Page 149 of Endgame

I need it there, now more than ever. I also need her to rest. To take care of herself. She’s been through a lot.

“Take a long bath. I’ll be back soon. Then you’re going to be punished for running away from me. The right kind of punishment. By the right person.” I’m at the door, the key to it in my hand. I don’t miss her grateful, soft smile that breaks something inside me. “Your husband.”

The door is locked.

My way of keeping her safe. Always.

The last timeI was alone in a room with Winston was years ago. When we were young. Really young.

His only living parent, his father, was ill. His mom had died of TS complications a few months before that.

We, the kids of the Royalty families, were expected to take turns at the hospital.

He and I barely exchanged a word.

Soon after, he turned into my enemy.

For over two decades, I’ve waited for the right time to strike. Sat on the sidelines. Watched him live the life no member of my family could ever have.

He’s ended up richer than his parents. Has a beautiful wife. The perfect daughter.

The three people I loved the most were rotting in their graves.

And now Aurora walked home with dust on her crumpled clothes. Her hair was disheveled.

The bruise on her cheek.

Because of him.

The memory twists my gut. Blazes through me over and over and fucking over.

I’m not leaving here until I’m done with him.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” The smug bastard grins at me from his doorway. So sure of himself that he let me in through the gates. And now he’s beckoning me into his home. “My son-in-law. Too bad Molly went out shopping. She’s been at it for hours.”

Hours that Aurora spent walking home alone, wandering the streets she barely knows, and somehow managing to find her way home.

While she was broken. Wounded.

Thinking I’d abandoned her.

I don’t bother answering him. I stalk across the driveway. Climb the steps to his porch.

“Winston.” My hand curls tight at my side.

On the drive here, I pictured him hitting Aurora. Imagined the taste of her fear on my tongue.

Those thoughts fueled me.

Pushed the rage straight into my veins.

That same fury is what sends my fist right into his jaw.

He laughs, the sound harsh. Cutting, despite his weaker position on the floor. “I see your wife has been influencing you.”

My shoe meets his abdomen in the soft area beneath the ribs.

“How’s married life treating you, by the way?” His grin is wide and mirthless as he sits up, coughing. Droplets of blood paint his lips red.