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Chapter 19

Tobias

L ucy is dead.

What is even the point of life when it’s so easily lost?

I was supposed to spend time with her, and I cancelled, sending a nurse so I could fuck Aria in a broom closet, and now, my conscience is eating at me so fucking painfully, I want to punch something.

I need it to hurt.

Aria has messaged me a few times, asking me if I want to hang out at her hotel and help her pack before she leaves, but I can’t. Not yet. I need to continue my research in loss. I’m not sure how to handle it. I’ve never been good at emotions. I’m always getting attached to feelings that make no sense.

Take my doctor, for example. I have no idea how I feel about her, but I know I feel something powerful.

She will know how to fix me, right?

Maybe something in my brain isn’t right, and I just need to feel something more to break through the wall in my mind.

My therapist is gonna kill me. I cancelled again.

My mom has called a few times. Violetta Mitchell–now Blythe–doesn’t know when to leave me the fuck alone.

Blythe, my stepdad, has emailed demanding I take time off work and come home, but I blocked the sender.

Apart from Justin, I have no one else.

Aria makes me feel good.

I need to keep her.

I will keep her.

Because she might not know it yet, but she’s mine.

Her fucking friend is an asshole–when she walked in on me trashing the place after finding out Lucy was gone, she told me to back off Aria. She’d found out from Justin that I’m heavily doped up on drugs for my mental health and apparently, Aria deserves better. She won’t tell her friend, but I have to end things and not ruin Aria’s life.

So instead of giving in to her goddamn threat, I haven’t taken my meds, and I won’t. They’re all already flushed down the toilet.

I’ll prove to that bitch I can handle myself perfectly fucking fine, that I can be more than enough for Aria. And when Aria agrees to marry me, she isn’t invited to the wedding. If I somehow get her pregnant, which would actually be terrible considering what I’m like, she isn’t getting anywhere near our kids.

She’s trying to ruin what we have, and I might just kill her.

If I knew how to do it without being caught, her body would already be nonexistent.

I slam my laptop shut and pace in my kitchen. I have sixteen hours until she leaves. Her flight isn’t canceled, and there’s nothing to keep her in America. She needs me to help her pack her suitcases, so I send a message back that I’ll be over soon and get showered and dressed.

All I can think about is keeping her. Why the fuck would I want to pack her goddamn suitcases?

I might burn them, maybe steal her passport, cage her, keep her trapped in my bedroom. A plethora of ideas cross my mind, but most will result in her hating me.

I did do some more research on Stockholm syndrome, and although it sounds possible, I want her genuine love.

Think, Tobias. Think. Think. Think.

How do we keep her?

How do we take this beautiful, smart woman and make her love us?

It’s all we need. Loyalty and affection and marriage and kids will all come eventually; however, I’d rather not spring young versions of myself on her, since I’m a trainwreck most days, especially now as erratic thoughts of kidnapping her are becoming more and more and more and more clear in my mind.

I could do it.

Would I?

Maybe.

Yes.

Aria meets me at the hotel entrance, not caring that we’re in public as she walks right up to me and kisses my cheek. “I’m sorry about Lucy.”

My chest burns with rage, but I ignore it and gesture for her to move towards the elevators.

Her hand is in mine the whole way up to her hotel room, and I measure her from behind for the size cage I could keep her in, smiling forcefully at her when she turns around. “Stop staring at my butt.”

She wishes that was what I was doing.

No, my dear, darling, beautiful doctor. I’m calculating how easy it will be be to make you disappear, to keep you forever, while also making you fall for me, continue to fuck me, and smile at me the way you are right now.

My leash is gone. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel myself slipping so fucking fast, and the only thing keeping me grounded is this human being with a heartbeat.