Page 212 of Mayhem and Minnie

“No, it’s not. It’s about the fact that you’re holding on so tightly to him at this very moment while arguing with me. It’s the fact that you’re choosing him and not me.”

“What the hell, Marlowe? How many times do I have to tell you he’s dead?”

“But he’s still here,” I grit out, throwing my hands in the air.

She shakes her head at me and takes a step back. Disappointment mars her features, but the only thing I see is the way she’s holding that goddamn head as if it were more precious than gold.

She’s holding it like she should be holding me.

A rage unlike I’ve ever experienced bubbles up inside of me, rapidly seeking to get to the surface.

I reach forward and snatch the head from her arms, and with all the strength I can muster, I slam it to the ground.

The skin cracks. Pieces of hair and skull scatter around.

But it’s not enough.

Before Minnie can stop me, I stomp on it with my foot, placing my entire weight on it until it breaks into a myriad of unrecognizable pieces.

She doesn’t move.

She’s simply staring at me, stunned.

She opens her mouth to speak, then closes it.

“Now he’s gone,” I declare, yet there’s a hollowness inside of me even as I glance at the mess on the floor. She should have been the one to destroy it, not me. She should have been the one to want to see him gone.

Instead, she’s shedding tears for him.

Her eyes are on the broken pieces of her ex-fiancé, tears staining her cheeks, shivers claiming her body. She’s reacting to it not as if he were her past but as if he’s still her present.

And I hate that more than anything in the world.

Because I can see it. It’s there, in the depths of those dark eyes.

She’s not mine.

She’s never been fully mine.

And now? She might never be.

No! I refuse to believe that.

I ball my hands into fists as I turn to her.

“Why are you crying?” I ask her in a brusque tone. “Why are you shedding tears for him?”

“You… How could you… I don’t…” she murmurs incoherently.

She cannot bring herself to face me, her attention still on the last pieces of Lucien.

“How can you say you’re mine when you’re crying for him?” I grind out, slowly becoming more and more erratic. My body vibrates with unreleased tension as emotions I never thought myself capable of fill me to the brim.

She doesn’t hear me—or she doesn’t want to.

Dropping to her knees, she reaches out for one of the bigger pieces of his head, then for another. She slowly gathers them in one place, her hands trembling as she tries and fails to put him back together.

I kick at the pieces, scattering them around the basement.

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