Page 77 of Honeythorn
Milan couldn’t breathe until Jason finally let him go. He took great, gulping breaths, trying to steady himself.
“Oh, dear. I’m afraid you caught us unawares,” Jason simpered. Milan could do nothing but look at Raphael’s blank face, staring back as if he had never seen Milan before.
A wave of pain hit Milan then. Jason was right—whatever happened, Raphael would never trust him again. This was the end of the future he had finally started to see.
“Oh, Milan,” Jason said, pouting as he stepped away from Milan, knife held behind his back. “Look at his face. Dear Lord—did you really think he loved you?” He turned to Jack. “Should I tell him, or do you want to do the honours?”
“Oh, it’d be my pleasure,” Jack said, moving so that the three of them were facing Raphael—all against him. “You really did, didn’t you, my love? You thought it was real.”
Despair shredded Milan’s chest as it all seemed to dawn on Raphael, his face crumpling. Very suddenly, the bond cut completely from Raphael’s end—not even a sliver of light passing through.
Milan cried out, clutching his chest. Bile rose in his throat at the sudden hollowness, just managing to keep it down. Jason was still talking.
“All those times you thought he was with Katerina—even when hetoldyou he was with Jason, you thought nothing of it, did you? When he looked at your accounts? When he let you fuck him?”
Milan looked down. He couldn’t stop the tears that welled in his eyes, for them to sully every perfect and intimate moment with Raphael.
“Even after you almost killed him? It was easy to get him on our side. Between me and him—do you think your reputation will survive accounts of abuse from two Omegas? We’re going to leave you with nothing, my love.”
Raphael understood. Milan didn’t even have to look at him to know—maybe a part of him had expected Milan to betray him all along.
There was a long, crushing silence until, finally, Raphael spoke. “Is this true?” he asked softly, and there was no doubt who he was talking to.
Milan took a shaking breath. Jason’s knife glinted behind him.
“Yes.”
Milan couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t look up. The air around him was pressing down, squeezing, suffocating.
He screamed the truth across the bond, but there wasn’t even an echo back.
“I hope you are all very happy together,” Raphael said, voice blank and empty before he turned around, breath hitching, and left.
After a moment, Jack moved towards the door, making sure that Raphael really was gone before he started laughing.
“I almost feel sorry for him,” he said with a smile on his face. Milan raised his head to look at his gloating face, wishing he could strangle the life out of it.
“Are you really so desperate for money? That you would ruin our lives?” Milan snarled. Jack and Jason shared a look before they rolled their eyes.
“Darling,” Jack said, “I’m doing you afavour. He’s dead weight. Don’t worry—you’ll get some of the money by law.”
“I don’twantmoney!” Milan screamed.
Jason’s eyebrows jumped up. “Give it tomethen.”
Jack laughed.
Milan shook his head, incredulous that such evil could exist without a shred of guilt.
“What are you going to do to me now, then?” Milan demanded. “Lock me up?”
“Dear, youaredramatic. Why would we do that? Now, you’re going to run to dear Raphael, make a scene at the manor. He’s going to shout at you, even hit you, if we’re lucky. The staff will be witnesses—another nail in his coffin. Everybody will think you’re a poor, scared Omega if you speak in favour of him. The facts will damn him.”
Milan curled his lip in disgust. “You’re mad.”
Jack shrugged. “I like to see it as genius.”
“I’m not going to let you get away with this,” Milan promised darkly.
