Page 60 of Beautifully Damned
And when I came back, I made sure she hated me for it. I said things I can’t unsay. I carved the softness out of her with every word, every glare. I wanted her to shut down. To go quiet. And she did.
God, did she ever. She walks through this house like I don’t exist. She eats like a ghost. Sleeps like I’m not under the same roof. Doesn’t even look at me when I pass her in the halls—that is if she lets herself be in them when I am.
For three days, I told myself it was better this way. Until I found myself standing outside her room at midnight with my hand on the handle like some goddamn lovesick idiot.
It was locked.
The rage that bloomed in my chest was so sharp, so fast, I almost punched the door clean through. But I didn’t. I bit down so hard I tasted iron. I wondered what I would’ve even done if the door had opened. Would I have kissed her? Apologized? Pinned her to the wall and told her I was sorry with my mouth on her skin?
God help me, I don’t even know.
What I do know is that I lied. I lied through my teeth when I told her I hated touching her. That I felt nothing. The truth is, nothing in my life has ever made me feel morealivethan the sound she makes when she gasps my name. I’d skin a man alive if he even dreamed of hearing it.
But I crushed her anyway. Because that’s what I do. I destroy.
And now I can’t stop thinking about her.
She sleeps, peacefully. I pace the halls like a caged animal. I haven’t slept since the wedding. I just close my eyes and see the look on her face when I told her she meant nothing.
I groan and press my palms to my eyes, digging in like I could gouge the want out of my skull.
She makes me feel things I’ve never had to name before. Lust, sure. But also... butterflies? That ridiculous, nauseating flip in my gut when she laughs. And fear. Both of her and of what she sees in me.
And now? Regret. That one’s new. And I hate it.
I’m not sorry for what I did to her family, but I could have been gentler with her. She looked at me like I was a man. I had a chance. And I spit in her face.
What the fuck is wrong with me? Why do I want to kick her door down and drag her out just to hear her yell at me? Why do I miss her voice? I’m cursed. She cursed me. That’s the only explanation. Because before her, silence never felt like punishment. Now it’s torture.
The door groans behind me as I step out of the warehouse. I sidestep the body hanging from the rafters, skin stripped from his chest down, and muscles glistening like raw meat. Ahmet gifted me the man who he claimed cleared the decision of the first Ambush. If he thinks it’s going to win me over, he’s mistaken.
I glance up at him one last time, his mouth frozen mid-scream, blood congealing in his teeth like black tar. Satisfactionbuzzes in my jaw, but it doesn’t last. I need a fucking distraction, something that doesn’t feel like her.
Instead, I pull out the tap feed of the phone I allowed to be given to her as a small token of mercy.
One message.
To a number I don’t recognize.
One sentence:
I need you.
My grip tightens until the plastic creaks.Who? Who the fuck isyou? Rage drips down the back of my spine like acid. My hand curls into a fist around the phone, shaking. It slips out of my grip and clatters onto the floor.
If she thinksmy wifecan crawl into someone else’s arms and not burn for it—
She’s wrong. I pick up the phone, brushing dust from the edge with my thumb.
I’m going to hunt whoever this person is down, and then I’m going to skin him alive right in front of her. Becausemy wifecan’t fucking need anybody else. Or belong to anybody else. No matter how complicated whatever between us is, she’s my wife.Mine.
?Chapter XXXIX?
Ayla
The call with Emir feels like being pulled out of deep water. He’s like a tether to the version of myself I used to be, before everything got twisted beyond recognition. He asks how I am, and I almost laugh. I want to say I’m fine. Instead, I just tell him I miss him.
My love for people doesn’t follow rules. I never stopped loving my mother, even when she disappeared into her bed for years, a bottle of pills clutched in her hands and my name forgotten. I never stopped loving my father, despite the bodies he left for us to step over, despite the blood that stained his collar, despite how he barely saw us at all.
