Page 46

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

LIAM

Ivan holds Sasha’s face in one hand and shoves his gun firmly against my chest with the other. I stand dumbfounded, frozen in place, trying to comprehend his words. I’ve missed you, little sister. Trying to comprehend anything.

Sasha doesn’t resist in the slightest as Ivan protectively slides his arm around her shoulders and possessively tugs her into him. Even as I watch things unfold, I can’t seem to get my brain to register what Ivan said.

I’ve missed you, little sister.

“You always were remarkably deceptive, Alexandra”—Ivan’s praise and the name he uses quickly pulls Sasha’s attention from the floor to his face—“but it appears you have completely fucking fooled this one. You’ve fooled me before, but this… This is fucking impressive. He’s fucking speechless.”

I can barely think… let alone string together enough words to say something.

Ivan erupts with a short, dark laugh and shakes his head as he turns his attention back to me. “You poor Irish bastard. You really had no idea who she was, did you? Were you blinded by her pussy? Or was she really that fucking believable?”

Sasha doesn’t say a word—or so much as glance in my direction—as Ivan leads her from the club. His men follow shortly behind him, and they all step out of the front door of the club. And she’s gone. Walking out of my life as quickly as she crashed into it.

I can’t fucking breathe. The walls are closing in. My entire fucking world is imploding.

This was far worse than Sasha simply leaving me. The two of them mocking me and throwing the last couple of months in my face like it was a fucking joke. Worse than a joke. It was all a fucking lie. Every word. Every touch. Every fucking moment. The years of barriers I tore down, the things I allowed myself to feel. For her. All of it was nothing more than a carefully constructed lie. And me, nothing more than the fucking plonker who believed it.

Rage bubbling inside me, I grab the nearest thing I can find. I hurl the stool over the bar and into the wall of liquor bottles behind it, every emotion pouring from me in a thunderous roar. The satisfaction of it exploding against the wall and shattering the bottles to the floor is fleeting. And not nearly enough to fill the gaping hole that Sasha just left in my chest. I grab the next thing I can reach—a half-drunk bottle of Guinness—and chuck it toward the broken bottles spilling over the back bar.

Storming the length of the bar, I toss every glass or bottle I can get my hands on. Throwing them all, I watch them shatter across the floor. Like every dream I had for the two of us. I was going to fucking marry her… Instead of a wife, I’m left with nothing but a hollow version of the truth.

The truth.

Ha!

I try to remember everything. What the fuck did I miss? Every little detail she ever shared about herself… her past… her family… what she felt for me… how we were the first good thing she’s ever had.

Was any of it fucking real?

My heart slams against my chest, the rage continuing to swell far beyond what my body can contain. The white-hot fury coursing through me doesn’t care about what was real. The fury just wants to tear everything apart. And for a moment, I let it. Pure anger is the only thing keeping me from completely fucking falling apart. I’ve never been so fucking furious in my entire life. Not just at her, but at myself for being so fucking stupid. So fucking na?ve.

Never again… I fucking knew better.

“Why?” I shout—my voice so hoarse it sounds foreign—as I throw another barstool. It clatters across the marble floor, doing nothing to release the tension building inside me. It isn’t enough. None of it is enough.

Nothing will ever be enough to fill the void she just left where my soul once was.

My entire body trembles, and my heart pounds so hard that it’s going to burst from my heaving chest. Anger consumes me, and I don’t know how to stop it. All I want is to make her feel an ounce of this gut-wrenching betrayal, but she is gone. And I’m left with emotions I don’t know how to deal with. I don’t know how to let them go. How to let her go.

I slam my fist into the marble bar top, the radiating pain of the impact momentarily grounding me. The anger clawing at me and tearing me apart begins to fade. It subsides into something worse. Something much harder to face…

Heartache .

It’s the last thing I want to feel. The one thing I promised myself I’d never experience again. I kick the tattered barstool at my feet and roar as I toss another. I rage and scream, not willing to give into everything else I’m feeling. The club surrounding me is a war zone, and I stand in the middle of the mess I’ve created, shaking my head as my body tires and the anger subsides.

Left with nothing but the pieces of a life I thought I knew, I fall apart. My legs falter beneath me, and I crumble to the floor, as broken as the shattered glass I land in.

“Fuck, Li…” Declan sighs, wrapping his arms around me as he kneels in the glass beside me. My brothers all huddle around me, letting me grieve with only the sounds of my heaving breath in the room. Each of them prepared to pick me up and help me piece my life back together when I’m ready.