Page 247 of Deceit

My heart beats triple-time, thrashing in my chest at the unknown to my left.

“You’ll see a change in me.” His breath hits my lips, and my body seizes uncomfortably. His intimacy sends goosebumps everywhere as it revokes how a touch is supposed to feel.

Safe.

Warm.

Welcomed.

Everything about Alexander is revolting. I crave to kick him so hard, to release me from his disgusting grip, but it’ll piss him off.

It may get another bullet in Bishop’s body.

“Emmy,” Bishop warns, and my eyes search out of the corner of my vision to see if I can locate him.

He’s about to throw every single fuck away and charge the man in front of me.

Without Alexander’s strained hold on my face, I look over at him. He has the worse view of what my ex is doing to me, but I’m buying us time.

“What?” I seize out as if he’s annoying me at this moment. “Shut up.” Bishop’s blue eyes cast the heaviest glare I’ve ever fucking experienced since knowing him. I can feel it pierce my frame as if it’s electrocuting me to not allow this to happen. That for my mouth, I’m going to pay.

As long as he’s alive after this, I’m fine with it.

“You don’t like me touching her?” Alexander taunts like an idiot. “You didn’t love her. You wanted to divorce her.”

“Shut him the fuck up,” Bishop sneers, then something flashes over his features, and it scares the shit out of me.

I hit him with a stop it stare, but he ignores it. Instead, my ex-husband goes off on his own suicide mission.

He begins to haunch down lower from his knees before propelling a fist in the older man’s gut before rounding and uppercutting the other.

There’s a scuffle and I see the crimson color at the back of Bishop’s shoulder. He’s been hit as I feared, and if he’s taking on the two, I can take the one.

And it’s gonna hurt.

Without another word or thought, my forehead collides with Alexander’s chin—since I’m not tall enough to even align my face with his—and his hold on my pussy snaps back.

He pulls from my leggings when I’m already down on my heels, pulling the small blade of mine from my sock, and when I’m about to thrust it upward, a knee catches me instead—right in the face.

I’m on my ass before I know it, my palm coming up to my nose that is gushing blood.

A hand laces through my hair, and I’m brought to my knees, then yanked on harder to meet the malicious state of Alexander.

“What happened to you?” he all but whispers. His brows knit together as if to play out all the ways I’m not the same. How the dynamic of us—a couple who got along famously—is now bleeding with a gang full of weapons and jealousy.

His grip on my hair loosens, deep in thought, and I dare not steal a look at Bishop. I don’t think my heart could stand it. I won’t stay calm. I’ll have us both dead in seconds.

“You were everything sweet and wanting in this world,” he continues softly. “You had my children.”

I just stare at him because I did.

Getting pregnant was the best and worst thing in my life. Because I brought a monster into our lives that will always scare, haunt, and hurt us if I don’t kill it.

And I don’t know where my knights are, my backup.

We’ve reached the plot of the story where one side dies, and the other will forever be changed.

With a knee to the back of my neck, the world is tilted sideways, but I still make out the brave look on Emmy’s face. The fucking glow about her when she’s around. The stubbornness in her spine and the look of defiance in her eyes.

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