Chapter 23
687words
The sound of Liam's sobbing followed us as we walked toward Noah's car. It was a pathetic, gutteral noise, the sound of a man who had finally realized that his throne was made of cardboard and his crown was a joke.
"Elena! Just one word! Just look at me!"
I stopped. Noah's hand tightened on my shoulder, his entire body radiating a protective heat. He was ready to shield me, to usher me away, but I needed this. I needed to cauterize the wound once and for all.
"Noah, it's okay," I whispered. "I need to finish this."
I turned around. Liam was still on his knees, his forehead practically touching the grime-stained concrete. The blue scarf, the evidence of a love he had never deserved, was clutched in his trembling fingers like a tattered flag of surrender.
"You said you'd be my dog?" I asked. My voice didn't shake. It was as cold and precise as a surgical blade.
Liam looked up, a spark of pathetic hope igniting in his bloodshot eyes. "Anything, El. I'll go to the press. I'll tell them I'm the monster. I'll work for Blackwood. I'll clean the Titans' locker rooms. Just... don't have his child. Don't erase me."
"You still don't get it," I stepped forward, Noah hovering just inches behind me like a dark omen. "You're asking me to kill a life to save your ego. You think that by 'serving' me, you can somehow overwrite what you did?"
"I can make you happy again!" Liam cried, reaching out to grab the hem of my coat, but he pulled back when Noah's shadow fell over him.
"Happy?" I let out a dry, humorless laugh.
"Liam, the Liam Sterling who could make me happy died a long time ago. He died the night of the blizzard in Minnesota, when he let a girl freeze for him and never bothered to ask her name."
"He died again in that hospital room when he told me I was 'tough' enough to take a hit while he saved his mistress. And he was buried the moment our child's heart stopped beating on Route 9."
"I can change! I swear!"
"The man standing in front of me isn't my husband," I said, leaning down so I could look him directly in the eye.
"He's just a stranger with your face. A stranger I feel sorry for. You want to serve me? Fine. Stay alive. Stay alive and watch me live the life you tried to steal from me. Watch me be loved by a man who doesn't need to be saved to know my worth. Watch me raise a child who will never know your name."
"Elena, please..." his voice was a broken whisper.
"In your mind, you're the hero who made a mistake," I said, standing back up. "But in my story, you're just a footnote. A painful lesson I've already learned. Goodbye, Liam. Don't find me again. If you do, it won't be me you're talking to. It will be Noah's security team."
Noah stepped forward then, his presence completely eclipsing Liam's. He didn't even look at the man on the ground. He simply opened the passenger door of the Range Rover, his hand resting on the small of my back in a gesture of absolute possession and reverence.
"Let's go, Elena," Noah said. "The air is getting thin out here."
I got into the car without another word. As Noah pulled away, I looked in the side mirror. Liam was still on his knees, a small, broken shape in a dark alleyway, holding a blue scarf that no longer belonged to anyone.
"You did well," Noah said, his hand finding mine and squeezing.
"I feel... light," I admitted. The weight I had been carrying for ten years, the weight of being Liam's savior, his doctor, his secret wife, was gone. "But I have a bad feeling, Noah. Men like Liam are predictable, but men like Marcus Kane are not."
"Marcus is a Cornered rat," Noah's grip tightened on the steering wheel. "And I have a specialized trap waiting for him."
