Page 110 of Code of Heart

With every ounce of strength she had left, she slammed it into his head.

Kyle dropped onto her like dead weight, knocking the air from her lungs. Pain shot through her chest as the pressure crushed her injured ribs.

Gritting her teeth against the agony, she shoved him off and slid free, gasping for air. He was out cold, face down on the bed.

Darkness crept at the edges of her vision, but she forced herself to stay conscious, to move. She was naked, bruised, and broken, but she was alive.

Adrenaline surged. She searched for her dress, her phone—anything.

A loud pounding on the door made her jump, her heart leaping into her throat.

“Open the door, Aurelia!”

Levi.

With a sob of relief, she grabbed a bedsheet crumpled on the floor, wrapping it tightly around herself, and stumbled to the door.

When she opened it, she barely registered Owen and Isaac standing behind Levi. All she could focus on was Levi…and his expression frozen in horror as his gaze shot past her to the bed.

To Kyle. Half-naked. And then back to her, barefoot, wrapped only in a sheet.

For the rest of her life, she would never forget the way his eyes turned to ice.

Rage. Disgust.

And then he turned his back on her. On them. On everything they’d worked for.

In a matter of seconds, her entire world imploded.

Levi

Levi wassotired.

Tired of the lies. Tired of being toyed with.

He hadn’t wanted to believe Selene when she told him Aurelia left with another man. He wanted to believe his friends and that something about this entire night didn’t add up. That Aurelia was different.

She wassupposedto be different.

But what he saw in that hotel room couldn’t be denied.

The ache hit him like a physical blow, a crushing weight tightening around his chest. He couldfeelhis heartbeat slowing, couldfeelsomething fracturing deep inside as he turned and stepped back into the hallway.

She had opened that door looking terrified—terrified thathewas the one who found her. Draped in nothing but a goddamn bedsheet, like decency was too much to ask.

That was the moment Levi broke.

The anger hit him fast and hard, a wildfire that burned through every piece of him. He whipped back around towards the hotel room door.

“How could you do this?” His voice cracked under the weight of his grief. “Youknewwhat everyone before you did to me—how they used me. And the first chance you got, you walked away with someone else?”

He barked out a humorless, bitter laugh. The memory of the inheritance news from earlier sliced through his mind again, bruising and sharp.

“You finally got what you wanted, didn’t you?” His voice rose to a shout. “The inheritance you were waiting for, but at what cost?”

“Levi—” Owen’s warning growl cut through the air, but Levi didn’t hear him.

Couldn’t hear him. Right now, there was nothing and no one but him and Aurelia.