16. Theo
Chapter 16
Theo
The van pulled up to a random street, and they threw the door open.
I was shoved outside, my handcuffs were removed, and then they pushed me to the ground before they got back into the van and took off.
I didn’t fight, because I had nothing to fight for.
I sat on the curb with my arms on my knees, a camp of homeless people across the road sleeping in their tents. I was in the glow of the streetlight, a car parked a few feet away from me. I should jump to my feet and get to work, but my hands were still tied behind my back, even if the cuffs had been removed.
I sat there for an hour before I got to my feet and walked. My phone had been left with Octavio because I didn’t want Bolton to have information he shouldn’t. Instead of waving down a taxi, I walked across town until I approached Axel’s house.
The gates to his property were gone…just gone. They hadn’t been knocked down or dented in. It seemed like a crane had removed the doors from their hinges and literally moved them elsewhere. I walked onto his property and quickly realized no one was around. Bolton’s men had been called off after he’d gotten what he wanted.
I just hoped he kept his word.
When I went to the front door, I saw that it had been kicked in. Half of it was off the hinges completely. I let myself inside and stepped into the foyer. “Axel?” I raised my voice and called up the stairs. “Axel?”
“We’re in here.” Axel appeared out of the study in his sweatpants and nothing else, his face strained like he’d been so stressed, he’d broken all the blood vessels in his face. His eyes were red and puffy, as if he’d cried more in the last few hours than he had in his entire life. He looked infinitely more heartbroken than the night he’d let Scarlett believe he cheated on her.
“Scarlett is here?” I asked as I walked to him.
“Yeah.” He swayed on the spot, looking like a ghost of who he used to be. “She told me you came for her.”
If Axel was going to thank me, I wasn’t going to accept it. “How is she? ”
“She’s okay.” He sniffed, and his eyes started to water. “But I’m not okay.” Tears exploded from his eyes and cascaded down his cheeks. “They took her, but I couldn’t stop them. I had to protect our babies…”
My hand went to his shoulder. “She’s okay, Axel.”
“They pointed a gun at my daughter’s head…” He continued to sob. “I had to let them take Scarlett?—”
“You did the right thing.”
“ I let them take my wife ?—”
“You did exactly what Scarlett wanted you to do.” I cupped the back of his head. “And she’s home now, and your babies are safe. It’s over, okay? It’s over. Breathe. Just breathe.”
He bowed his head and tried to shut down the tears, but a few continued to flow.
“You have no idea how sorry I am about all this.” I felt my own eyes water because I felt like shit. I was the reason this had happened. I was the reason Axel had almost lost his wife…and almost knew how it felt to be a widower. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” He sniffled.
“We both know it’s my fault. Because I asked you to watch Astrid.” Bolton must have figured it out. Axel had come with me to get Astrid out of the house that burned down. Bolton must have made the connection then. Astrid always said how smart he was. “But it’s over now. Everyone is safe.”
“You killed him, then?” He quickly dragged his forearm across his eyes to catch whatever moisture was left behind.
The guilt was like a knife between the ribs. I wanted to lie…lie so fucking bad. “No.”
He sniffed again then composed himself. He didn’t seem to register what I’d said until seconds later. “What do you mean, no?”
“No.” I repeated the answer and felt the same pain all over again.
“Then what happened? What about Astrid?”
“She chose him.”
He cocked his head, his eyes shifting back and forth. “What the fuck are you saying right now? That woman loves you.”
I couldn’t tell him the truth. It would just make him feel like shit. When I’d come here, I’d intended to tell him the truth, but seeing his devastation…and knowing they’d really put a gun to his daughter’s head…made me realize that Bolton would actually make good on his threat, and Axel had been through enough. “She chose him. I don’t know what else to say.”
Axel continued to look at me like I was crazy. “I don’t understand. ”
“When I showed up there to spare Scarlett, Astrid came, and they talked—and she decided she wanted to give their marriage another try.” I knew Astrid had put on the performance of a lifetime to keep me alive. She was smart enough to know that Bolton would kill me even when she showed up. I didn’t watch her kiss him because it was too hard. Tried to block out the sound of her voice when she spoke to him. Watching her walk out that door and doing nothing to stop it…was the hardest thing I’d had to do.
Except for this.
Axel was still bewildered. “That doesn’t make any sense?—”
“Can I see Scarlett?” I didn’t want to talk about Astrid anymore. She was probably on a plane by now. Going to Greece or Croatia…or Norway.
He turned to the study and walked inside.
I followed and found Scarlett holding her son in her arms, who was asleep. Her daughter was sleeping on the couch beside her, tucked under a blanket. Judging by the puffiness of her eyes, she’d been crying…a lot.
I took a seat in the armchair and looked at her.
She looked back at me, her left eye now swollen shut.
I bowed my head because I couldn’t look at her. It was too fucking painful.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I’m okay.”
My eyes remained on the floor.
“Theo.”
I sighed before I looked at her.
“We’re safe,” she said. “And it’s over.”
I looked at Axel in the other chair.
He wasn’t looking directly at Scarlett either, like he physically couldn’t.
Yes, it was over. But the memory of this night would haunt us forever.
Axel and I didn’t speak for a couple of weeks.
I assumed he wanted to spend time with his family and recover from the tragedy that had struck them.
Astrid’s belongings were still in the bedroom down the hall. I’d hired a new butler and forgot to chase down the old one. I returned to work and didn’t mention Bolton because that feud would need to stay buried.
I felt like shit for letting Astrid go, but there was nothing I could do.
I didn’t want Axel to lose one of his kids.
I knew Astrid didn’t want that either.
So, I was stuck…and so was she .
The house felt haunted by her ghost. When I looked at the bed, I used to remember Shayla dying in it. But now, I remembered Astrid’s smile when she woke up in the morning. The way she squeezed me like a stuffed teddy bear. The way she handled my big dick like it was no problem, when it was a big problem. The way she told me she loved me so many times…and didn’t care that I never said it back.
“I should have said it back.” I sat behind my desk in the study and looked at the painting on the wall. The painting that we’d looked at together. I bought it because I loved it, but I also loved the woman who’d sold it to me.
And now she was gone, just like Shayla.
As good as dead.
Frank, my new butler, entered the study. “Sir, Axel is here to see you. Should I show him in?”
I didn’t expect to hear from him—possibly ever.
A minute later, Axel walked inside, the color back in his face but the spring absent from his step. He approached one of the armchairs and sat down, hands together in his lap. He looked at the surface of my desk before he looked at me. “Haven’t heard from you in a while.”
“I figured you didn’t want to hear from me.”
Axel looked away.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted me out of your life, Axel. ”
“Well, I don’t.” He looked at me again. “And neither does Scarlett.”
I expected him to tell me we needed to part ways. That they’d decided to relocate to Paris or something. Start over. Didn’t expect there to be a friendship between us at all. “You know this is all my fault, Axel. I shouldn’t have asked you.”
“It’s my fault, because I could have said no,” he said. “We can play this game all day long. It’s not going to change anything. It took a couple weeks for me to be able to let Scarlett even leave the room, but I’m in a better place now.”
“How is she?”
“She’s doing well. Bounces back a lot quicker than I do. But she didn’t have to see…you know.”
The gun against his daughter’s head. “Yeah.”
His eyes moved down. “I’ll never get over that.”
“I don’t blame you.”
He stared down at his hands for a while. “How are you?”
“Me?” I asked incredulously. “Who gives a fuck about me.”
“I do.” He lifted his head and met my gaze. “What happened with Astrid?”
“I already told you?—”
“And it made no sense.” He straightened in his chair. “She looked me in the face and told me how much she loves you. That she’d die if you died. You’re gonna bullshit me right now and say she just decided to be with that freak after everything you’ve been through? Your story is complete bullshit, Theo. So what the fuck actually happened?”
I sank into my chair and looked away.
He continued to stare me down with those furious blue eyes. “Theo.”
“It’s best if you don’t know.”
“Okay, now you’re just making it worse.”
“Trust me on this, Axel.”
He stared for a long time, like he was contemplating the advice. But in the end, he ignored it. “I want to know the truth—and you’re going to tell me.”
I gave a quiet sigh in frustration.
“Well?” He straightened in the chair again.
I didn’t want to tell him, but he would pester me until I cracked like a walnut under a boot. “She’s smart. Knew he was going to kill me right in front of her. So she did the only thing she could to keep me alive, convince him that she was willing to work on their marriage. But only if he let me go.” I left out the details of the kiss, but I wanted to pretend that never happened. It meant nothing to her, but it still hurt like hell.
Axel examined me with a curtain of confusion across his eyes. “That was weeks ago! You’ve just been sitting on your ass ever since? She’s stuck with some psychopath, and you’re just staring at some ugly-ass paintings?”
I looked away, choosing to stare at one of those paintings instead of him.
“What the fuck, man?”
“There’s nothing I can do.”
“No one can hide forever. He’s somewhere, and you’ll figure it out?—”
“He said if I try, he’ll kill your kids.” It hurt to say it out loud, to say something so fucking indescribable. “And I know he means it.” I didn’t look at Axel because I couldn’t tolerate his reaction. “I can’t risk that. If I could talk to Astrid, I know she would say the same thing.” She would rather live a miserable life than let an innocent child be killed. I kept my eyes on the painting because I wasn’t man enough to look at him.
The silence stretched for a while.
It went on for so long, it was easy to forget that Axel was there. If I focused on the painting long enough, I felt like I was the only person in the room.
Axel eventually found his voice. “That asshole came into my house and took my wife.” He deepened his voice instead of raising it, the fury packed deep inside. “And put a gun to my little girl’s head. I’m not going to let that go.”
I turned to look at him .
“Ever.”
“I understand your anger?—”
“No, you don’t,” he said quietly. “I want my gun against his temple. And I want his brains on my clothes after I pull the trigger.”
“Axel.” I understood his rage. I understood the desire for bloodshed. But he wasn’t thinking clearly. “It’s over now. Bolton’s gone, and your family is safe. Be at peace.”
“How can I be at peace when your woman is gone?”
My eyes shifted away.
“Astrid is a prisoner again.”
“Axel, I’ll never get the image of Scarlett’s black eye out of my head. I can’t risk your family, because they’re my family too.” I’d watched my wife die, and I didn’t want Axel to ever know such misery.
His eyes shifted back and forth between mine. “Astrid is family too.”
“She’s not my wife?—”
“But she will be—someday. I wouldn’t put my family’s life on the line for just anybody. I know the way you feel about her. I can see it on your face every time you’re in the room with her. Whenever you talk about her, your entire energy changes. You love this woman—which means I love her. ”
I couldn’t look at him. He’d already done so much for me. I couldn’t ask him to do anything else.
“Theo.”
I gave a sigh before I met his look.
“Let’s get your woman back.”
“But he’ll come for your family?—”
“I’ll send Scarlett and the kids away. She won’t even tell me where they’re going. And this time, we don’t leave until Bolton is dead. Until his heart has stopped and his blood needs to be mopped off the floor. Until that oil drum is sealed. We don’t leave until this shit is done. You hear me?”
“I can’t let you do this for me.”
“Well, I am.”
“Talk to Scarlett first.”
“I will, but I know she’ll agree. I got my woman—and you deserve yours.”