Page 128 of Ruined By Protection
I feel Matteo's presence but I can't look away from Elliott's face.
"She wouldn't listen to reason. Wouldn't take the money I offered her to just go away." Elliott shrugs. "She got emotional, started screaming. I just wanted her to shut up."
The casual way he describes murder makes my knees weak.
"Where?" I whisper. "Where did you bury her?"
Elliott's eyes find mine and a smile spreads slowly across his lips. He knows exactly what this will do to me.
"Remember when my mother welcomed you to the family? That little ceremony we had out in the garden?"
My heart stops. The world tilts sideways.
"Family tradition," Elliott continues, smiling as he observes me crumble. "Every new Montgomery plants a tree when they join the family."
I remember that day clearly. Elliott's mother, with her immaculate smile and cold eyes, handed me a sapling. Elliott stood beside me as I dug into the earth at the far corner of the property.
"Your tree never really thrived, did it?" Elliott's voice is scarily gentle. "Never grew tall, no matter how much the gardener tended it. Mother said it was a bad omen."
My legs give out. I sink to the floor, shaking uncontrollably. Tears stream down my face as the horror hits me.
I planted a tree over Melissa's body. She'd been there the whole time, beneath the soil I moved with my own hands. While I slept in Elliott's bed. While I endured his abuse. While I tried to be the perfect wife.
A dead woman and her unborn child were buried in the garden and I had no clue.
Matteo
Elliott's confession turns my blood to ice. I've met devils before—men who kill for money, for power, for territory. But this? This casual cruelty in dismissing one woman as soon he found a better one. The complete lack of remorse while describing how he murdered a pregnant woman and then had his wife plant a tree over her buried body. It's beyond anything I've encountered. Nothing less than psychopathic.
"Daniel," I call over my shoulder, in control despite my boiling blood. "Take over."
Daniel steps forward, taking the gun from me. His face is stone but I detect the disgust in his eyes.
I move straight to Hazel, collapsed on the floor, her entire body quaking. Her face has gone pale, and her breathing comes in short, panicked gasps.
I drop to my knees beside her, pulling her against my chest. "I've got you," I murmur, one hand cradling the back of her head. "Breathe, bella. Just breathe."
Her fingers clutch at my shirt, desperate and clinging. "I put a tree on their grave, Matteo," she sobs, her voice choking. "I dug that soil with my own hands. I—I smiled for pictures with them lying right beneath my feet."
Tears stream down her face, and she presses her forehead against my chest. "They were there the whole time. Every day I lived in this house, every night I slept in his bed. They were there."
I hold her tighter as her body convulses with grief. Part of me needs to end Elliott now—put a bullet in his head and be done with it. But I can't allow Hazel to watch that. She's seen enough horror.
"She was pregnant," Hazel whispers against my shirt. "There was a baby. I think I’m going to be sick."
I stroke her hair as her stomach dry-heaves. Over her head I direct a silent command to Noah. He nods once, understanding exactly what needs to happen.
"Come on," I say gently, lifting Hazel to her feet. "I’m taking you away from here."
Her body trembles against mine, tears soaking my shirt. I need to get her away from this monster but first I have to make sure everything is handled properly.
"Watch him," I tell Noah and Daniel. "I'll be back soon."
As we head for the door Elliott's hysterical laugh cuts through the room—a demonic noise that grates on my nerves. I want this bastard terminated for good.
"I'll wait for you on the other side, Hazel darling," he calls, dripping with venom. "And then I'll make you pay in hell for this."
Hazel goes rigid in my arms and I wonder whether she might be on the verge again. But then she breaks free of my grasp and whirls around, her face transformed by rage.
