Page 43 of The Price of a Promise

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Axel spat, lurching to free himself.“Allan’s hired grunts, huh?Cora, do you see this?Why won’t you fucking fight for me?After all we’ve been through?”

Axel continued railing against me and my father as the guards dragged him, but the farther they took him, the less I could hear.They carried him away, arms hooked under his armpits, until finally the camera showed a tranquil scene on the front porch once more.

Birds twittered.The arborvitae, pruned and flawless.Lace lichen climbing around the corner of the condo.Everything picture perfect.

The truth lay beyond the edges of the frame.

Shards of our hearts were scattered everywhere, just out of sight.The broken remains of our promises.Our hopes.Our expectations.None of them could hold up to what life had dealt me.The impossible pressure my life path had in store.

I could only imagine how wrecked Axel would be.He wouldn’t recover quickly from this.Neither would I.

I was already beating myself up over it.Maybe I should have tamped down my feelings in the beginning.Maybe we could have avoided all this pain and heartbreak and life-path incompatibility if I’d just seen the writing on the wall when we met.And now it was my fault Axel was unraveling, looked sunken and hollow.The reason he’d been stressing and worried and distracted.

Just like it was my fault for not trying harder to save Chris.It was my fault I’d gotten wrapped up in my own world.I’d opted to hang with my friends the night he’d sent me his last text.I hadn’t protected him from the unyielding glare of this world we’d been born into.Even though I was younger, I’d always handled it better.And I’d always known that.

I bore every ounce of this burden.

A burden I could only bear for the sake of the two men I loved more than life itself.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

AXEL

THREE MONTHS LATER

“I really wish you’d reconsider,” Trace said, his dark brows drawn together.

Damian watched me, frowning, from off to the side of our worn living room couch.They stood above me like this was an intervention, and I guess it was in a way.

They wanted me to continue pursuing my MBA while I still had a chance to wrap it up, once and for all.

I, however, completely fucking disagreed.

“Listen, I know you guys want me to be all noble and righteous in my quest to kiss the almighty wealthy asshole, but I’m not going to.”I crossed my arms, leaning back into the couch.After Cora broke things off before Christmas, I’d all but formally dropped out of my courses.I sure as fuck hadn’t paid the tuition for the last semester, either.But because they were good brothers, they cared about the increasing amount of time I spent pacing my bedroom and drawing up business strategies.

“We didn’t have enough money for all three of us to complete our degrees,” I went on.“Honestly, I got what I need out of the program.I can’t concentrate on the bullshit theories anymore.I just need to jump headfirst into our business.I’m ready.”

Concentration on anything that wasn’t actionable progress was a threat.A possibility that I’d slip down the greased slope of self-pity, down into the well of longing that still burbled inside me.Any misstep was a chance to completely lose my shit again about Cora.

I’d spent the past few months in unbearable agony, hashing and rehashing every word we’d shared in the last month of our relationship.Remembering the sheer joy on her face the night I’d asked her to marry me, and then picking apart every second after that, trying to work out what had changed her mind.

Her father wielded immense power, but he didn’t control her emotions.

Cora may have been coerced, but she’d made the decision on her own.

“Think about it this way,” Trace said, raking his hand through his thick, dark hair.“We’re a team.A trio.And we all need to have our goddamn MBAs.”

“I’m done playing their game,” I said, kicking my feet onto the coffee table.“Two out of three with MBAs ain’t bad, gentleman.Now they can take it or leave it, and I’ll convince them to take it.I need to be our salesman, and I could do this job without even my bachelor’s.”

Damian peered at me over the top of his round glasses.“You’re going to be our point man for every single business transaction…and you want to walk in there without your fucking MBA?”

“Yes,” I huffed.“I’ll go finish it someday if you want.But for now?We need to get this business off the ground.We don’t have the cash for both Damian and me to walk in May now that you’re out, Trace.I will be the virgin sacrifice here.”

Trace snorted.“Yeah.Virgin my ass.”

I cleared my throat.It had taken about a month for my hope to finally die out, then I’d turned to the only outlet I knew: endless pussy.For three weeks I went hog wild, fucking my way through most of Lower Manhattan once it really hit me that Cora was gone forever.

Three months in, the hurt still hadn’t lessened.It had only spread to new extremes.Like poison ivy, stretching silent and territorial, warning any human that dared cross its path.And it was twisting itself into new shapes.Pushing me into scary situations.Prompting new types of thoughts.Breaking barriers that I’d previously considered impassable.

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