Chapter 4: His Angel: Chapter 4

The glass is cold against my forehead, a sharp contrast to the heat still radiating from my skin, but it’s not enough to cool the chaos churning inside me.

My breath fogs the window in uneven bursts, each one a shaky reminder of how I just let him—let him—tear me apart and piece me back together with his cock, his hands, his filthy promises.

His cum’s still dripping down my thighs, sticky and warm, mingling with my own slickness, and every shift of my hips sends a fresh ache pulsing through me—proof of how deep he went, how hard I broke.

I can’t move, can’t peel myself from this spot where Isaia has me pinned, where I screamed for him like Anthony’s blood wasn’t still wet in my memory. The memory of a friend who had always been there for me, a friend who made me feel less alone in this world.

My palms press harder against the glass, fingers trembling, and a sob catches in my throat—half grief, half disgust, all twisted up in the sick heat that won’t leave my veins.

What kind of person lets a killer fuck her senseless while her friend’s body’s barely cold?

What kind of person comes for a monster, shatters under him, knowing what he’s done?

“I missed you, baby girl.” Isaia’s voice cuts through the haze, pulling me back like a leash I can’t snap. He’s still behind me, too close, his breath grazing my neck, and I feel the weight of him—his chest, his hands, that unrelenting presence that fills every corner of this room. Of me.

“So fucking much.”

“Don’t.” My voice cracks as I try to shove the guilt back down, try to bury it under the anger that’s clawing its way up. “Just…don’t.”

But he doesn’t listen. He never does.

“Every second without you was hell.” His hand slides up my spine, fingers tracing the curve of my back like he’s mapping something he already owns. It’s possessive, tender in a way that makes my stomach lurch, and I hate how my skin prickles under his touch, how my body still hums for him even now.

There’s a lump in my throat, a hole in my heart left by Anthony’s death, and it’s crippling. Guilt floods me while Isaia grips my hip, pulling me back against him, and I feel that he’s hard again, pressing into my ass, ready to take more when I’ve got nothing left to give.

“Everly? Baby?”

“Please stop,” I whimper, twisting to shove him off, but my legs are jelly, and as I turn to face him, he catches my wrists, pinning them against the glass above my head.

“You don’t get to shut me out, you hear me? Not after you screamed for me, came all over me like you fucking meant it.”

Tears sting my eyes. It’s hot, bitter, and I wrench my face away. “You killed him,” I whisper, like saying it softly won’t hurt as much.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

My gaze cuts to his. “Anthony was a good man.”

“There’s no such thing, baby girl.”

“Go to hell.” I try to jerk free, but he only tightens his fingers around my wrists, leaning in close, his forehead pressed against mine.

“I warned him.” One hand slides down my arm, my collarbone, settling at the base of my neck. “I told him to stay away from you, but he didn’t fucking listen.”

“You don’t get it,” I say, tears spilling now, streaking down my cheeks. “I loved him.” Isaia hisses at that, fingers tightening around my throat just for a second.

“If he wasn’t dead, he’d be now.”

“Goddammit, Isaia. Not like I love you. What I feel…what I felt for him doesn’t come close to what I feel for you. But he was my friend. He protected me when Michele—” I choke on the name, the memory of that bastard’s threats tightening my throat. “And I betrayed him,” I continue. “Lied to him. Every decision after that, my every action led to the moment you killed him. What does that make me?”

With a gentle slide of his fingers up my throat, he cups my cheek, his thumb swiping at my tears. And his eyes? They’re wild, unrelenting storms boring into me like he can see every fractured piece.

“It makes you mine. It makes you the woman I’d burn the world for, the one I’d kill for, die for. Anthony was collateral, baby girl. He got in the way. That’s on him, not you.”

“That’s bullshit,” I snap, shoving at his chest, but he doesn’t budge, just presses closer, his body a wall I can’t escape. “You don’t get to absolve me because you’re obsessed. I made choices, Isaia. I lied to him, told him I’d marry him, played along while Michele held my mom’s life over my head. I could’ve fought harder. I could have trusted Anthony and told him the truth about Michele’s blackmail, but I was too fucking scared to. Too scared he’d keep his promise of not marrying me against my will. I could have⁠—”

“Stop, Everly.”

“I convinced him…by lying.” My teeth clench as tears stream down my face. “I convinced him to marry me by telling him that I needed protection from you. It was the only way, Isaia. It was the only way he’d believe me. I had to make him believe me, or Michele would have killed my mother. I had to make you the villain. I had to use his hate for you to⁠—”

“Stop!” His hand clamps over my mouth. “You don’t get to carry that. You did what you had to. And Anthony? He knew the risks, sticking his neck out for you. He’s not your fucking martyr.”

I bite his palm, hard, and he hisses.

“Fuck!”

I scramble away from him and grab his shirt, quickly pulling it on. “And you’re not judge or executioner.”

“Well, that’s debatable. Jesus.” He shakes his hand. “We’re biting now?”

“You need to stop,” I warn, putting more distance between us.

“And you need to realize that Anthony was a dead man on borrowed time, whether you lied to him or not.”

“You don’t get to decide who lives and who dies just because you want me, Isaia.”

“Want? Oh, baby girl, it’s so much more than that.” He stalks closer, his frame towering. “I want a cigarette. I want a lifetime supply of free bourbon. I want world fucking peace. But you? I don’t want you, Everly Beaumont. I fucking crave you. Deep in my marrow, I yearn for you. Even when I’m with you, inside you, that deep, dark hankering is still there. It’s like I can’t get my fill of you, like I’m trying to pour water into a broken fucking glass while I’m dying of thirst.”

He stops inches from me, eyes pinned on mine, and I don’t know if I want to run from him or pull him closer.

“What I feel for you is torture and rapture at the same goddamn time, and it scares the shit out of me because I know…I know, one day I’ll go too far and fuck this all up, because nothing—and I mean nothing in this life is meant to feel so strong and addictive as the way I feel about you. What I feel for you? It’s a fucking disaster.”

I can hardly take a breath, hardly think straight as Isaia strips himself bare for me to see the deepest, darkest, most vulnerable parts of him. It’s too much. Too…real, and I have no idea what to do with that.

My legs give way, and I sink onto the bed, pussy aching from Isaia’s fuckery—a twisted game I crave more of with every breath.

“You’re all gods in this world,” I lock eyes with him, “aren’t you? You’re all power-hungry gods blinded to the destruction you sow.”

There’s a sudden shift in the air when Isaia goes on his knees before me, fingers bracketing my ankles, eyes trained on mine. “That’s where you’re wrong, troublemaker. We’re not gods. We’re slaves. Captives. And the only way we can survive,” he lifts his hand to cup my cheek, “is to protect those we’re shackled to.”

My heart constricts with so many different emotions, I’m not sure how long I can keep it contained before it bursts from my chest.

His thumb traces the wet path of my tears, sparking a shiver. “You think I’d let anyone keep you from me and just sit on my hands? You’re my tether.”

The words hang there, heavy, sinking into me like a brand, and I think I know what he means by torture and rapture at the same time because what he just said, it makes my heart swell inside my chest while it bleeds.

How can I still love the man who killed my best friend without remorse or guilt? A man who would do it again if he had the chance?

Am I sick?

Am I screwed up? Insane?

God, it feels like it.

“You’re my heartbeat, Everly, and I’d slaughter a thousand worlds to keep you breathing beside me.”

Something cracks open inside me, unleashing a fear far stronger than what I felt at the church, so I lean deeper into his touch, letting his warmth seep into my cheek. “What if that heartbeat stops?”

He kisses me, lips brushing mine tenderly. “Then so does mine.”