The Marriage Debt: Chapter 31

Twenty minutes ago

I push open the elevator doors and rush through the hallway while the phone against my ear continues to beep. Finally, Liam picks up.

“Don’t come here, or I swear to fuck—”

“Too late, motherfucker, I’m here.” His voice is manic. Not at all like the brother I remember.

“What the fuck do you want?” I growl as I go through the revolving doors.

“You know what I fucking want.”

He sounds like me.

“No. We’re going to fucking talk. Right now,” I say as I head out into the street where I hop into my car. No fucking time to wait for a driver.

“I’m done talking. I’m tired of waiting. I need this to end,” he replies. He definitely sounds unhinged.

“I have Jasmine,” I reply.

This quiets him for a moment.

Even though it’s not true yet, it will be soon.

“And she wants to talk to you.”

Liam growls, “Fine. Meet me at the cliff.”

Jill

Present

All these years of guilt, anger, and fear collapsed into one moment in time, dissipating into a black hole like a star at the end of its life.

I almost can’t believe my own eyes, yet there he is in the living flesh.

My body instantly gravitates toward him, my legs almost carried by the wind itself.

“Liam?” Jasmine mutters. “How is this even possible? I thought … I thought you were dead.”

The horror in her voice is one I recognize all too well.

“How?”

He walks to her and grabs her hand. Luca’s body twitches and tenses as he homes in on every move his brother makes.

“I don’t know,” Liam says. “It’s too much to tell you. But I’ve been dying to see you.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t understand what’s happening. Luca told me that I needed to come here with him to save Jill.”

The moment she mentions my name, Liam’s eyes widen, and he searches the area. “Is she here?”

I step out from behind a bush and reveal myself. I’m not at all prepared for those beautiful soul-struck eyes to burn into mine, nor the fury blazing behind them.

And when he opens his mouth and speaks, I know for sure it’s him. “Jill …”

The sound of his voice brings me to tears and commands me to walk toward him.

“JILL, NO!” Luca yells, the visceral, animalistic sound coming from his throat making me hesitate to get close.

“Stay out of this!” Liam growls at him.

Luca suddenly jumps between us, arms wide, gun at the ready. “You want her? You’ll have to go through me.”

The mere sight of him in front of me makes me want to spew lava at him. After all the lies, how dare Luca still try to keep me away from Liam? “Get out of the way,” I snarl.

“No.” He looks at me over his shoulder, the look of pure determination in his eyes hard to stomach.

“How long did you think you could keep this a secret from me?” I ask, my nails digging into my hands.

“I wanted to explain over the phone before you cut me off,” he retorts, trying to grasp my hand. “We have to go. NOW.”

“No!” I jerk my hand free and shove him away. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

After all the things he said, all the ways he made me believe my own feelings for him, he turns around and betrays me in the worst way possible.

I can’t forgive him for this.

I stare him down. “Get out of my way.”

“Luca, you heard her,” Liam says.

“Don’t listen to him, Jill,” Luca says, throwing me a damning look. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“By keeping me from the only person who could’ve made it all okay again.” I blink away the tears. I don’t want to spend them on him. “All these years, I thought I’d killed him. I paid for that. And now it turns out he’s alive, and you never even told me. You let me live with that guilt.” My hands palm into fists. “I fucking hate you.”

His face contorts with pain. “I’m doing this for your own good.”

“You don’t know what’s good for me,” I say, incensed. “Now let me fucking talk to him.”

I push past him, despite him trying to keep me away. But he keeps guarding me from the side. And that damn gun is still pointed at his brother.

Does he hate his brother that much?

Or is he afraid Liam has come back to steal the crown?

“He’s your brother, Luca,” I spit at him. “I thought you’d changed.”

“Oh, he has,” Liam responds, stepping into a puddle created by the rain. “Three years I hid. Did you know he’s been tracking me?”

I shake my head.

“Taking picture after picture after picture,” he says, getting closer and closer until he’s right in front of me. “Even after we’d already talked.”

“You talked?” I gasp.

I can’t believe this. How long has this been going on?

“When?” I shout at Luca, but then it hits me. Those few days Lita had to come babysit me and Luca mysteriously vanished. My hand slides in front of my mouth. “You were gone. I thought it was business, but you were talking to Liam? And you came home and pretended everything was normal?”

“Tell her the fucking truth!” Luca barks out loud at his own damn brother.

“I don’t need to, little brother. You’re doing all the work for me,” Liam muses as he steps closer.

Luca’s gun clicks. “Take one step closer, and I’ll fucking blow your head off.”

I throw him a look. “Stop. You’re only making this worse for yourself.”

“Yeah, Luca. You’re not making a case for yourself here. Having a private detective stalk your own damn brother.”

“Don’t twist what happened,” Luca growls back. “I’ve been looking for you for years, and I told you.”

“To finish what you started,” Liam says through gritted teeth.

“You’re wrong,” Luca spits. “Don’t listen to him, Jill. He’s trying to get you to hate me out of revenge.”

“I do hate you!” I yell back, tears rolling down my cheeks. “Do you know how it felt to be the one responsible for his death? What I had to sacrifice?” I look him up and down, lift my hand, and take off the ring. “I even fucking married you. But that debt is settled now. I don’t owe you anything anymore.”

I chuck the ring at his chest, and it clatters onto the ground. Luca’s face is filled with gut-wrenching emotions, but my heart hurts equally bad.

Because I gave it all to him.

He made me bleed.

Carved his name into my skin.

Made me believe I could love him.

“You’re bleeding,” Liam says. I’m so distracted by the emotions raging through my head that I don’t even know what he means until I follow his eyes down my pants at the markings Luca left for me. The ones I scratched open.

Fuck.

Liam immediately lunges at me and pulls down the sweatpants before I can protest, showing both Luca and Jasmine what I did to myself. What he did to me. Even though I tried hard to erase his name from my skin, his name is still visible.

Jasmine gasps. “Oh my God…”

“You even marked her?” Liam makes a disgusted face at his brother.

Luca’s hold on the gun only grows stronger as he keeps it pointed right at Liam. “Get the fuck away from her!”

“No, the only one who should be kept away from her is you,” Jasmine says, stepping between us. “You went too far.”

“I brought you here to fucking distract him,” Luca growls. “Do your fucking job!”

“What?” I mutter. What does he mean?

“You only brought me here so you could draw Liam out and kill him, didn’t you?” Jasmine says, folding her arms. She suddenly jumps at Luca, trying to snatch the gun from his hand, but he keeps it high up in the air.

“Get out of my fucking way,” Luca barks, and he shoves her aside so hard she falls to the ground.

In a single second, Liam suddenly pounces onto Luca, punching him in the face so hard blood splatters around. I shriek as the two roll around on the muddy ground, fighting over his gun. Liam grabs Luca’s wrist, slamming it into the ground. When it’s finally knocked away, Liam’s hands wrap around his throat. “Now it’s your turn to fucking die.”

It’s so fucking hard to watch that I have to close my eyes.

Ugh!

A groan.

Liam.

My eyes burst open. Liam rolls around through the mud, clutching his junk. Luca kneed him. Hard.

Luca is already back up on his feet, bleeding from his nose and lip. He stomps on his brother and kicks him in the stomach. “I warned you to stay the fuck away!”

I do the only thing I can think of to stop this madness once and for all.

I approach Luca from behind, tears staining my eyes, as I fish his own damn knife from my pocket and ram it into his side.

He roars in pain and stops, then turns to look at me, the pain in his eyes indescribable.

Pure misery.

Thunder strikes through the sky, the flash distracting us all.

Because in a single second, Liam’s gotten up, snatched the gun off the ground, and grabbed my arm, knocking both the knife from my hand and the wind out of my lungs.

And as he clutches my body close to his, he moves backward fast, toward the edge of the cliff.

Chills run down my spine, the cold rain hitting hard.

Liam isn’t trying to save me.

The gun isn’t pointed at Luca.

It’s pointed at my head.