Chapter 27
Alexander
I Was Happy
I’m Still Happy. I wake with Evelyn’s scent on my skin.
I listen to her soft, sleepy hums in her kitchen as she burns toast and apologizes to the smoke alarm.
I kiss her in hallways where I shouldn’t.
I hold her hand under the table during meetings, and she pretends to take notes.
I taste happiness in small, stolen doses—like medicine, like poison.
Happiness. A word I stopped trusting years ago. And yes—I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because nothing this good has ever stayed without demanding blood. And today, the bill comes due.
The heels are the first thing I hear. Sharp. Controlled. Perfectly timed clicks across the marble outside my office. A rhythm I hoped to never hear again. A rhythm that once walked over my bleeding body. Not rushed. Not hesitant.
A performance. A warning. I look up. And there she is. Grace. Effortlessly beautiful in all the ways that once fooled me. Honey-blonde waves. Red lips engineered in a lab of vanity and dollar signs. Camel coat that flows behind her like a coronation cape.
And behind her—Evelyn. Small. Professional. Shoulders drawn in, eyes dimming with something she’s trying to hide.
“Sir,” Evelyn says, voice steady enough to break me. “Grace… is here to see you.”
My heart drops. My stomach turns. My entire past detonates behind my ribs. My face shifts before I can stop it—bored to shocked to haunted.
“Grace,” I manage as I stand. My tone doesn’t shake.
Inside, I am bleeding again. She smiles—a vicious, victorious curve of the mouth.
“Missed me?” Before I react, she glides forward and presses her lips to my cheek. Her perfume hits me like a locked memory: jasmine and arsenic. Her hand lands on my chest. Right where the bullet went in.
I freeze. Not from want. Not from longing. But because trauma doesn’t ask permission. It resurfaces like instinct. In that split second, I see Evelyn’s face. The way it falls. Quietly. Cleanly. Beautifully.
She steps back from the doorway, unreadable only because she’s burying the pain so deep it guts me. She closes the door softly. A goodbye disguised as professionalism.
Grace drags her nails down my lapel and purrs, “Oh, sweetheart. You look pale.”
Pale?
No.
I’m furious. Scared. Shaking in a place no one can see. Because I never accounted for this: Evelyn believing she’s not enough. Not the girl with secondhand shoes. Not the girl with scars stitched into her soul. Not the girl who unknowingly rebuilt every part of me I thought was dead.
Grace is polished. Cold. Manufactured perfection. Evelyn is real. And the idea of losing her makes my lungs burn. She flicks her hair and strolls toward the window like she owns the damn building. “You’re still cold as ever,” she smirks. “Some things don’t change.”
I stay standing. Controlled. Barely. “Why are you here, Grace?”
She shrugs and traces the windowsill with a finger. “I was in the city. Thought I’d drop in on an old friend.”
I laugh once—dark, humorless.
“You tried to kill me.”
“Oh, please,” she purrs. “Don’t be dramatic. It was a mistake. A dark time. I wasn’t well.”
“You orchestrated the entire thing. You told him where I’d be. And when I fell bleeding, you ran.” Her face doesn’t shift. No guilt. No shame. Only calculation.
“I was on a new medication,” she says sweetly. “It messed with my head. I’ve done the work, Alex. I’m healing now. I came to apologize.”
My jaw tightens. “You don’t believe a single word you’re saying.”
She steps closer, lashes lowering like curtains before a kill.
“You’re right. I didn’t just come to apologize.
” She pulls out her phone. Unlocks it. Turns the screen toward me.
A paused video. A dark alley. Me collapsing.
Blood blooming under me. And just out of frame—her voice.
“If I send this to the press, the board, your investors…” she muses, “what do you think they’ll say? ”
I don’t answer. I’ve played this game with her before.
“Relax,” she smiles. “I’m not here to ruin you. Just remind you that we still have unfinished business.” She pockets the phone. “I want a favor. A very specific one. And if you give it to me…” She leans close, breath brushing my ear. “No one ever needs to see that footage.”
I say nothing. Not yet. Not until I know exactly how deep this goes. She leans forward on my chair, eyes shimmering with manufactured sincerity. “You think I don’t regret it? What I did to you… What I lost?”
I stay silent. Because silence cracks her more than rage.
“You were the only man who ever saw me,” she whispers.
“Really saw me. And I destroyed it.” Her voice breaks at the edge—perfectly rehearsed.
“I’ve spent years rebuilding myself. Therapy.
Medication. Growth. I know I’m probably the last person you want to see, but… I came back because I’m finally ready.”
“For what?” My voice is a blade. She lifts her chin. “To make it right. To fix what I broke. To love you the right way this time.” There it is. The trap dressed as redemption.
“You don’t love me, Grace,” I say quietly. “You miss control. You miss the lifestyle. The spotlight. The power.”
She flinches—barely. But I catch it. Still, she presses on. “Maybe I did love those things too much. But I loved you more. I still do.” She steps closer, fingertips grazing my desk. “Give me a chance to redeem myself.”
Redemption. Love. Fixing what she broke. Words she knows are landmines for me.
But all they do is make me remember a gunshot and the sound of her heels walking away. “I’ll think about it,” I lie. She circles me like a predator, stopping close enough for my old nightmares to breathe.
“You don’t have time to think, Alexi.” My mother’s nickname for me.
Only two people ever used it. One is dead.
The other is standing inches from my ruin.
“Remember that video,” she murmurs. “The one that can make the world believe you staged your own mugging. That you were never a victim—just a fraud. A criminal.”
She lets it sink in. “So, make your choice now.” Her smile sharpens. “Are we building together again… or am I ruining you?”
I don’t speak. Not because I’m afraid of her. Not because her threat holds any power over me. But because I’ve realized the worst part: I don’t care what happens to me. I only care about protecting Evelyn. And Grace…Grace is the kind of woman who burns anything she can’t own.