Chapter 6 #2
The day had been a gauntlet of whispers, stares, and the constant, draining effort of pretending to be someone I wasn't. I unlocked the door, expecting the usual silence.
Instead, I heard voices.
Well, one voice. Elijah’s.
I kicked off my boots and walked softly down the hallway toward the living room. The penthouse was dim, the only light coming from the city glow outside the massive windows.
Elijah was standing by the glass, his back to me. He was pacing. The phone was pressed to his ear. He wasn't shouting, but his voice had a jagged, frantic edge I had never heard before.
"I don't care about the optics, Dad," Elijah snapped. "I care about the liquidity. If you pull the funding from the expansion team now, the whole deal collapses."
Pause.
"I am focusing on the game!" Elijah roared suddenly, slamming his hand—his injured hand—against the glass.
I flinched. The sound echoed through the empty room.
"Do not talk to me about legacy," Elijah hissed, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "You destroyed the legacy when you let Mom die in that bathroom. Don't you dare preach to me about keeping the name clean."
He hung up. He didn't just press 'end call'; he threw the phone. It skittered across the marble floor, spinning to a stop near the sofa.
Silence.
Heavy, suffocating silence.
Elijah stood there, his forehead pressed against the cold glass, his breathing ragged. His shoulders were heaving.
I should have left. I should have turned around, gone to my room, and pretended I heard nothing. This was too personal. This was the crack in the armor he never let anyone see.
But I couldn't leave.
I walked into the room.
"Elijah?"
He stiffened. He didn't turn around. "Go to your room, Angela."
"Your hand," I said softly, ignoring him. "You hit the glass."
"I said get out."
"No."
I walked up to him. I stopped a few feet away. He was vibrating with tension, radiating a dark, chaotic energy that felt like a storm front.
"You’re bleeding," I noted.
He looked down at his right hand. The tape had come loose. His knuckles were raw, split open from the impact against the glass or maybe just the force of his grip. Blood dripped onto the pristine black floor.
"It doesn't matter," he rasped.
"It matters to me."
I reached out and took his wrist. He flinched, trying to pull away, but I held on. I wasn't strong enough to restrain him, obviously, but he let me hold him.
I led him to the sofa. He followed me like a sleepwalker. He sat down heavily, putting his head in his good hand.
I ran to the kitchen, grabbed the first aid kit and a bowl of warm water, and came back. I knelt on the floor between his spread knees—a position that usually carried a very different connotation for us. But tonight, it was purely service.
I dipped a cloth in the water and began to clean his knuckles.
"Who was it?" I asked quietly, wiping away the blood.
"Cyrus," he said. His father. "He’s... he’s moving money around. Risky moves. Leveraging the family trust. And he’s threatening to sell the team stake if I don't deliver a championship."
"He sounds lovely."
"He’s a monster," Elijah said, staring at the wall. "He thinks people are assets. If they don't perform, you liquidate them."
"Like he did with me?" I asked, looking up. "With the scholarship?"
"Yes. You were a variable. He removed you."
"And your mom?" I asked. The words were risky, but I had to know. "You mentioned her."
Elijah went still. For a long moment, the only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and the wind howling outside the tower.
"She wasn't an asset," he whispered. "She was a liability. She was manic. Bipolar, unmedicated. She was the most beautiful, chaotic thing in the world. She loved parties. She loved noise."
He looked down at me, his blue eyes haunted.
"My father hated the noise. He ignored her. He locked her away in the country house so she wouldn't embarrass him. She... she overdosed when I was ten. I found her."
My heart broke. It physically cracked in my chest.
I stopped cleaning his hand. I just held it.
"I found her in the bathroom," he continued, his voice devoid of inflection, which made it worse. "It was messy. It was chaotic. And I decided right then... I would never be like her. I would never be out of control. I would never be a victim of my own emotions."
He looked at me, his gaze intense and desperate.
"That’s why I need this," he said, gesturing to the penthouse, to the order, to us. "I need the rules, Angela. I need to know exactly what is going to happen next. Because if I don't control the environment, the chaos comes back. And the chaos kills you."
I understood. Finally, I understood.
He wasn't a sadist. He wasn't just a rich asshole on a power trip. He was a traumatized little boy trying to keep the world from falling apart.
His control wasn't about power. It was about survival.
"You aren't him," I said fiercely. "And you aren't her."
"I feel like I’m slipping," he admitted, his voice cracking. "With you... I feel things. Anger. Lust. Possessiveness. It’s loud, Angela. You are so loud in my head."
"Maybe loud isn't bad," I whispered. "Maybe you’ve been quiet for too long."
I finished taping his hand. I smoothed the black adhesive over his skin.
Then, I did something not in the contract.
I leaned up. I didn't kiss his mouth. I kissed his bruised knuckles. A soft, lingering press of my lips against the damage.
Elijah sucked in a breath.
"Angela," he warned, his voice low.
"I’m not scared of your chaos, Elijah," I said, looking him in the eye. "My life has been a disaster for three years. I know how to survive a storm."
He looked at me with a mixture of wonder and terror.
He reached out with his good hand and cupped my face. His thumb traced my cheekbone.
"You shouldn't be here," he murmured. "You should run. I’m going to drag you down with me."
"I signed a contract," I reminded him, trying to smile. "I’m locked in for the season."
"The contract," he scoffed softly. "The contract is bullshit. You know that, right? I would have paid your debt anyway. I just... I needed an excuse to keep you."
The confession hung in the air.
He hadn't trapped me because he wanted a slave. He had trapped me because he was lonely.
I leaned my cheek into his palm.
"I’m staying," I said. "And not because of the money."
"Why then?"
"Because," I whispered, closing my eyes. "I think you’re the only person in the world who sees me. And... I think I see you."
He didn't say anything. He just pulled me forward, lifting me off the floor until I was sitting on his lap. He wrapped his arms around me—the injured one and the good one—and buried his face in my hair.
He held me like I was the only solid thing in a spinning world.
We sat there for a long time, watching the city lights twinkle below us. There was no sex. There was no kink. There were no orders.
Just two broken people holding onto each other in the dark, pretending that they weren't falling in love.
But we were. And it was the most terrifying thing either of us had ever done.