CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Nikolai's tiny fists pounded against my chest as I passed him to Angel, his teething wails piercing my heart. The ghost of his warmth lingered on my arms while his cries echoed down the hallway, following me like an accusation.
Angel swayed with him, her expression gentle as she settled him against her hip. "He'll be fine. Go fix what needs fixing before you shatter completely."
"I'm holding it together," I replied, my voice betraying me.
I wasn't close to being fine.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized Alaric had vanished from our life leaving a ghost of himself in our home.
His dinner chair was perpetually empty, his side of the bed untouched. I found myself longing even for our ridiculous fights about which way the toilet paper should hang. The wall of silence he'd built was devouring us whole.
Somewhere, someone wise once said a closed mouth doesn’t get fed, so I was going to confront my husband, ask what was wrong.
I had never been one to bite my tongue anymore.
If there was a problem, I wanted to know up front.
It wasn't like him to not be direct in the first place, which only gave me even bigger reason for concern.
Santos drove me through the rain-slicked streets.
Every few minutes, his dark eyes would flick to mine in the rearview mirror—concerned, disapproving—before returning to the road.
I knew he was just against this idea as he’d been earlier, and had been told to keep me away, but his loyalty to me ultimately outweighed his reluctance.
The Orpheum stood like obsidian against the skyline, his largest masterpiece. Santos pulled right up to the valet and wasted no time putting the SUV in park, opening my door before the young guy working had a chance to.
I flashed him a smile and ignored the line of people waiting to be let inside. Security on shift averted their eyes as I passed, making no move to stop me. Santos kept pace at my side, his whispered protests brushing my ear.
"Mrs. Kostas," he murmured, tension threading his voice. "At least let me inform—."
"Selene, Sans. You call me, Selene or El. I don't care if we're in public. And there's no need for that; we both know his calendar is clear now."
He fell silent, now trailing me like a reluctant shadow reflected in the glass doors as I pushed my way into the club. The music slammed into me, overwhelming in its intensity. Crimson and amber lights pulsed over writhing bodies.
I took the long way and through the crowd, I caught Cassian's gaze of all people.
He lurked in the shadows near the west bar, amber liquid swirling in his glass as our eyes locked across the room.
His expression hardened into a protective scowl I knew too well.
He muttered something to whoever stood beside him and cut through the crowd in my direction, but the sea of bodies between us swallowed his progress.
Thank God. If anyone could derail my mission with a well-placed hand on my shoulder and reasonable words, it would be him.
In record timing, I bypassed the elevators and slipped into the restricted corridor, heading to the door at the end.
With quick, efficient movements, I used the keypad for the stairwell access.
The numbers glowed blue beneath my touch.
Behind me, Santos swore under his breath but trailed after me when I shoved through the heavy steel door.
At the top landing, another security panel surrendered to my familiar code. The door clicked open like it recognized me. The executive level greeted me with silence—the bass from below reduced to a distant heartbeat, the soft carpet swallowing my footsteps.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, city lights blurred against darkened glass. I moved down the corridor toward the obsidian door at its end that led to a suite of sorts, my own pulse drowning out the tap of my heels.
As I drew closer, the music below became fainter, and I could pick up my husband’s voice. That same voice that had made countless promises, my favorite midnight whisper, was speaking to another woman.
"Wait.Fuck." Came before an exaggerated moan that floated through the door and had my body turning to stone.
Santos' hand touched my arm. "Selene," he murmured quietly, "let's go. Please. Whatever that is you don’t need to see it."
That’s where he was wrong, because even as my feet remained rooted to the carpet, and a small voice in my head was telling me to run back down the stairs, out of the club, and go home to my baby boy’s innocent warmth, I knew I wouldn’t be running away from this.
Ironically, I could thank my husband for making me believe I no longer had to cower or hide from anything.
I gently removed Santo’s hand, the large stone on my wedding ring catching the dim light as my hand trembled. I pushed toward the door, my heart splitting in two with each step as the sounds within the room became clearer.
The private suite corridor stretched before me like a throat, swallowing light except for the amber glow seeping from recessed strips along the baseboards.
My heels dangled from my fingers, the red soles like fresh wounds against my pale skin.
Every nerve ending in my body screamed alert as I slipped into the entryway, the marble floor cold and unforgiving beneath my bare feet.
Santos moved behind me with the silent precision of a shadow, his breath a ghost against my neck.
The bedroom door stood closed, a slab of polished ebony that seemed to pulse with unspoken warnings.
I crept forward, each step measured and deliberate, the silk of my dress whispering against my thighs. My heartbeat hammered in my ears, drowning out even the distant thrum of bass from the club below. Santos hovered at my shoulder, his body coiled tight as a spring.
The bar area glowed ahead—not the intimate amber dimness Alaric preferred when we were together, but harsh, clinical brightness. The kind of light that left nowhere to hide, that he demanded when he needed to think, to be alone with his thoughts. When no living soul was supposed to intrude.
I rounded the corner, my fingers clenching around my shoes. I remained frozen only for a second when I turned the corner, but it felt as if time moved in slow motion. Two silhouettes seared into my vision like hot brands, my brain refusing to process what my eyes couldn’t deny.
A broad-shouldered figure—my husband—stood near the breakfast bar. Before him, a woman knelt on the floor, her spine arched in perfect submission only years of practice could perfect, her red-tipped fingers digging into his thighs as her head bobbed with savage, hungry purpose.
Her hair cascaded over her shoulders. Her dress—fitted cream silk that clung to every curve, riding up her thighs with each movement.
Danielle.
Her head dipped, taking him into her mouth. Her lips wrapped around his dick like she’d been born to suck cock. Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked with a desperation that should’ve been illegal.
The wet, obscene sounds of her throat working echoed in the silent room, her body convulsing slightly before pushing forward again with renewed determination.
Her free hand disappeared beneath the bunched fabric between her trembling thighs, wrist working in frantic circles as she pleasured herself. Her muffled moans vibrated around him.
My lungs seized, vision narrowing to pinpricks of light.
His voice slashed through the roaring in my head.
"What the fuck am I doing?” Alaric’s voice cracked like thunder through the suite, his hands suddenly gripping the woman’s shoulders and pushing her away. “Stop. I can’t—.”
My shoes fell from my hand with a thud that seemed to echo throughout the entire suite.
Not Danielle.
Coraline.
My father’s mistress—who’d slithered into my life with her saccharine smiles while spreading her legs for my father behind closed doors.
The woman whose fingers had once braided my hair with gentle care now clawed at my husband’s thighs, her mouth—the same mouth that had whispered “I’ll always be here for you. ”—stretched around his cock.
Every memory of her twisted, rotted, festered in my mind. The betrayal wasn’t just doubled—it was exponential, multiplying with each heartbeat.
My vision collapsed to a pinprick of nuclear- white rage. Santos’ shout became distant static. Alaric’ s expression contorted in slow-motion as he spotted me. Coraline’ s lipstick-smeared mouth was still formed in a perfect O when I materialized behind her, my body moving on pure instinct.
I lunged forward with a sound I didn't recognize. My fingers knotted into her hair, wrenching backward with such force that her scalp yielded—blood-slicked strands tearing free between my knuckles.
Her scream shattered the air as her body slammed against the floor, flailing legs reminding of an insect.
Alaric lunged toward us to stop me.
"Selene—"
My hand seized a nearby crystal tumbler from its shelf, knuckles bleaching bloodless around the heavy glass. I launched it at him with such violence my shoulder joint burned.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
The glass detonated against the cabinet beside his head, razor shards exploding outward like shrapnel, and liquor rained.
Coraline writhed beneath my fingers, her scream piercing the air. "Let me go!”
I didn’t want to let her go.
I wanted to wring her goddamn neck before I got to my husband.
I dragged her further by the hair, her spine arching in an unnatural curve as her fingernails clawed desperately at my wrists.
She was a lot heavier than she looked, but that didn’t stop me as I slammed her face into the corner edge of the breakfast bar.
Twice.
Her screams collapsed into broken whimpers as blood spattered across the floor.
“Selene!” Alaric said my name louder than he ever had in the entire time we’d been together.
"El, enough." Santos' grip cinched around me, his arms bulged with strain as he pulled me back, his eyes wide with disbelief. Coraline crumpled to the floor, her hands clutching her face, blood seeping between her fingers. Her once-perfect hair hung in tangles around her shoulders.
“Enough?” I spat, my voice cracking. “You don’t get to tell me that!”
I thrashed in his grip, as I fought for freedom. My chest heaved with each breath. When his arms wouldn’t yield, I kicked out with every ounce of my hatred, my heel just connecting with her temple with a jolt of satisfaction up my leg.
“Get her out of here,” Alaric ordered. He’d tucked himself away, zipped up his pants like this was just some minor inconvenience instead of the complete destruction of everything I’d built him up to be within my mind and heart.
The woman sprawled at my feet, whimpering, her face barely recognizable beneath the mask of blood and destruction. Yet it wasn’t enough. I wanted to crawl inside her skin and tear her apart from within.
“My God, El.” Santos wrapped both arms tighter around my waist, lifting me away. “It’s done. You can’t kill her yet.”
He spoke the last part only loud enough for me to hear.
Coraline rolled to her side, curling into herself like a wounded animal. A moan escaped her lips, muffled against the floor. “You crazy bitch!”
“El,” Santos repeated, his voice breaking as he moved me toward the exit feet away. “Breathe.”
I couldn’t breathe. The oxygen in the room felt toxic, my lungs burning with each desperate inhale. The scene before me was worse than any nightmare, and yet I couldn’t wake up from it.
Alaric remained near the bar, even as we turned the corner. His eyes, those beautiful, piercing eyes that had made promises I’d been foolish enough to believe—were locked on us with something dark and another emotion in them I couldn’t decipher.
The door burst open. Cassian stood there, chest heaving, taking in everything at once, trembling in Santos’ grip, Coraline’s bloodied form on the floor, his brother’s frozen stance.
“Jesus shit Christ, what happened?” His voice cut through the room as the door slammed behind him.
Santos guided me toward the elevator, his arm a vise around my waist, his other hand steadying my shoulder like I might shatter at any moment.