49. Aj
I’ve rehearsed this conversation a thousand times in my head since meeting Miranda in the park. Now I’m standing in a ballroom at another useless Sovereign event, and every single version of it has gone to shit.
My heart is hammering, my palms damp around the stem of my champagne glass, and my brain keeps ricocheting between anger, guilt, and that sick, fluttery feeling I don’t even want to name.
Across the room, Generals and Commanders drift beneath chandeliers in expensive suits while Sluts lounge on balconies and raised platforms, smiling like decorations.
And then he walks in.
Even in a room full of men who’ve spent their lives being looked at, he stands out. Broad shoulders stretching the gray fabric of his jacket. Dark hair slightly tousled, beard trimmed close to his jaw. He stops just inside the doors and scans the room with those cold green eyes.
His gaze lands on me.
For one awful second, neither of us moves.
Then his jaw tics and he turns away.
Fucking typical.
I swallow hard and pluck a glass of champagne off a passing tray, even though I don’t drink it. I just hold it like a prop while I watch him move through the crowd, nodding at a few Generals.
I should walk straight up to him and say exactly what Miranda asked me to say. But my legs refuse to move, rooted to the marble floor, because I don’t know how he’s going to react. Wolff isn’t exactly predictable. And I’m too scared to watch him shut me out again.
So instead, I stay where I am, clutching this stupid glass, watching him be everything I’m not—calm, in control of himself—while my pulse tries to pound its way out of my throat.
“Did you look at all the destinations I sent you?” Sienna’s voice pulls me out of my head.
“What?”
She sips her martini, eyes flicking toward the Generals on the other side of the room. “For your bachelorette party? I sent you, like, five options.”
“Oh. Yeah. They were great.”
The lie tastes like ash.
I can barely focus on her. My eyes keep drifting back to Wolff. He’s talking to Graves, his back to me, but every line of his body is tense.
“Oh my god, please tell me she picked St. Barts.”
Devin appears at Sienna’s shoulder in a tight black dress, blonde hair pinned up so perfectly it makes me want to throw something.
I have to force my face to stay neutral.
I didn’t know Sienna invited her, but then again, I haven’t answered half of Sienna’s messages lately, so I guess I forfeited the right to an opinion.
“It’s the front-runner so far,” Sienna says with a grin.
“Or we could just get trashed at a club here and call it a day,” I mutter, barely listening.
“AJ, it’s your wedding.” Devin’s smile is too sweet to be real. “Aren’t you at least a little excited? David was meeting with my dad earlier. It sounds like you two have a very big year ahead of you.”
I finally take a drink, mostly so I don’t have to answer. The champagne does nothing for the dread climbing up my spine.
Turning away from both of them, I head for the bar, setting the half-finished glass down before grabbing a bottle of vodka from behind the counter. I twist off the cap and take a long pull straight from it.
The burn is sharp enough to make my eyes water, but not enough to quiet the fear knotting in my chest. I scan the room again—he’s already halfway across it, slipping through the large glass doors that lead out to the garden.
I don’t let myself think.
I follow.
The night air is cool against my flushed skin, cutting through the warm haze of alcohol. I round the corner of the tall hedge wall and stop a few feet behind him. He’s standing with his back to me, one hand shoved in his pocket.
I clear my throat.
He doesn’t turn around. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
Silence. Only the faint music from the ballroom bleeds into the garden.
“I know your real name,” I say before I lose my nerve. “Dylan.”
His entire body goes rigid before he slowly turns. Eyes locking on mine, the cold emptiness in them sends ice through my veins.
Fuck.
This wasn’t how I wanted to do this. Not with his face going blank like that. I should’ve waited. Should’ve thought this through for five more goddamn seconds before blurting out the one name guaranteed to make him look at me like I just put a knife in his throat.
I take a step back automatically. “Miranda contacted me and—”
“You spoke to Miranda?” he bites out.
“Yes. I met her, and she told me everything. About what happened to you when you were little. The house, the men, how they—”
“Shut your mouth.”
Shit.
This is bad. Every instinct in my body is screaming at me to shut up, to stop turning this into a bigger mess than it already is, but it’s too late now.
I’m already standing in front of him half-drunk, half-panicked, trying to shove a conversation about the worst thing that ever happened to him into the middle of a fucking Sovereign party.
He crowds my space until his face is inches from mine, eyes black in the moonlight.
It’s terrifying.
Fuck.
I should sober the fuck up and walk away before I make this worse. Instead, I open my mouth again like a complete fucking idiot.
“Wolff—”
“I told you to shut the fuck up.”
“I know,” I whisper, tears burning. “I know, I’m sorry, it’s just— I’m not trying to fix you. I just need you to know that I understand because I lo—”
“Don’t.” His whole body tenses, even tighter somehow. “Don’t you fucking dare say that to me.”
“But it’s true,” I whisper.
I don’t know why I say it. Maybe because I’m drunk. Maybe because I’m stupid. Maybe because some broken part of me still thinks if I can just get the words out, if I can just make him hear them, he’ll stop looking at me like I’m something he wants to destroy.
He laughs, and it’s a horrible sound.
“True?” He leans in until our noses almost touch.
“You want the truth, AJ? Here it is. I will never love you. I will never want you. You were a job. A mess I got stuck cleaning up. The only difference between you and every other broken little Slut is that you don’t know when to shut the fuck up and stop embarrassing yourself. ”
My chest caves in.
“You think because I held you a few times, because I let you cling to me in Russia, because I fucked you, it means something?” His mouth curls in disgust. “You were convenient. Warm. Wet. That’s it. That’s all you’ve ever been.”
A sob lodges in my throat. I can’t breathe.
“What the fuck is it going to take to get through your head? How many times do I have to walk away from you? How many times do I have to shove you off, ignore you, leave you standing there, looking pathetic, before you finally understand that I do. Not. Want. You.”
Each word feels like a slap.
“You’re lying.”
His expression hardens. “Am I?”
“Yes. You keep coming back.”
“Because you make it easy—you’re always there with your legs spread and your fucking feelings hanging out, waiting for me to throw you scraps and call it affection. That’s not love, AJ. That’s desperation. And the fact you can’t tell the difference is embarrassing.”
“Is there a problem?” David’s deep voice cuts through the garden.
Wolff leans in closer, his mouth brushing the shell of my ear, his hand still braced beside my head.
“You want to know who I am so badly?” His voice lowers enough that only I can hear it. “I’ll show you. I’ll make you wish I’d left you in Russia.”
The blood drains from my face.
David’s standing a few feet away, his eyes flicking over Wolff first, then me. “Step away from my fiancée, Maddox.”
Wolff doesn’t move. For one horrible second, I think he’s going to say something else. Do something worse. But all he does is drag his unfeeling gaze over me one last time and then walks away.
David waits until Wolff disappears around the hedge before he looks at me properly.
“You’re a mess.”
I let out a shaky laugh that sounds more like I’m choking. “Thanks.”
“Stand up straight and wipe your face. You’ve had enough to drink for the night.
Sober up. Now.” He steps closer, lowering his voice.
“Whatever scene you were about to make with Maddox ends now. You’re coming back inside with me, you’re going to fix your face, and you’re going to remember how to behave for the next hour. ”
He turns and walks away, leaving me pressed against the wall with tears streaming down my face and my heart in pieces at my feet.
The TV flickers in the corner of the room, the volume low enough that I can barely hear it over Jackal’s soft snoring on the couch.
Some reality show is playing—women screaming over champagne and cheating husbands—and I’ve been half-watching the same episode for at least an hour without actually processing a single thing.
My phone buzzes again on the coffee table.
I stare at it until the screen goes dark, then reach over, turn it off completely, and toss it onto the floor beside the couch.
I don’t know how many days it’s been since the ballroom.
Three, maybe four.
I haven’t left the house once.
The curtains are still drawn from yesterday.
Or maybe the day before that. Empty takeout containers are stacked on the kitchen counter.
My makeup from the party is still smeared faintly under my eyes, no matter how many times I’ve scrubbed at it.
I smell like vodka, stale perfume, and the same oversized sweatshirt I’ve been living in.
Every time I close my eyes, I hear his voice again.
Convenient. Warm. Wet.
Pathetic.
Embarrassing.
The words keep replaying on a loop until they don’t even sound like his anymore. They just sound true.
What kind of girl has to be told twice by the same man that she means nothing to him and still keeps going back for more?
Apparently, this one.
I drag the blanket off the back of the couch and wrap it around myself, tucking my legs underneath me. Jackal stirs at the movement, lifting his head long enough to glance at me before huffing and dropping it back onto the cushion.