didn’t understand why the gun was in his study,” Victor muttered.
That still bothered him. Who the hell had put the gun in there?
“I’d ordered all guns removed from the estate.
His nurse keeps a close eye on him. And John Henry has directives to watch him like a hawk right now.
Sebastian is not himself any longer. He—he makes mistakes. He says things that he doesn’t mean.”
“Like…killing my mother?”
Yes, like that. “Dario got it wrong. Your father didn’t kill her.
But he told me once—before the sickness stole so much of him—that he’d been a shit husband.
That he was never home. That he didn’t spend enough time with her or with you like he should have done.
He felt like he drove her away, and if he’d just been there, been with her more, then the skiing accident would never have happened.
You wouldn’t have lost your mom. He wouldn’t have lost the one woman who made him happy. ”
“And my disappearance? He said it was his fault. I was there. He said he didn’t pay.”
“He wasn’t talking about a ransom. I’d heard that same rant from him over and over in the last year.
” The first time he’d heard it, Victor had thought the same damn thing she did…
Holy shit, there was a ransom for my Melody?
I’ll pay it. I’ll pay anything. But Victor had checked every phone, every text, every computer.
There had been no ransom. There had only been Sebastian’s guilt.
“He’s been sick. Very, very sick.” Victor thought guilt had been eating the man alive for a very long time.
“He thought that he had to…” Hell, how to explain?
“Sebastian thinks he has to pay with his life in order to atone for his sins.” For the men who died at the factory.
For the wife who’d been taken away in the skiing accident.
For the daughter who’d vanished and never come home again.
Tears filled her eyes. “Victor…”
“I found out, once I started working at Mage and going through the files, that his brother was the one in charge back then. Jackson Mage. The older brother was the one who pulled all the strings at Mage Industries. Your father was second in command. It was Jackson who had ordered the tight production schedule at my dad’s factory.
In order to meet that schedule, the managers cut corners.
The equipment wasn’t inspected properly.
The supervisors at the factory checked boxes just to keep things moving, but there was no inspection. ”
“I’m so sorry.”
She’d done nothing wrong. She didn’t need to apologize to him.
“Your uncle stepped down after the accident. The board voted your father into his position. That’s when safety guidelines were stepped up across all properties and ventures.
When he realized what had happened at my dad’s factory, Sebastian sent money to all the families of the victims.”
“Money doesn’t bring people back.”
No, it sure as fuck didn’t. His mother had taken the money and used it on drugs. Almost a million dollars. He’d never seen a dime of it. It hadn’t helped him. It hadn’t helped her. An overdose had ended his mother’s life.
“How much was a life worth?” Melody asked.
He swallowed. “One hell of a lot less than you would think.”
“Victor…” She shook her head. A teardrop rolled down her cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“Your uncle died of a heart attack a few years later.” He’d never met Jackson Mage.
Sebastian barely ever spoke of his brother.
“Mage Industries has been different since then. Hell, your father was great when it came to safety. Like I said, he was fanatical about it. But he couldn’t anticipate product demand and development for shit.
” Another exhale. “Things got worse with his...condition. I think it had been at play for longer than most people realized. When I took over, it wasn’t a peaceful transfer of power.
” Nothing like they’d all pretended. “I fought tooth and nail for this company. It was going bankrupt. Either I took over, or it ended. By that point, I understood that there were thousands of employees counting on checks. They had families. My job was to take care of them. All of them. So I stepped up. I took the company from Sebastian.”
“You had what you wanted.”
“No. Yes. Dammit—I want you.” She needed to understand this.
“I will never be like him.” So lost in business that the people close to him paid the price.
So many pay the price. “I’m running the company my way.
Safety will always be a priority. I will do the job.
I will take care of my people.” He advanced toward her.
“But I won’t forget my wife. I won’t push her to the side.
I will cherish her. Every single day.” He stood right in front of her.
He knew exactly the words he’d given her before.
He would give them to her again. “You’re it, Melody.
You’re what I want.” His end goal. “No more secrets. No lies. I want you with me, always. I love you.” He held his breath. He waited…
“He wanted me to think you were behind the attack.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I remember…being in my car. A blue Benz. My Benz.” She bit her lower lip.
Slowly let it go. “I was staring at the elevator and waiting for you.” Her hand rose and pointed to her temple.
“Then he was just there. In the back seat behind me. A gun was pushing against my temple and he told me…he said you sent your regards.”
Something broke in him. “No.” A snarl. “I didn’t! I wouldn’t have! I would never have ever—”
The door behind them creaked open. “Not now,” Victor snapped without looking back. He’d deal with Dario and Hunter and the detective and whoever the hell else later.
A gunshot blasted. He felt the impact in the next instant as a hammer seemed to pound into his back. Horror filled Melody’s eyes. Her mouth opened as she screamed.
Another gunshot thundered but Victor was already hurtling himself forward and onto her. He covered her body as they slammed into the floor.