Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
He claimed I was a hopeless romantic.
But so was he. A closet romantic whose love language was tearing out the hearts of bastards.
Balling his hands, he murmured, “You know…the day I proposed to Tess, I branded her.”
“I’m aware. I’ve seen the Q stamped into her chest when we all went swimming together.”
“And I’ve seen the H scribed into Ily’s leg.”
We shared a look.
We smiled.
“Did you see the little wedding present Ben sent you in our joint email?” He raised an eyebrow.
“No?” Scooping my phone from my pocket, I logged in. “What is it?” Last week, Ben and Stew had returned to Joyero to see what could be salvaged of Victor’s island. Despite the explosions and fires, the stone citadel had survived—minus a few pieces. We were in discussions about possibly using it as another base for this secret enterprise of ours.
Q chuckled under his breath as I found the video and opened it. “Don’t, whatever you do, play that at the reception.”
Shooting him a look, I pressed play on the attachment.
A slice of ice cut through me as Victor appeared on the screen. Howling, he dragged his useless legs as he hand-walked across the grass. The footage wasn’t perfect. It kept flickering in and out, night-shrouded everything, orange fires danced in the distance, and smoke curled and obscured.
But I could see enough.
Make out enough to understand what this was.
I froze with sick satisfaction. “The cameras were still working?”
Q crossed his arms. “Mm hmm.” He watched the unfolding scene. “Fitting to be able to watch his end seeing as you didn’t get to see it that night.”
I stiffened as the recording showed Q standing over Victor with a knife. A blur as I threw myself at my brother to stop him from taking that monster’s life when it belonged to all the jewels he’d hurt. My breath caught as video-me staggered up and bolted toward the jewels huddled around two people bleeding out on the lawn in the distance. My heart pounded as I relived the horror of finding Ily and Peter dead. I’d lost both of them, never knowing both would somehow come back to me.
Doing my best to forget the agony from that night, I focused on Victor as more jewels surrounded him and Q passed over the blade. As one, they all fell on him. A flash of a dagger, the glint of a kitchen knife.
I held my breath as a massacre unfolded. Victor’s screams still echoed in my ears but seeing what he’d endured…fuck, it gave me perverse enjoyment. Such joy, even though it shouldn’t. Watching him twitch as some smoke-hazy slave drove a dagger into his chest. Seeing him jerk as another gutted him right in the belly. The jewels weren’t squeamish, nor did they stop. They just kept stabbing every part of him they could reach. The video crackled and fritzed just as one of them dug the tip of their knife into Victor’s eye socket and popped his eye out.
He screamed—
The feed cut off as if the fire had finally chewed through the connection.
“Well, shit.” With slightly shaking hands, I turned my phone off and tucked it back into my pocket. I shrugged. “Serves him right.”
I felt Q’s eyes on me, tense and assessing. “I haven’t asked you this as I didn’t really want to know but…what he did to you—the things you endured while his slave, are you…? Do you have nightmares? Did it…change you?”
Glancing back at the circus of guests below, hearing the twinkle of their laughter and feeling the heat of their happiness, the shadow of evil hanging around dispersed as quickly as the video had cut off. “You’re asking if it broke me?”
“Did it?” he asked simply.
I shrugged again. “I didn’t survive for me.” I searched the guests for my betrothed. “I survived for her. I endured for her. He tried to use love to break me, but the opposite happened.” I turned to face my half-brother. “Love fixed me. Healed me. Victor gave me something I would never have been capable of accepting before.”
“What?”
“You. Her. This.” I smiled. “I’m thankful you made me go. I’ll never again question fate’s path because I found her in a place I would never have gone to otherwise.” I exhaled with so much gratitude. “So many parts of me died on that island, yet so many parts were reborn. He didn’t break me, brother. He set me free.”
Our eyes held again.
Some dark understanding passed between us.
Finally he nodded, clapped his hands, and headed toward the door. As if we hadn’t just watched a gruesome stabbing or discussed my past abuse, he snapped, “Stop tapping away on that damn laptop and get down there. Everyone will be wondering if you’re getting cold feet.”
Accepting the change of subject as if it’d never happened, I grinned. “Never.” Stepping toward the desk, I added, “I was writing my vows, by the way. Or that was the plan until I got distracted.”