Thirty-Nine #2
It’s warped and perverse, but there’s an opening here. “If you’re so full of remorse, will you do whatever I say?”
“Yes.” There’s not even a flicker.
I hold out my hand. “Then give me that knife.”
He pauses for only a second, then places it into my palm, watching me warily.
It’s heavier than I expected.
I try to close the blade, but it doesn’t seem to want to move. It’s double-edged, and I don’t want to cut myself.
“There’s a button.” He points. “On the hilt.”
“Oh yeah, thanks.” I close the blade and drop it on the bed, the far side from him.
He lets out a shuddering sigh of relief. Did he think I was going to stab myself? I couldn’t do that. Not after what he’s just told me.
We watch each other for a while.
“I think you’re fucked in the head,” I say at last.
He blinks at me, then gives a soft chuckle and rubs a hand over his face. “I think you drink too much and you can’t be trusted with sleeping pills.”
“Okay, good. Communication. That’s important.” I’m so tired. My body is frail and my energy is low. But there are more pressing matters. “Did you mean what you said just now?”
“Which part?”
“Freedom. Will you… give me some?”
“Yes.”
I wait, but there are no qualifiers.
But what does it matter? He thinks freedom is a walk around the perimeter of my prison, or a shopping trip with escorts herding me everywhere.
I want true freedom, and he won’t grant it to me, I know he won’t.
The reasons remain: protection for my sister, if not for me.
And for him too, as he told me once, so I can’t be used against him.
All this, and I’m still trapped.
“What are you thinking?” he asks softly.
“That nothing has changed,” I reply bitterly.
“Everything has changed,” he says, leaning forward.
Okay, then. Baby steps.
“I want to be able to go out.” God, a basic privilege, and I’m having to bargain for it. “I want to see my friends. My sister.”
“Of course you can.”
That was… easy. If he means it.
“Alone?” I ask tentatively.
“If that’s what you want. Or I could come with you… or not,” he adds hurriedly.
It’s more than an olive branch. It’s a complete one-eighty.
I don’t understand how it’s even possible.
“But what about the Volkovs? What about my safety?”
“That threat is no more.” His eyes go hard, and his voice lowers. “If there’s even a hint of a move against you, I’ve told them we won’t stop coming. We will destroy them.”
There’s so much menace in his voice it’s impossible not to believe him, and it’s not even directed at me. The Volkovs? They must be running scared.
This man, with his knife on my bed. He’s sworn he’ll never harm me, but he hasn’t sworn never to harm them. He’s killed for me, to protect me. He’s a killer, but he’s done it for me.
Does that make it right? No. But God, it makes it… powerful.
“Is it a bluff?” I ask, curious. “Can you do it?”
“Bastien and I are of one mind on this. If we must, we will bring the full weight of Sentinel down on them.”
“So… I’m really free?” After all this time? I can’t believe it.
He nods slowly, watching me. “Yes.”
No more Serranto. No more threat. “My sister, too?”
“Yes.”
But that means none of this is necessary anymore. No threat, no coercion. No coercion, no marriage. What is he going to do, tie me to this bed and refuse to let me leave?
I wouldn’t put it past him.
Yet he sits there, staring at me with such naked hope in his eyes, I’m not certain he will.
Something has changed, and all I had to do was try to kill myself. Was that the trigger? Was that all that was needed to finally be worthy of his understanding?
Yet I don’t care. I don’t give a damn about his understanding. Not after all he’s done to me.
I take a breath. Then another, seeking the strength I need. And God but do I need a lot of strength for this. I grip the blankets in my fingers, steadying myself.
Am I going to do it? Am I going to ask?
Quickly, before I chicken out.
“I want a divorce.” There. I did it. I might’ve blurted it, not said it firmly like I meant to, but I did it.
Van Wyk slumps back in his chair and lets out a ragged sigh, then rubs a hand over his face. “My worst nightmare.”
“Mine too,” I say quickly. “You forced me into this. I married you to protect my sister, you, myself. But with the threat now gone—”
“Those weren’t my reasons,” he argues. “Yes, I pressured you. But I did it because—” He stops, looking down. When he meets my eyes again, his are beseeching. “Please, Amelia. Don’t I deserve a second chance?”
“No,” I say coldly. Hell, he never deserved a first chance.
He jerks as if I’ve slapped him. “Haven’t I protected you? Haven’t I given you everything you could need?”
I can’t keep the scorn from my voice, and I don’t try. “You have no idea what I need.”
“I can learn,” he says quietly.
I scoff, looking away.
“I can,” he insists. “Please. All I’m asking is for a chance.”
“What were your reasons for forcing me to marry you? Tell me that, at least. I’m dying to know.”
He cringes at my callous reminder, looking at me with mournful eyes. “The worst moment of my life was walking in here to see you that still… the bottle of pills on the floor…” He swallows hard.
“The worst moment of my life was being dragged onto a terrace by you.”
He watches me, saying nothing, and I can’t hold his gaze. I’m not sure it’s even true. That night, part of me wasn’t averse to what he did, and we both know it.
Besides, he’s done far worse things since.
“I’ll answer your question,” he says, “but please don’t ever do something like this again.”
“Not making any promises,” I mutter. I’m not sure if I mean it or not. I’m no longer certain I do want to die, but is this living? Kept as his captive?
“Please, Amelia. I… couldn’t bear it. I’ll do anything not to lose you.”
“You never had me,” I throw back at him. “I am not yours. I never was yours. Imprisoning me doesn’t make it so! And don’t you dare say the word ‘mine.’”
“Then I’ll do anything to keep you alive,” he says, voice thick with emotion. “For the same reason that I wanted to marry you. Because I love you.”
I stare at him in confusion, trying to reconcile that.
My denial is a reflex. “No, you don’t.” He can’t. It’s not true. Not after what he’s done, how he’s treated me. How can that be love?
“I do,” he insists. “I have since… hell, almost the first day we met.” I open my mouth to protest again, but he holds up a hand, forestalling me. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me, and I wouldn’t expect you to. It’s why I never said anything. But I want the chance to show you. To prove it to you.”
I shake my head, incredulous. Then I laugh, brittle and sharp. I can’t help it.
How I’ve wanted a man to say those words! And now, when one finally does, it’s him? Like this? After all he’s done? It’s so cruel.
I hate him for cheapening it.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say bitterly. “The first day we met? That was sex, not romance. How can you have love without romance?”
He has the decency to look abashed. “I admit it began more as obsession than love.”