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Jack stumbled, his legs folding in slow motion, dropping him to his knees before me until our eyes were level. He never looked away from me, seeing what I’d done as if I’d projected every gruesome, cruel, and merciless thing into the night sky between us.
A morbid movie.
The worst kind of hologram.
We stared at each other as two animals, not people, two beasts that would do anything to protect their mates.
Anna stayed standing, her hand still in Jack’s as I held up the ring and confessed, “I married your daughter that night. As she rinsed away his touch in the sea, I told her what I just told you. I told her the truth about my origins. I stood before her as a murderer and the son of a monster, and asked her to accept me. I married her with every fucking part of me, Jack. The vows we uttered that night, with just the moon and stars as our witnesses, were the most binding vows of my life. I will never be with anyone else. I will never love anyone else. I was born for your daughter, sir, and if a single shred inside you would accept me, I promise to you, here and now, there is nothing I wouldn’t do, no law I wouldn’t break, no man or beast I wouldn’t kill to keep her safe. It isn’t a choice; it’s a necessity. An absolute necessity because I love Neri with all my useless soul, and I wholeheartedly mean it when I say I would die if I had to live a single day without her.”
I turned the ring, spinning it in the moonlight. “You have enough to call the police and have me thrown away for life. If they figure out who I truly am, they’ll deport me, and my father will ensure I’m killed the moment I step foot on home soil. I’ve put everything I am into your hands, and all I’m asking for, all I’m begging for, is your mercy. Your mercy and the chance to keep loving your daughter. In my heart, she’s already my wife. I promised my entire being to her that night, and yes, I did sleep with her like she told you. She was my first and my fucking only because I don’t want anyone else. I don’t need anyone else. I only want her, and if you can’t forgive me for what you saw tonight, if you can’t trust me that I would lay down my own life for her, then...”
I shrugged and sniffed back aching waves of grief. “Then I suppose I have no choice but to let fate deal with me. I won’t run as there’s nowhere else I want to be. I won’t fight if I’m arrested. I’ll accept my death sentence from my father, all because I’m too selfish to stop loving your daughter. I tried to let her go; I truly did. It was my fault she went to Zara’s that night because I told her I wished I didn’t have this need for her or her for me. I called what we had a mistake and—”
My voice cracked again, but I balled my hands and let anger siphon through me. “It was a mistake to think I deserved her when I’ve done nothing but cause her pain. It was a mistake to think I could survive without her when I can’t take a single breath without her near. I’m condemning her to a life of misery and grief if I get caught. And I hate myself for that. I hate that I have nothing to offer her. I hate that our future won’t be easy. I hate that I’ve stolen her heart, and I know you’ll hate me too. Hate me all you want, but I can’t give her back. I won’t. She was mine the moment she found me, and I wish...I wish.... Fuck, I wish I’d come to you sooner. I wish I’d told you the night Neri came to me with hurt in her heart. If I had, she never would’ve gone to Zara’s. Ethan would never have been near her, and I...I would never have destroyed everything you love.”
Breathing hard, I hung my head, feeling the cold kiss of an executioner’s blade on my nape. Jack could slaughter me with how much I’d told him. In a way, I wanted him to.
That awful fog of despair that never let me go was unbearably thick and heavy. Without Neri, that cloud would swallow me whole. I wouldn’t survive. But how could I ask her to keep giving me her light? Forever putting her in charge of my happiness when all I gave her in return was stress and worry and pain?
I looked at Anna. At the tears raining down her cheeks.
