Page 11 of The Ties That Bind

“Stop it,” I demanded, finding my voice. Stepping forward, I twisted the lapels of her jacket in my fists and pulled her close. “I don’t know the first thing about who you are now, but I never used to fuck the sweet girl you used to be,” I spat disgustedly. My eyes flicked between hers, looking for some sign that she didn’t believe the drivel coming out of her mouth, that she didn’t think of our time together in those terms. When I didn’t see it, I dropped my hands and stepped back, shaking my head in shame. “I loved you and you tore my fucking heart out, Arabella. So pretend all you want, but I know what we had.”

Undaunted, she stepped even closer than before. “‘Had’ being the operative word, Xander. In all the years since then, you’ve done everything in your power to ruin me.”

“Fuck you,” came my furious response. “Everything I’ve done was to get back at your father. Or do I need to remind you what he took from me?”

“You?” she shot back. “How dare you! Lily was my daughter,” she screamed, her face turning red while mine blanched white at hearing the name she’d given our baby.

She’d never told me. Then again, I didn’t know when she would have considering she’d never spoken to me again after that day. She’d never even said goodbye.

“You have no idea what losing her did to me,” she whispered as she placed her right hand over her flat belly.

If she thought that, she was crazy. Knowing she’d carried my baby and then lost it had turned me inside out. Praying that things had turned out differently had made me blind with rage. Everything I’d done since then had been because of what had happened.

“Oh, I think I might.”

Her sad eyes turning steely, she shot me daggers and then started pacing. Meanwhile, I stood stock still, my brain trying to absorb all this new information and come to terms with it.

“Anyway,” she breathed out, “Since you contacted me the way you did, I assume you have something important to tell me. That phone has stayed silent for years.”

“Communication works both ways,” I reminded her. “I reached out to you, several times, and you never answered.”

She shrugged again which made my blood boil. How could she be so blasé about our past? Her indifference to the single worst moment of my life didn’t just cut me to the core, it made me want to murder somebody. For a brief, terrifying moment I let Jayce’s words echo in my head, his kill order ring loud and true.

And that’s when I understood everything.

“Jayce knows you run the show now, doesn’t he?”

Arabella swiveled on her heel to face me. “Bingo!” she clapped. “Took you long enough.”

I let out a disgusted snort, sick and tired of it all. My brother had played me and now the woman I’d chosen over him—the woman I would have killed for—was treating me like shit. No, worse than shit. She was enjoying the game, reveling in my humiliation. Heaping on more and more of it as the conversation continued.

Well, no more. I was done.

Reaching behind me, I pulled the gun from my waistband and leveled the barrel at her forehead.

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