Chapter Nineteen
E than
I feel the cold marble floor on my back as the pain in my stomach starts to increase. That dude stabbed me. He fucking stabbed me!
What kind of man does it from behind? A coward that’s who. He couldn’t even look me in the eyes while he did it. Fucking pussy.
“You really think she would want you when she can have me?” I hear Tristan ask. I open my eyes and see him kneeling beside me.
His question takes me off guard. Nothing should by now, but Tristan likes to play mind games and I know that this is just another one.
He wants me to believe that I don’t deserve her, and I am not going to fall for it. I am not going to let him fuck with me like that. He doesn’t know how much I love her and need her, and a man like him will never understand.
I take a deep breath as I continue to stare at Tristan. Just like before, he is calm, his breathing even and steady. His words are fighting words, but I don’t have the energy to give him what he wants. Nothing I say will change the situation I’m in right now.
I lift my hands and place them over the stab wound. I can feel the blood coming out. Very slowly. He doesn’t want to kill me, at least not right now. He is not the kind of man to make it quick. He wants me to suffer. He wants to watch me die.
He wants to once again show that he has complete control over what happens.
I can tell I’ve already lost a lot of blood. My body feels weak and heavy. My heart rate starts to increase as I look away from Tristan and slowly look around the room. Or at least the part of the room I can see.
This room is clean and put together. Everything is black marble. He wants to show off, wants to show me just how much power he has.
I turn my head back to Tristan, his eyes rapidly search mine. “I love her,” I whisper, feeling my stomach turn into knots. I have been shot and stabbed before, but this feels different. This feels so different, and I don’t think it has anything to do with the wound.
When I was in the life before Shawn found me, I was fighting to be king. I wanted it all and with that came being shot and stabbed, but I didn’t really have anything worth fighting for. This time I am fighting for her, not for myself.
I have no fucking idea how I’m going to get out of this, how I’m going to get Jenn out of here.
The only I hope I have is Shawn and my people coming in time to save her even if they can’t save me.
But I guess I knew that when I let them take me so easily.
I wanted inside, and now here I am—inside and bleeding.
“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Tristan states, his words cutting deeper than the stab wound in my stomach.
He says it doesn’t matter but I can tell in his tone and the look in his eyes that he is trying to convince himself that it doesn’t. But it does. My love for her will always matter because it matters to her.
He can take her, use her, abuse her, have her submit to him in every way he can think of, and he still won’t have what I have from her.
She gave her heart and soul to me and in return I gave her mine.
No matter what he does it won’t change that fact.
He can’t take away something that he has no power over, which I know is killing him.
He finally found something he can’t control, that he can’t take away.
“It matters to her,” I state through gritted teeth.
“I don’t know about that, Ethan. I can see a change in her. It’s not big. But it is there.” I want so fucking badly to see her, to see what he’s talking about. But just like he has before, he’s trying to mind fuck me.
She wouldn’t give in to him willingly. I know her. I know her better than he ever will. My girl is so fucking strong, stronger than he knows. She is stronger than she knows. And I know she will survive this even if I don’t. She will live and she will have a better life.
I want so badly to be a part of it, but I have learned that this life we live doesn’t give a fuck what I want.
I know Shawn and Emory will make sure Jenn and my unborn child are taken care of and I know they won’t stop until Jenn and the baby are safe and away from Tristan. I know this because they are my family.
“She will never love you, Tristan.”
“That is where you are wrong, Ethan. Hate and love go hand in hand. Over time she will forget about you.” Tristan is staring me right in the eyes. His eyes are distant and dark. I see hope and desire in his eyes, hope and desire for something that I know will never happen.
And even though I know it will never happen, his words still hit me like the knife did in my stomach. His words are cold and calculated and he knows exactly what to say to get to me. This fucking prick is good. He’s spent years learning how to play games.
I can see now why Gael wanted to work with him and got him involved in the studio. No one has the balls to stand up to Tristan and put him in his fucking place. But I do. He terrifies me, but not in the way he should. I am terrified of what he will do to Jenn to get what he wants from her.
As a man he doesn’t scare me. I have seen many men like him. Fuck, I was him before Shawn showed me a different way. I know what he desires most of all and it isn’t Jenn. He craves money, power, and status above all else.
“You don’t love her, not like I do,” I whisper, watching him closely. He leans into me and grabs my throat, making sure I have to look at him. He’s not used to someone standing up to him. He isn’t used to staring into the eyes of a monster.
His eyes search mine for a moment as he tightens his hand on my throat. He is starting to lose control. He’s trying so hard to get inside my head that he has left his wide open to me. “Don’t fucking tell me what I feel, Ethan. You don’t know anything.”
I allow a smile to form across my lips. “I know that I have her heart and you never will.” I look right into his dark eyes.
Tristan takes a deep breath trying to gain back his control. But it won’t fucking work. I am just getting started playing with him. “No, you are right. I don’t love her like you do. You are weak, unable to give her what she really needs. Me, on the other hand, I can give her fucking everything.”
I allow a laugh to leave my lips as he tightens his grip.
“Tristan, you have no idea what she wants or needs. If you did, she wouldn’t be locked up in your penthouse,” I snap back.
He thinks he can buy her. Use her. Force her.
He will never have what I have with her.
No matter what he tries to do, the hate for him will always counteract the love he thinks she will have for him.
“I can keep her safe. You couldn’t even fucking do that right,” he yells in my face. I can see his body starting to change. He is losing and he fucking knows it. His perfect plan of breaking me is blowing up in his face.
“You are going to kill her, not save her,” I whisper in a pained voice.
Tristan releases my throat and quickly stands up and turns around heading back over to the full-length mirror.
I hear the doors open and close behind me. From the steps I can tell it’s the two pricks from before. They must be his enforcers.
“They are going to take care of you, Ethan. They are going to remind you once again that you have no power,” he tells me calmly, quickly gaining his control back. Man, he is good.
Tristan turns around and puts his hands behind his back. “We will see just how strong you really are.” He smiles.
I can hear one of the men exiting the room leaving me with Tristan and his main enforcer. Whatever he has planned for me is nothing compared to what is going to happen to him. When I get my fucking hands on him, he is going to wish he was dead.
I turn and look at the man standing over me. His hands are in fists, his eyes are dark and distant. He takes a deep breath and then starts kicking my sides.
He’s screaming something, but I can’t hear it. My heartbeat is racing so fast as I close my eyes and try to ride it out. I can feel the bruises already starting to form on my body as my open wound starts to pulse letting me know I am losing more blood.
But I know Tristan letting me bleed out is too fucking easy.
He will want it to last for days, even weeks.
I know he won’t just let me die—he wants me to watch him take my love, my life.
He wants me to hurt before I die. He wants me to know he has won.
And right now, he knows I’m not ready to give in just yet.