Chapter 6 #2
The air in the hallway shifted. “Punched to death.”
He didn’t exaggerate. He stated it like a fact that still burned him alive.
“One hundred and fifteen blows.”
His gaze sharpened. “Most of them aimed at her face.”
My stomach twisted despite myself.
“Her features...” He swallowed. “...obliterated.”
His hands clenched at his sides.
“She was reduced to unrecognizable pulp under that assault.”
Silence followed.
I forced my expression to remain neutral.
He continued. “And that same woman — the one responsible — didn’t stop there.”
His eyes hardened again. “Maria was eight months pregnant.”
His voice lowered. “She went after her, attacked her... cut her open... “
My breath hitched — involuntarily. “Her womb sliced with surgical precision.”
He spoke carefully now. “As if the child inside meant nothing.”
“One deliberate thrust ended my son.”
His jaw tightened. “Then she let my wife bleed out slowly while she begged for her baby’s life.”
The words were delivered like testimony in a courtroom.
“I never gave my wife the affection she deserved.”
His tone softened — guilt creeping in. “Our marriage was arranged.”
“We were partners in survival more than lovers.”
He looked away briefly. “But I loved that unborn son. And I loved her first son, Yannis. Every future I imagined was tied to them.”
His gaze returned to me. “I owed them justice. Both of them.”
The weight behind that declaration was grief weaponized into purpose.
He stepped closer again — close enough that I could feel the intensity radiating off him.
“And then...”
His eyes sharpened. “Fate mocked me. It brought you. The sister of the woman who shattered my life. Under my roof.”
His voice cracked slightly — not with anger, but conflict. “How could I allow myself to feel warmth toward you?”
“How could I sit at a table with you — eat beside you — laugh with you — knowing your bloodline carried the face of the monster who destroyed my family?”
He shook his head faintly.
“From the second week of our marriage until I had you arrested — I used to watch you sitting alone at that long dinner table. Staring at empty chairs.”
His eyes studied me carefully. “And every time I saw that loneliness in your posture...”
His voice lowered. “...I wanted to pull out a chair.”
“I wanted to sit beside you. Share a meal. Make you laugh until your eyes stopped looking like they were bracing for impact.”
His jaw clenched. “But I couldn’t. It felt like betrayal. Like I was dishonoring Amy.”
“Like I was spitting on the memory of my late wife, our unborn baby... and my late sister.”
He exhaled slowly.
“The guilt of wanting you conflicted with the obligation to avenge them.”
His gaze locked onto mine. “That war inside me defined every interaction we had.”
“Distance wasn’t hatred. It was survival.”
Silence stretched between us again.
This time heavier than before. I understood something clearly now —
His cruelty toward me wasn’t born purely from malice. It was born from unresolved grief mixed with projection.
He saw my sister’s face when he looked at me.
He saw his trauma reflected in my existence.
And instead of separating the two —
He fused them.
I held his gaze.
He swallowed again.
For the first time since I’d walked through that door, the mask he wore — the ruthless confidence, the untouchable authority — cracked under the pressure of his own grief.
“When you came home from those clubs,” he said quietly, voice rough around the edges, “reeking of whiskey and smoke... when you’d force that small hopeful smile like nothing had changed...”
His throat tightened. “I wasn’t ignoring you out of spite.”
His eyes lifted to mine — raw now, stripped bare.
“God, no. Every instinct in me wanted to cross that room, pull you into my arms, hold you so tightly you couldn’t breathe, and tell you never to leave again.”
His jaw flexed.
“I wanted to promise I’d be your anchor. Your companion. The one person who wouldn’t abandon you.”
His gaze dropped briefly.
“But I couldn’t.”
The words came out like an admission of guilt.
“The trauma chained me. The images of them — Amy... my wife... the way they died — those memories refused to let me touch anything soft again.”
He inhaled slowly.
“As long as their killers walked free in my mind, I felt that allowing myself to love you would be a betrayal.”
Tears slid down my cheeks before I could stop them.
Silent. Hot. Uncontrolled.
The room blurred at the edges.
I hated that his words reached something buried deep inside me — something that still remembered longing for him despite everything.
He saw the tears.
His hand lifted instinctively — hesitant, almost instinctual.
Then it stopped midair.
He pulled it back before touching me.
As if afraid his comfort would push me away further.
“Two years,” he repeated softly. “That’s all I’m asking. Not forever. Not ownership.”
His voice lowered. “Two years to try.”
Try what? Rewrite history?
Undo prison? Undo betrayal?
I dragged my sleeve across my face, wiping the tears away roughly — angry at myself for showing weakness.
His expression shifted again.
More fragile now. “Elena...”
His voice cracked on my name.
That fracture startled me more than his earlier declarations. “I swear to you — I never knew you were pregnant.”
The words hung in the space between us.
Heavy. Honest. Or at least — delivered with conviction.
“If Harlan hadn’t confessed to me that he was intercepting your letters — making sure the ones you sent from prison never reached me — I never would have known about the pregnancy.”
His jaw tightened.
“I never saw those letters. I didn’t know you were carrying my child.”
He swallowed.
“I’m not that cruel,” he continued quietly, his voice lowering as if he were admitting something deeply personal.
His eyes dropped briefly to the floor before lifting back to mine. “No matter what I believed you had done... I would never have sent a pregnant woman to prison.”
A bitter laugh threatened to escape me — but I swallowed it.
“You were carrying my child,” he said quietly.
His gaze darkened. “Our child.”
His jaw tightened.
“And the realization that I used my own authority — my power — to lock you away while you were pregnant...”
His voice broke again — this time visibly.
“...it destroys me.”
He dragged a hand down his face. “I buried my son.”
The admission was self-condemning.
“Your first pregnancy didn’t die from fate. It died because of my decisions. Because I trusted falsified evidence. Because I believed lies over the woman who was carrying my blood.”
His eyes lifted — filled with something that looked dangerously close to shame.
“I know how those nine months were for you.”
His voice softened. “The humiliation. The isolation. The beatings. The starvation.”
Each word landed carefully — deliberately.
“I know what prison did to your body.”
His gaze flicked briefly to my stomach — then away again.
“And I know nothing I say can undo it.”
He stepped slightly closer — cautiously now, like approaching something wounded.
“Nothing I do can bring him back.”
His voice dropped. “Nothing I suffer will ever balance the scale.”
His lips pressed into a thin line.
“So I’m not asking for forgiveness anymore.”
That caught my attention.
He shook his head. “I’ve stopped expecting it.”
His eyes locked onto mine with renewed intensity.
“I just want proximity.”
The word felt deliberate. “I want to exist near you — even if you see me as punishment.”
His expression shifted again — raw sincerity bleeding through.
“If being near you means I become your servant... your slave... someone you use for leverage against me...”
He inhaled sharply. “Then I accept it.”
His shoulders lowered — a posture I’d never seen from him before.
“I’ll suffer for as long as you need me to suffer.”
His voice lowered even further. “I’ll bleed for you.”
“Crawl.”
“Beg.”
“Endure.”
His gaze never left mine.
“Anything — as long as I can stay in your orbit.”
The words weren’t manipulation.
They were surrender wrapped in pride.
He paused and lowered his head.
Suddenly, I moved.
I crossed the distance in a single sharp stride, dropped low, and snatched the Glock from the marble floor where it had skittered earlier.
My grip locked around it instantly — muscle memory overriding pain.
I backed up three measured steps and raised the muzzle.
Center mass.
“Tell me something,” I said coldly. “There are no snipers around, right?”
His jaw tightened — not from fear, but from calculation.
“They’re on the roofs,” he answered evenly. “You can’t see them. But they’re there.”
“Liar.”
I raised the gun and aimed at his leg and shot.
He lifted his uninjured hand in a sharp, trained signal — palm out, fingers extended, a command flashed to invisible shooters.
The movement was reflex.
Military. Controlled.
Only after the signal did a low groan escape him.
He staggered sideways and slammed his shoulder into the wall to stay upright.
Blood poured faster now — thick crimson seeping through fabric and spreading across polished marble like an obscene signature.
His breathing shifted.
Strained.
Forced.
Sweat broke across his forehead as shock began creeping into his system.
“They’re holding fire,” he rasped through clenched teeth. “You saw the signal. But if you pull that trigger again — if I lose consciousness — protocol changes.”
I didn’t give him time to recover.
I adjusted my grip and aimed at his right upper arm — already torn by the earlier shot.
I pulled the trigger.
The second gunshot echoed.
The bullet ripped clean through muscle tissue, exiting in a burst of red that splattered the wall behind him.
His arm dropped immediately.
Useless.
He tried to raise it — failed — and instinctively grabbed his bicep with his left hand.
Blood coated his fingers in seconds.
A sharp hiss escaped him between clenched teeth.
His legs trembled harder now.
The thigh wound leaked steadily.
The arm wound poured.