Page 46 of Ruined By Protection (Feretti Syndicate #5)

Hazel

I can't understand why Elliott's laughing—a man with a gun to his head shouldn't be finding anything amusing. Unless he has suddenly lost his rational mind.

Then his laughter cuts off abruptly as he turns his face from Matteo back to me. His eyes gleam with a twisted satisfaction that makes my skin crawl.

"You know what's funny, Hazel?" Elliott purrs in his slimiest tone. "For months I thought I was going crazy."

I don't respond, keeping my expression neutral, refusing to engage with this madman.

"All those nights of wedded bliss," he continues, his lips snaking from fake smile to sneer. "You calling out for someone named 'Matteo' in your sleep. Moaning and thrashing on the bed like some cheap porn star."

My breath catches in my throat and heat rushes through my blood vessels. Matteo’s bulk goes stiff at Elliott’s side and for a moment he looks like he might end him.

"I thought he was just some fantasy you made up." Elliott's eyes flick between Matteo and me, triumph written across his features. "But here he is, in the flesh. The whole time I was trying to be a good husband you were dreaming about this motherfucker."

The room seems to shrink around me. I can feel Matteo's eyes on me but I can't look at him. I made a terrible mistake in speaking Matteo’s name.

"Such a whore," Elliott hisses, lurching forward despite Noah's restraining hands. "Having a husband and a lover at the same time."

"That's not—" I start, but peter out.

"Don't deny it," Elliott cuts me off. "I heard you. Night after night. 'Matteo, Matteo,'" he mimics in a high-pitched squeal. "Did you fuck him before our wedding? During? Both?"

Matteo's fist crashes into Elliott's jaw with a sickening thud. Elliott doubles over, screaming with pain.

"Don't you ever fucking talk to her like that," Matteo growls.

I flinch at the violence but force myself to remain outwardly calm. Elliott straightens up, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

"Look at him defending your honor," Elliott snarks. "You want her so bad? Take her. She's damaged goods anyway."

Something inside me snaps. Two years of suppressed rage comes pouring out. Before Matteo can hit him again I let him know the truths I’ve wanted to scream every day for the last two years.

"I'm not last year’s fucking purse, Elliott! I'm not something you dump at the curb or toss to someone else when you're tired of it!" My hands shake, but my voice doesn't waver.

And I’m not done yet. "You never owned me. Not when we got married. Not when you hit me. Not when you locked me in our bedroom for two days because I wore the wrong dress to your mother's birthday."

Elliott's smug expression falters as I continue.

"I am a person. A whole fucking person! Not your trophy, not your punchbag, not your property. And I sure as hell am not something you can tell another man to take ."

My voice reverberates around the room. Noah shifts uncomfortably, unaccustomed to women having their say in this type of situation.

Elliott's features twist even uglier, the self-righteous hatred all too familiar.

"You think you're special?" he spits. "You're just like all the rest. Women like you, like Melissa—you deserve everything you get."

He jerks against Noah's hold, trying to go for me with such intensity that I take an involuntary step back.

"I should have done with you as I did to her. Wrapped my hands around your throat and squeezed until you stopped your squawking. Then buried you deep where no one would ever find you."

The room goes dead silent. Elliott's confession hangs in the air, impossible to retract.

A confession. An actual confession.

Some small, desperate part of me had been clinging to denial. I still hoped that somehow I hadn't shared my bed with a genuine monster. That Elliott was just damaged, egotistical, but not... this.

But now I know. I know with absolute certainty.

My terrible wicked husband murdered Melissa Winters. He killed her and their unborn baby and buried them.

"Why, Elliott? Why did you kill her?" My voice shakes, but I need to know.

Elliott's eyes glaze over, like he's looking through me to some distant memory.

"Because of you, actually." His voice turns eerily conversational, like he’s chatting with friends about the past. "I met you at the bar that night. You were... different. Beautiful, sexy, smart and so strong. I knew right away I had to have you."

My stomach churns at his words. I was the reason another woman died?

"I broke things off with Melissa the next day," Elliott continues, as if discussing a business transaction. "I needed to focus everything on you. On us."

He says "us" like it's something sacred, making bile rise in my throat.

"But then she came back a month later like some crazed bunny boiler. Crying, hysterical." His lip curls in disgust. "Said she was pregnant. Threatened to tell everyone if I didn't take responsibility and take the lying bitch back."

I feel Matteo's presence but I can't look away from Elliott's face.

"She wouldn't listen to reason. Wouldn't take the money I offered her to just go away." Elliott shrugs. "She got emotional, started screaming. I just wanted her to shut up."

The casual way he describes murder makes my knees weak.

"Where?" I whisper. "Where did you bury her?"

Elliott's eyes find mine and a smile spreads slowly across his lips. He knows exactly what this will do to me.

"Remember when my mother welcomed you to the family? That little ceremony we had out in the garden?"

My heart stops. The world tilts sideways.

"Family tradition," Elliott continues, smiling as he observes me crumble. "Every new Montgomery plants a tree when they join the family."

I remember that day clearly. Elliott's mother, with her immaculate smile and cold eyes, handed me a sapling. Elliott stood beside me as I dug into the earth at the far corner of the property.

"Your tree never really thrived, did it?" Elliott's voice is scarily gentle. "Never grew tall, no matter how much the gardener tended it. Mother said it was a bad omen."

My legs give out. I sink to the floor, shaking uncontrollably. Tears stream down my face as the horror hits me.

I planted a tree over Melissa's body. She'd been there the whole time, beneath the soil I moved with my own hands. While I slept in Elliott's bed. While I endured his abuse. While I tried to be the perfect wife.

A dead woman and her unborn child were buried in the garden and I had no clue.

Matteo

Elliott's confession turns my blood to ice.

I've met devils before—men who kill for money, for power, for territory.

But this? This casual cruelty in dismissing one woman as soon he found a better one.

The complete lack of remorse while describing how he murdered a pregnant woman and then had his wife plant a tree over her buried body.

It's beyond anything I've encountered. Nothing less than psychopathic.

"Daniel," I call over my shoulder, in control despite my boiling blood. "Take over."

Daniel steps forward, taking the gun from me. His face is stone but I detect the disgust in his eyes.

I move straight to Hazel, collapsed on the floor, her entire body quaking. Her face has gone pale, and her breathing comes in short, panicked gasps.

I drop to my knees beside her, pulling her against my chest. "I've got you," I murmur, one hand cradling the back of her head. "Breathe, bella. Just breathe."

Her fingers clutch at my shirt, desperate and clinging. "I put a tree on their grave, Matteo," she sobs, her voice choking. "I dug that soil with my own hands. I—I smiled for pictures with them lying right beneath my feet."

Tears stream down her face, and she presses her forehead against my chest. "They were there the whole time. Every day I lived in this house, every night I slept in his bed. They were there."

I hold her tighter as her body convulses with grief. Part of me needs to end Elliott now—put a bullet in his head and be done with it. But I can't allow Hazel to watch that. She's seen enough horror.

"She was pregnant," Hazel whispers against my shirt. "There was a baby. I think I’m going to be sick."

I stroke her hair as her stomach dry-heaves. Over her head I direct a silent command to Noah. He nods once, understanding exactly what needs to happen.

"Come on," I say gently, lifting Hazel to her feet. "I’m taking you away from here."

Her body trembles against mine, tears soaking my shirt. I need to get her away from this monster but first I have to make sure everything is handled properly.

"Watch him," I tell Noah and Daniel. "I'll be back soon."

As we head for the door Elliott's hysterical laugh cuts through the room—a demonic noise that grates on my nerves. I want this bastard terminated for good.

"I'll wait for you on the other side, Hazel darling," he calls, dripping with venom. "And then I'll make you pay in hell for this."

Hazel goes rigid in my arms and I wonder whether she might be on the verge again. But then she breaks free of my grasp and whirls around, her face transformed by rage.

"Fuck you, Elliott!" she screams. "You're the one going to hell! You killed her! You killed her baby!" Her entire body shakes as years of abuse transform into outrage.

I move to support her but she's not finished.

"You're not a man, you’re a monster and a fake and a liar! And I wish I could see you rot. But I won’t be there, because I’ll be happy in my new life, far away from you ."

Elliott leans far back, laughing and laughing then suddenly lunges forward against Noah's restraint. Daniel steps between them, gun raised, and I reach to pull Hazel back against my chest.

"That's enough now," I murmur against her hair. "You’ve had your say and now he's not worth another second of your life."

She fights me for a second then collapses against me, sobbing. I lift her into my arms and carry her to the door, her face buried in my neck.

"I'll be back," I tell Noah over my shoulder, my meaning crystal clear.

Noah nods once, his face grim. "Take your time. We've got this under control."

I carry Hazel out into the mansion's opulent foyer and up the solid oak staircase. With each step, my resolve hardens.

"Where can I leave you to rest awhile?" I ask, unsure which hall to take in this oversized den of agony.

Hazel lifts her head, eyes red and swollen. "Guest room," she whispers. "Second door on the right."

I follow her directions, keeping her cradled against my chest. The weight of her feels right in my arms, even in this hellish moment. I need to get her somewhere safe, somewhere she can breathe before I return to finish what we started.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs against my neck. "I shouldn't have lost control like that."

"Don't apologize," I tell her firmly. "Not for anything. Not today."

We reach the guest room she indicated and I support her in one arm while I slightly turn the handle. The brass hinges creak as I shove the door open with my shoulder.

I freeze in the doorway, my eyes adjusting to the dim light.

"What the fuck?" What I see inside makes my blood ice.