As Addison screams at Daniel, I force my heavy and numb legs to move forward. “You knew! You knew what he was doing to her!”
The ice in my veins freezes my blood, and my heart refuses to beat without the warmth. “How could you?” she wails.
In a single day, everything has fallen.
Even as I walk out of the office, shutting the door behind me and hearing the faint screams leak into the barren hall, I know everything is ruined and nothing will be the same.
Everything is broken, and I have no way to fix a single piece of it.
It’s all dashed beyond repair.
Chapter 4
Aria
They weren’t going to kill them. I want to think Carter and his brothers would never do that. They wouldn’t execute my family in front of me. It’s all I keep thinking as my eyes burn in the darkness of the box.
Nikolai would do it, though.
He would kill the Cross brothers, all of them, to set me free. But he doesn’t know them and everything that happened. I haven’t had a chance to convince him otherwise; all he knows is that I was taken. With every second that passes, I calm my panic, knowing I have to talk to Nikolai and stop this. I need it all to stop and for them to listen to me. For one of these thick-skulled men to just listen to me.
None of this would be happening if they listened to me.
A shuddering breath forces my body to tremble against the rough wood and my neck arches with a sudden deep breath.
I don’t know if it’s a panic attack or a sharp break from reality that’s making me shake like I am.
Or the fear. The raw and paralyzing fear of what I know Carter is capable of and what I think he’s going to do to me when I step out of this box.
“I love you,” I whimper again, closing my eyes tightly and forcing the words out. I wish I could take it all back, but the alternative was watching my family die right in front of me. Watching Nikolai get shot in the back of the head. I cover my hot face with my hands, shaking my head like a lunatic at the thought.
“I don’t want anyone to die.” My strangled words are barely heard as the box shakes and then a hand bangs against the top.
“Aria, please.” Addison’s tone is desperate and I’m so ashamed. I don’t want to leave this box. I feel like a child again, hiding in the closet and telling myself it’s not real if I don’t come out. If I stay here, none of this is real.
“He hurt you?” she asks, but her question is more of a statement. The question comes from a friend to a friend. Directed at a woman hiding from someone, someone she loves and crying hysterically. A grown ass adult, hiding in a box. I know exactly how this looks, but I don’t know how to explain it to her, so she’d understand. She’s not from this world. And she doesn’t know Carter like I do either. Although, none of that makes this right. None of it. “How long has he been doing this?” Her voice breaks at the question and I hear her cry for me.
I wish I could die right here.
“Come out!” she screams to me, her voice sounding ragged as she thumps on the box.
I know we’re alone; Jase made Daniel leave and I heard the door shut what feels like hours ago but is probably only minutes. It’s only Addison in the room now, crying as she holds the box and apologizes to me as if she’s done anything wrong at all.
“He wouldn’t listen to me,” I whisper to no one in the darkness of the box. Every time I tried to explain, he wouldn’t hear me out. He’d cut me off and tell me to get out. Just like she is. At this point, I don’t think there’s a defense I could possibly have that would make what I did forgivable in Carter’s eyes.
“Get out!” she yells even louder. Her voice sounds hoarse at this point, and I hear her lay her body over the box heavily, falling onto it and crying. “How could he do this?” she whispers and then sniffles. I don’t know if she’s talking about what Carter did to me, or how Daniel allowed it and defended it. I know to see him in this light… it changed how Addison sees him, and that fucking kills me.
“I never meant for this to happen,” I tell her weakly, closing my eyes and feeling them burn from hours of straining to see in the darkness and shedding hot tears.
I can hear her move again, but I don’t know what she’s doing, and her voice doesn’t travel far. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know… I didn’t know.”