Page 186 of King of Ruin

His eyes searched her face, his brows drawn together with a seriousness that immediately erased the softness between them. His hand tightened slightly around her waist as he studied her.

"Tell me the truth," he said, his voice low but firm. "And this time, I don't want any lies."

Elise looked at him silently.

"I don't want you hiding anything from me anymore," he continued, his gaze never leaving hers. "Tell me everything. What the hell is going on? Where did this brother of yours come from? And why were you so fucking hesitant to tell me about him?"

Her breath caught, but she remained quiet.

The hesitation in her expression only made his jaw tighten. He had spent too long feeling like there were pieces of her life that she kept locked away from him, and he refused to let her shut him out again.

"Elise," he said, his voice becoming more demanding. "Look at me. You're not getting out of this bed until you tell me everything."

For a moment, Elise remained silent, her eyes lowering as if she was fighting with herself over whether she should say anything at all. But the weight of everything she had kept buried for so long became too heavy, and eventually, she looked away before forcing the words out.

"Because I was adopted."

The confession left her lips so quietly that it was almost swallowed by the silence between them.

"My biological parents didn't want me." She lowered her gaze, forcing herself to keep speaking despite the ache tightening in her chest. "They abandoned me."

Xavier's expression shifted, the anger on his face faltering, but before he could say anything, Elise continued.

"When Logan turned sixteen, he found out I existed." A faint, bittersweet smile touched her lips before disappearing just as quickly. "He searched for me until he found me. He said he wanted me in his life... that he wanted us to have the sibling bond we'd been robbed of."

She finally looked back up at Xavier, her eyes calm despite the pain lingering within them.

"That's all there is to it.”

His brows furrowed, confusion and frustration mixing together.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, his voice roughening. "What the hell is wrong with you, woman?"

He slowly shook his head, confusion etched across his face.

"Being adopted isn't something you should've been afraid to tell me." His brows drew together as he searched her eyes. "Do you really think that would've changed anything between us?"

Something inside Elise finally snapped.

For the first time, she stopped holding herself together. The patience she had carried for years, the silence she had forced herself into, finally cracked.

"You don't understand," she said, her voice trembling as she looked directly into his eyes. Tears gathered at the corners of her own. "You don't know what my life was like."

Her breathing became uneven.

"And you didn't need much time to leave me either, did you?"

Her voice cracked slightly, but she held his gaze.

"Do you know what that felt like?" she whispered. "To finally let someone into my life, to believe that maybe I had found someone who would be with me... only to hear him say over and over again that it’s just an arrangement he doesn’t want?"

Her voice rose as the emotions she had buried finally spilled out.

"You were going to leave me too."

Xavier went still.

"I was never going to tell you about my past because I knew you were temporary. I knew that one day you would realize you didn’t want me anymore and replace me with someone better. You would walk away, just like everyone else."