Page 4 of Unleashed
There’s this silence that stretches so tight between us, it might snap. His mouth opens, then closes, his brows pinched like he’strying to compute the impossible. “See, I don’t even know what you’re saying right now.”
“I need to see him.”
“For what?” His tone sharpens. “To thank him for dragging you out of a church at gunpoint? For lying to you? For putting you through whatever the hell happened on that island?”
I swallow hard, my chest aching. “I just need to understand why. That’s all. I need answers.”
He lets out a breath, quiet and disbelieving. “So, what? All this time, I thought he was keeping you locked away, hurting you, and now you’re telling me you were… what? In his bed?”
The words hit me like a fucking freight train. Because while Anthony was bleeding, recovering, tearing the world apart to find me—thinking I was trapped, broken, lost—I was on that island letting Isaia ruin me in the most beautiful, destructive ways. Letting him take pieces of me no one else ever touched. I was in his bed, under his hands, letting him fuck me in ways that still make my knees weak when I close my eyes. While my best friend was clawing his way through hell, I was giving Isaia not just my body, but everything. My love. My trust. My goddamn heart.
And then I said vows. I stood in front of him, in front of God, and said “I do.” It wasn’t fake. It wasn’t forced. It felt holy. Like something ancient and eternal settled into my bones that day. Because I love him. So fucking much it feels unreal. It’s not rational. It’s not safe. It’s all-consuming. Like, no version of me exists without him burned into my bloodstream.
Yes. Isaia lied. But I don’t believe he did it to hurt me. I can’t. Not when I know what we had. What we still have. There has to be a reason. There has to be.
“Are you in love with him, Everly?” Anthony’s question takes me by surprise, like I never expected him to ask, yet it’s the most obvious thing in the world he should want to know.
I look at him, my heart pounding in my chest, desperate to spill everything and simultaneously terrified of the consequences. But there's no escaping the truth now. Enough lies have been told.
“I am,” I admit, voice barely audible. “I'm in love with Isaia.”
Anthony doesn’t flinch. Not at first.
He just stares at me, his jaw tight, his eyes unreadable. Like he's trying to absorb it without letting it crack him open. But I see it. The flicker. A flash of something behind his gaze that he can’t hide fast enough. Pain. Disappointment. Something deeper. Something sharp.
“Right,” he finally says, nodding like he’s trying to convince himself this was inevitable. Like he already knew but still hoped he was wrong.
I open my mouth, but he lifts a hand.
“Don’t,” he says quietly. “Don’t apologize for it.”
“Anthony…”
“I’m not stupid, Everly. I knew the second you stepped off that helicopter. The way you looked around like you’d left something behind.” He takes a step back, leaning against the wall like he needs it to stay upright. “You shot one of my men, for God’ssake.” He lets out a half-hearted laugh, and the memory of that gunshot going off pushes a bout of nausea up my throat.
“I just…fuck.” He throws his head back, craning his neck. “I knew he had his clutches in you, but I didn’t know how deep.” His eyes find mine. “But now I do.”
For a second, I glance at my finger, thumbing it. The ring’s gone. It must have slipped off. Being hauled out of the safe room, fighting them on the helicopter, there are a hundred different places I could have lost it. But it’s still tightly bound around my heart.
“I married him, Anthony.” I’m so done with lies. Done trying to fight and deny what seems to be written in stone somewhere. I bravely look at him, the pain in his irises ripping through my lungs. “I married Isaia.”
“God, Everly,” comes out of him in a broken whisper, his shoulders sagging under the weight of this revelation. His eyes close as he takes it in—a slow, painful process I watch play out with a heavy heart.
The silence that follows is brutal, hollowed out by so many revelations, I’m surprised we’re both still breathing.
He stands across from me, his fists curled at his side like he doesn’t trust what it’ll do if it moves. His chest rises and falls, slow and uneven, like he’s trying to calm a storm that's already gutted half the coastline.
And me? I’m a statue. Still. Quiet. Stripped bare. Because what the fuck do you say to the boy who saved you when you were broken, who stood between you and a world that wanted to chew you up, a man who took a bullet for you, who will carry that scarforever, only for you to turn around and give your heart to the one man he hates most?
My eyes sting, but I don’t cry. I can’t. Not when I’m the one holding the blade.
The air between us grows thick. Not with tension, not anymore. This is something heavier. Like something sacred between us just shattered, and we’re both watching the pieces fall without trying to catch them.
He finally opens his eyes, but they don’t meet mine. He stares at the spot just past my shoulder, like maybe if he doesn’t look at me, he won’t break. Like maybe if he keeps pretending this is just a dream, he won’t have to face the fact that I married Isaia Del Rossa. Said vows to him.
Vows I meant. That I still do.
There’s a fracture between us. A broken piece you can’t see, but you feel it. You feel it in the deepest parts of yourself. Neither of us says a word. Because what could possibly be said that hasn’t already been carved into the space between us?
