Chapter 2

Alex POV:

It took Dwight exactly seventeen minutes to get from his uptown penthouse to Charity's SoHo loft. I heard the screech of his tires on the street below, followed by the heavy slam of a car door. Seconds later, he was bursting through the door he' d left unlocked in his haste.

His eyes, wide and furious, landed first on Charity. She was crumpled on the floor where I'd let her drop, her pristine white yoga pants stained with the blood dripping from her face. A low, guttural sound of rage escaped his throat.

"Alex! What the hell did you do?" he roared, striding toward me. "Have you lost your mind?"

He knelt beside Charity, his hands hovering over her as if he were afraid to touch her, to cause her more pain. "Oh, God. Charity. Baby, look at me."

"She's fine," I said, my voice flat. My gaze was fixed on the wall clock. "For now."

"Fine? Look at her!" he snarled, finally looking up at me. The man who had once looked at me with obsessive devotion now stared as if I were a monster. "She's just a kid, Alex! She didn't do anything!"

"She's twenty-two, Dwight. And she helped you sentence my father to death," I replied, my calm voice a stark contrast to his fury. "The clock is ticking."

He glared at me, his jaw tight with a hatred that was no longer hidden. It was raw, real, and it confirmed everything. His forgiveness had always been a lie. A performance.

To prove my point, I walked over to where Charity was sobbing, grabbed a fistful of her hair again, and yanked her head back. She shrieked in pain and terror.

"Stop it!" Dwight yelled, scrambling to his feet. "Alex, I swear to God-"

"Save my father," I said, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper as I leaned close to Charity's ear. "Or I will break every bone in her very spiritually-aligned body. One by one."

Charity's sobs became more frantic, her body trembling under my hand. Her voice was a hoarse, broken whisper. "Dwight... please... the Universe... it will protect us..."

That ridiculous, new-age bullshit, even now. It was like gasoline on the fire of my rage.

"The Universe isn't picking up the phone, is it, Charity?" I sneered.

Dwight' s face was pale, his eyes darting between me and the whimpering girl on the floor. The sight of her tears, of her blood, was clearly tearing him apart. "Let her go, Alex," he commanded, his voice shaking with a mixture of anger and desperation.

"No."

"If my father dies because you were too busy playing God, I will make you regret it for the rest ofyour life," he threatened, taking a step toward me.

The mention of my father sent a jolt of panic through my cold calm. I faltered for a second, my grip on Charity's hair loosening just enough for her to gasp for air.

He saw it. He saw that flicker of weakness and his expression hardened. "You don't have the guts, Alex."

I laughed, a cold, empty sound. "Don't I? I let your mother die, remember? You, of all people, should know what I'm capable of."

His face contorted, the old wound I' d just ripped open twisting his features into a mask of pain and fury.

"You have fifty minutes," I said, my voice like ice. I let go of Charity, who collapsed into a sobbing heap. "Arrange the transport. Get him to Lenox Hill. Dr. Evans. You know him. Get it done."

Dwight stared at me, his chest rising and falling rapidly. For a moment, I thought he might refuse, that his hatred for me was now greater than his affection for his new toy.

He looked down at Charity, his expression softening into one of pained tenderness. He knelt and gently brushed a strand of bloody hair from her face. "I'll be right back," he murmured to her, his voice thick with emotion. "I'll fix this."

Then he stood, gave me one last look of pure venom, and walked out, pulling his phone from his pocket and barking orders into it before the door had even closed.

The moment he was gone, the whimpering on the floor stopped.

I turned to look at Charity. She was pushing herself up, a slow, triumphant smile spreading across her bloody face. The look in her eyes was no longer fearful; it was victorious.

"See?" she rasped, her voice thick but smug. "He chose me. He'll always choose me."

My stomach turned.

"He's just saving my father," I said, though the words sounded hollow even to me.

She laughed, a wet, gurgling sound. "Oh, you poor, pathetic woman. Do you really believe that? He' s just placating you. He told me all about you."

She wiped a smear of blood from her lip with the back of her hand, her eyes glittering with malice. "He told me he's hated you every single day for the last seven years. He said watching you live in his house, sleep in his bed, was like a constant punishment for his weakness in forgiving you."

The air left my lungs in a silent rush. The room tilted, the pristine white walls seeming to close in on me.

I could never hate you, Alex.

His words, whispered in the dark all those years ago, echoed in my mind. A lie. The foundation of our entire life together, a lie.

I had asked him, over and over in the beginning, "Do you hate me, Dwight? Tell me the truth."

And every time, he' d looked me in the eye and said, "No. I love you."

And I, like a fool, had believed him. I had built a life on that lie, carried the weight of being the monster he had so graciously forgiven, all while he secretly despised me.

"He said you're broken," Charity continued, her voice a cruel sing-song. She savored every word, twisting the knife that was already buried to the hilt in my chest. "Damaged goods. That's why you couldn't give him a child. You're empty. A barren, bitter woman clinging to a man who can't stand the sight of you."

Empty.

Barren.

The words hit me with the force of a physical blow. A wave of nausea and white-hot rage washed over me, so powerful it made me dizzy. The carefully constructed walls I had built around my pain for the last decade didn't just crack; they exploded.

I didn't think. I just reacted.

I lunged at her, my hands closing around her throat, not just to scare her this time, but to silence her, to erase that smug, vicious smile from her face forever.

"He loves me!" she choked out, her eyes bulging. "He's going to give me a baby! Something you could never do!"

That was it. The final, unforgivable blow.

A guttural roar of pure, primal rage tore from my throat. My thumb found the soft spot under her jaw, pressing down, cutting off her air. Her face began to turn a dusky purple. The world narrowed to the sight of her struggling, her hands clawing uselessly at my arms.

This time, I wasn't going to stop.