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“What the fuck is going on?” Theo’s voice resonates with suspicion. I feel him edge a little closer to me, as if he’s trying to physically protect me.
Victoria shrugs elegantly. “What’s the matter, Theo? I thought you’d be glad to see your friend isn’t dead.” Her smile widens, and she wraps one delicate hand around Marcus’s arm. “I hope you’ll at least congratulate us on our engagement.”
Marcus’s jaw ticks, his body stiffening.
The ring on her left hand glints in the light.
I stare at it, transfixed by the gleaming princess-cut jewel as all the blood seems to leave my body, replaced with… nothing.
There’s nothing inside me.
I’m empty.
I step backward, nearly tripping over the hem of my dress in my haste to escape. Ryland reaches for me, but shock has slowed his movements, and I slip from his grasp. Whirling around, I stride away as fast as I can, nearly running as I weave my way through the bodies in the crowded room. I don’t know where I’m going. It doesn’t even fucking matter.
Anywhere but here.
I need to get out of this ballroom, away from the hum of voices and the soft strains of the music. Away from Victoria. Away from the truth that grips my heart like an iron fist.
Marcus is back.
But he’s no longer mine.
Tears sting my eyes, blurring my vision as I finally make my way through the thick of the crowd, slipping through an arched doorway and down a long corridor. I turn left when I reach another hallway, reaching out to steady myself against the wall as my legs shake.
I can’t breathe. Or maybe I am breathing, and my lungs have just gone numb.
I don’t understand. I don’t fucking understand.
“Angel. Wait!”
Marcus’s voice behind me hits me like a heavy weight, making my already weak knees threaten to give out. The sound of the nickname he gave me on his lips plucks a chord in my heart, but I don’t turn around.
“Fuck.”
I hear his low curse behind me, and a second later, a hand wraps around my arm, dragging me sideways. He yanks open a door that lines the hallway and pulls me inside, slamming it shut behind us and enclosing us in the space. It’s a small laundry room, with shelves full of sheets and towels and other household items. A washer and dryer sit in the corner, shiny and new.
Marcus stands in front of the door with his hand still resting on the handle. His grip is tight, and I realize with a start that he’s not just holding the door handle—he’s leaning on it, as if he needs the assistance to stay upright.
Of course he fucking does. He was shot two weeks ago.
The shock that’s been working its way through my system finally releases its death-grip on my tongue.
“You’re… you’re alive,” I choke out.
“Yes.” His voice is low.
“How?”
His jaw muscles ripple as he clenches his teeth. He looks even more haggard and worn out than Ryland and Theo have for the past two weeks, and there’s a rasp to his voice that I don’t remember being there before.
“Victoria.” He finally releases the doorknob, taking a step closer to me. “She found me. After Carson shot me. She killed him and dragged me away. She had a car parked between buildings and got me inside it.”
A memory flashes through my mind—a streak of blood leading away from the place where I woke up, fading out and then disappearing entirely. That must’ve been where Victoria got him into her car.
My gaze refocuses on Marcus as he continues, my teeth clamped so tightly around my lower lip that it hurts.
“I was bleeding out in her back seat,” he grits out, his mesmerizing gaze boring into mine. “Three bullets in my back. She offered me life, angel. She said she’d save me if I agreed to marry her.”
