God of War: Chapter 23

I’ve always been a creature of control.

Emotions, mild or strong, are a nonnegotiable sign of weakness.

I never lose my cool or let feelings cloud my judgment or, worse, interfere with my decisions.

Sangfroid isn’t only a way of life, but also the method Dad and Grandpa implemented in me from a young age.

They said the moment I allow any form of emotion to take over, it’s too late.

In my twenty-nine years of life, I’ve been the epitome of detachment and the personification of pretend indulgence. I’ve never liked anything too much or too little. Never succumbed to impulsiveness or addictions. Never wanted anything and didn’t get it.

Never lost my cool.

Started a fight or punched someone. If a person crosses me, they get eliminated swiftly and silently.

Dirtying my hands is out of the question.

Being obsessed to the point of madness should be entirely blasphemous.

And yet the woman who’s looking at me with a spark of a challenge is single-handedly smashing all my principles into a fucking abyss.

A hot edge of bright-red rage seeps from my chest to the tip of my thumb that’s rolling my wedding band.

This unsettling feeling hasn’t ebbed since Henderson whispered in my ear that Ava didn’t only show up at King Enterprises, but she also got bored and decided to visit Remi for some ‘fun.’

I stood up and walked out of an important post-inspection meeting with overseas government officials and couldn’t hear whatever excuses my father offered on my behalf.

Henderson and his assistants failed to mention that my hindrance of a wife did all of this while dressed in what looks like unfinished clothes.

Sexy-as-fuck erotic clothes that show half of her tits and would expose her arse and cunt if she stands in the bloody wind.

Remi rises, buttons his jacket, and raises both hands in the air. “For insurance and criminal record reasons, I didn’t invite her over.”

“Seriously?” Ava slides her sparkling blue eyes to him. “You just become a traitor upon seeing him?”

“The right description is pacifist, peasant. My lordship is at the height of my impressive youth and would rather not end up floating in the Thames’s unsanitary water.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have endangered said youth, Rems.” It’s a fucking miracle I sound calm as I stroll in, shoving a hand in my pocket.

“Mate.” He wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Surely, you know I’d never look at Ava that way. Matter of fact, she walked in on me on the verge of shagging her sister and saved me and the universe in time.”

“Oh my God! You just said it was a mistake and it wasn’t what it looked like.”

“That was before a pissed-off Eli showed up at my door hell-bent on murder. I must set the record straight. If I were to look at any of the Nash sisters, it would never be you.” He observes his surroundings as if searching for a hidden camera. “But I ask that you don’t repeat those words to Ariella, or she’ll camp outside my house with an engagement ring.”

“Is that so?” I say while glaring at my wife’s generous décolletage and long bare crossed legs.

As if the whole debacle isn’t enough, she’s wearing pink fucking boots.

She purses her lips and glares back, although red covers her cheeks. God. This woman doesn’t back down from a fight, even while knowing full well I’d crush her to smithereens.

But she never breaks, not really.

A few cracks might appear in her armor, but she’s fully equipped to bounce back up and glue her fractured parts together one piece at a time.

“Absolutely,” Remi says, choosing to actively ignore the brewing war happening in his office. “Actually, I asked her to leave right before you came in.”

“And I refused.” She examines her fingernails, feigning nonchalance she obviously doesn’t feel. “In fact, you’re interrupting. Do you mind?”

“I do.” I release myself from Remi’s grip and stand in front of her. She has to crane her head to peer up at me. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“You don’t tell me what to do.”

She’s such a fucking brat sometimes, I want to punish her for it.

Turn her skin red.

My sick desire for her rages inside me, demanding that I throw her down and tie her up before I proceed to choke, pound, fuck, and own every inch of her rebellion.

The image of my cum mixed with her blood shouldn’t have turned me on the way it did, but it did, and I’m not even sorry.

She’s mine.

Only mine.

Body and fucking soul.

And the harder she fights that, the more drastic my measures to own her become.

I punched someone publicly for her last night, generated a few headlines that Henderson suppressed and my father shook his head at me for.

However, the need to do it again hasn’t left me. That and the fucking seething lust that flows in my veins instead of blood.

Maybe I need to see a doctor for my issues. Surely, it’s entirely unacceptable that I want her so much that a rush of heat engulfs me day in and day out like a vengeful curse.

Tension radiates between us as she holds my glare. Something she’s been doing more often lately. So I say, “Either you get up and stand in front of me or I throw you over my shoulder.”

She narrows her eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

“You’ll offer every single one of the employees a front-row view of my arse, so you try me. By all means, babe.”

I shrug my jacket off with methodical movements. Her eyes widen when I grab her hand and shove it into the sleeve.

She attempts to fight, but it’s no use as I slide her other arm in, then unfasten her belt and use it to tighten the jacket around her waist.

“What are you doing, Eli?!”

“Removing access to the view.” I lean in and whisper in her ear, “My view.”

And then, as promised, I throw her over my shoulder. The jacket almost reaches her knees, but I still wrap an arm over the material at her upper thigh so no accidents happen.

Ava yelps and I feel her reaching both hands out. “Rems! Help me.”

I level him with a glare.

He rubs his ear. “I’m afraid I have temporary loss of hearing. Oh my, better check with my GP. Shit’s serious.”

“Remi!” Ava shouts, but I can hear the suppressed laughter in her voice. “Are you blind, too?”

“No, I ain’t seen nothing. I ain’t seen nothing. Matter of fact, I’m blind in my left eye and forty-three percent blind in my right eye. I don’t see much of nothing. Matter of fact, I can’t even see you, sir.”

“Are you quoting a meme? You damn traitor!” She tries to hold on to the door frame, but I easily pull her free.

“Byee!” Remi calls as his assistant cranes her head, gawking at the scene. “Have fun, kids! Remember, play safe!”

“Remiiii!!” Ava shouts, pleading her case one final time.

When I round the corner and press the lift’s button, she lets her head fall to my back but only after she bangs on it a few times.

“Put me down. I can walk on my own,” she hisses.

“You should’ve accepted that option when I first gave it to you.”

“Eli! Everyone is looking.”

“And? Don’t you love attention?”

“Not like this. Oh God.” She groans and buries her face in my back. Her hands grab my shirt and she sinks her nails into my sides like a kitten.

I ignore the inquisitive gazes and suppressed giggles from the female staff as I walk my wife, caveman style, to my office. Henderson trails off in the midst of talking to his assistants while they nearly fall over from shock.

“Send me the report for the afternoon meeting and any decisions made in my absence, Henderson.”

He takes a few more seconds than needed to recover before he nods. “Already done, sir.”

I nod back and then stroll inside my office. The space is a bit smaller than the one at King Enterprises, but it’s an identical copy in everything else.

Same decor, the same sofa, the same coffee table, and the exact same books.

After I kick the door closed, I throw my wife on the sofa.

She bounces right back up, her face red and her nostrils flaring.

I ignore her and go to settle behind my desk. “Give me thirty minutes to salvage the mess you caused before I take you home.”

“How…” She storms in my direction and stops in front of my desk, and although I’m not looking at her, I can sense the flames erupting from her with the rage of an active volcano. “How dare you humiliate me in front of everyone?”

“I wouldn’t call it humiliation, considering you’re my wife, but even if it were, it’s not my fault that you picked the wrong choice.”

“You…you…you caveman!”

“That insult was extremely anticlimactic after all the stuttering. Surely, you could’ve come up with something better.” I skim over the notes Henderson sent. “Now be quiet so I can focus.”

“I only came here to return this.” She slams a pill on the desk and glares at me. “Next time, don’t delegate your dirty work to Sam and have the balls to look me in the eye when you give it to me.”

I grab the pill and then place it in her hand again, all the while staring her in the fucking face.

“There. Are we done?”

Her chin trembles. “You bastard…you…damn Tin Man! You don’t get to tell me what to do with my body. Whether I take Plan B or contraceptives is only up to me. Do you think you have a say in it?”

“No, which is why I gave you the fucking choice, Ava. You think I don’t want to pump you full of my cum, put a dozen children in you, and tie you to me for life? Because I very much do. But we both know you are not ready for that, so I gave you the option. I didn’t force you to take the pill, I only put it on the table in case you want it.”

“Do you want me to take it?” Her voice has lost some of its fire, but it’s still as antagonizing as her entire existence.

“I will offer no say in the matter.”

“But I want to hear your thoughts.”

“You won’t.” Because I do want to fucking tie her to me and offer her no way out.

I hadn’t thought much about it before, but after last night, blind possessiveness has been rushing in my ears and constricting my chest.

There’s no way in fuck I’ll let another man touch her after I put my mark on her. She still has a faint hickey on her neck despite the obnoxious amount of makeup she used to hide it and I’ll make sure that never disappears.

So she’s always stamped with evidence of my ownership.

A kid—or a few—would make her mine for good. Though there are two pesky inconveniences. One, I genuinely dislike kids. They’re messy and illogical—my least favorite characteristics. Two, I’d be forced to share their mother with them.

I’m ready to overlook both. Barely. My dad loathes kids more than I do, but he loves me and Creigh, so I choose to believe I will at least tolerate my own kids. I might even like them if they look anything like their mum.

But even I, and my optimistic plans, know that making Ava pregnant in her current state isn’t only reckless, but it could be catastrophic.

She’s not stable, yet, and a child might wreck all my progress and spill it down the drain.

Last night, I knew she was pretending to be asleep the entire time, which is why I shook my head at Sam so she wouldn’t accidentally reveal anything. After I put Ava to bed and she fell asleep, she woke up half an hour later and walked all over the house before I carried her back to bed and stayed with her until she went under again.

Then I showered, changed, and went to work.

I’m operating on no sleep and I choose to believe that’s the reason why I’m particularly irritable today.

Fine, it’s because she paraded herself around with virtually no clothes on.

“So you really wouldn’t mind either way?” she asks with a note of expectation.

“I thought I shouldn’t since, and I quote, I have no right to tell you what to do with your body.”

“But what about your aspirations? Your goals? Do you even want kids?”

“I don’t see why that should concern you.”

“The fact that you’re my husband, maybe? If I plan on having children, I need to know you’ll be there for them since you’re hardly there for me.”

“Well, there’s your answer.”

It’s a blow below the belt and she flinches as if I punched her in the gut. But that’s better than painting the sky pink and giving her any form of hope.

Not in her state.

Even though I know how much she adores kids and dreams of having her own. She always stops and plays with children and dogs in the street and she volunteers at a charity to offer free cello lessons to children from humble backgrounds.

But that doesn’t negate the fact that she’s not ready for them.

“You know,” she murmurs. “I really hate you.”

“So you keep telling me.”

Staring me down with eyes less sparkling than earlier, she swallows the pill dry and heads to the sofa, then throws her weight on it. I watch her movements, searching for any sign of numbness, but she retrieves her phone and proceeds to text. She’s probably yelling at Ariella about whatever fuckery she witnessed earlier.

Truth be told, my sister-in-law could and will drag Remi down the aisle kicking and screaming sooner or later. I better help her so I can get rid of that nuisance sooner.

Though it’s virtually impossible to concentrate when my wife is sitting there like a snack waiting to be devoured, I try to get some work done.

I send Henderson my decision notes on the meeting—or whatever I attended of it. His answer is immediate.

My father removed me from the project since I lack respect for it. He’ll get Aunt Teal, Remi’s mother, on board with his decision.

Motherfucker.

I roll my wedding band back and forth, back and forth until I nearly snap my finger off.

This is a massive project for governmental aid for international development and I made it happen. I was the one who worked behind the scenes so King Enterprises and Steel Corporation won the bidding. It’s my fucking work and my father cannot take me off the project.

Well, he can since he’s the CEO. Worse, Aunt Teal will probably agree with him since she has zero tolerance for nonsense—it must’ve been a hassle bringing up a child who’s the definition of the word.

“If you’re done glaring at your screen and making people’s lives more miserable, can we go?” Ava stands up and yawns. “I’m bored and if this mood goes on, I’ll start rearranging your stuff for revenge.”

I glare up at the reason that I’m in this predicament.

Your reaction to her is.

My wife must sense my mood change, because her eyes widen a little and she grows breathless. “What?”

“You’re a fucking headache.”

“Hold on.” She rummages through her purse, then slaps an ibuprofen capsule on the desk with a sweet smile. “This should help.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“No. It’s supposed to help with headaches. Oh, look at that. It’s the day we give each other pills. We should make an anniversary out of it.”

“As I previously mentioned, I didn’t force you.”

“As I previously mentioned, screw you. Oh right, I didn’t mention that before so here it is again. Screw you.”

I shouldn’t touch her again so soon. I really, really shouldn’t, but I don’t seem to care as I stand and round my desk.

Ava pretends to hold her ground, but when I reach a hand up her back and grab her hair in a fist, she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. A muffled sound rips out of her nonetheless.

“That mouth of yours is begging to be punished so thoroughly, you’ll only sing praises for me afterward.”

“Highly doubtful.” Her voice is throaty, so thoroughly aroused, I bet her cunt is weeping for me.

“If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’ll break, stretch, and split your tiny cunt in half.”

“Promises, promises.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” I wrap my hand around her throat, fingers skimming the hickey I gave her. “Why are you like this?”

“Why are you?” That spark returns to her eyes with a vengeance until I can see my reflection in them. “Why did you lie to me, Eli?”

“About?”

“Us having sex.”

“I never said that we did.”

“But you implied it. You mentioned something about seeing and not being impressed.”

“I meant seeing you naked.”

“You were lying about that, too.”

“I did see you naked, Ava.”

“Not that, the part about not being impressed. You obviously were.”

I resist the chuckle that rises to my throat. This woman will be the death of me. “You lied, too.”

She frowns. “Me?”

“You made me believe you lost your virginity to some stranger in the back of a car during a party.”

“I was telling Cecy that story.”

“When you knew full well I was in the hallway.”

“It’s not my fault you believed I would ever lose my virginity to a nameless nobody in the back of a car.”

“I see that now. I also see that your grandiose sex life was nothing but an illusion.”

“Nope. I did a lot of things with guys, just not proper sex.”

“A lot of things?” My fingers tighten around her throat. “Like what?”

“Like things girls did with you, Eli. Blowjobs, oral. That sort of thing.”

“Keep talking.”

“So you’ll kill me?” She strains. “Let me go. You’re choking me and it’s not the fun version.”

I release her with reluctance and step back because she’s right. I might accidentally snap her neck if I keep thinking about other dicks near her.

“What else did you do with the guys?”

“Why does it matter? You had your sex life. I had mine. That’s over now.”

I touch my watch, roll my ring, narrow my eyes. “Is it, though?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you remember cheating on me.”

“I was a fucking virgin last night, prick!”

“Apparently, you don’t need penetration to cheat, as per your earlier admission.”

Her face falls as she comes to the same realization. “I…I wouldn’t do that. I despise cheating.”

“Not enough to refrain.”

“Don’t do this to me, Eli. I already feel guilty. Maybe it was a hallucination. I’m sure you know I have those…uh…sometimes, I mean…it’s not that I’m crazy or anything, but like…you’re my guardian, so you have an idea that I’m…”

She trails off, not wanting to disclose too much. If only she knew the things I carry because of her.

Things she’ll never, ever find out about.

“Who was the man?” I ask, my voice closed off. Maybe it was the previous therapist. He was the only one who could have had that sort of access to her.

While I hit Vance, and I’m arranging to have him leave UK soil, he’s not a viable option. He only recently came back.

However, I’m well aware he wants to rekindle their teenage fling, which is why he’ll be removed from her vicinity effective immediately. For criminal charges—allowing the dealing of drugs in the bars and restaurants managed by his family. They’re fake charges, but the threat of it is enough to force his father’s hand.

My name is enough to make a non-existent offense a tragic reality.

“I don’t remember his face.” Her eyes brighten with an unnatural shine as she holds on to the desk with both hands.

“Then what did you see in the memory?”

“Just that he was, um, half-naked and I wrapped my arms around his neck and said my husband wouldn’t like this.”

She watches me closely, her face pale as if she’s a prisoner waiting for a sentence.

I resist a smile.

It was me.

But I can’t tell her that or she’ll be thrown for a loop if she realizes she can’t recall most of her life when trapped in her episodes.

For some reason, however, I also don’t want her to keep believing she cheated either, especially since she loathes that.

“It could’ve been nothing and a mere conjuring of your imagination,” I say in my usual detached tone.

“Right? I knew it must’ve been. I’m not the cheating type.” Her face lights up like a Christmas tree.

But then she hesitates, opens her mouth, then closes it again.

“What now?” I ask.

“If it is true…will you forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive, because it isn’t true.”

“But if it is…?”

“It is not. Full stop.”

“I’d understand if you wouldn’t, because I wouldn’t either, you know.” She places a hand on my chest. “If you dare betray me, I’ll ruin your life.”

“More than what you’re doing already?”

“This is mere foreplay. I’ll make you regret being born if you stab me in the back.” She drops her hand. “Can we leave now?”

“I’ll have Henderson drop you home.”

“No, we are leaving and you’re the one who will take me. We should have an early dinner and catch a West End show. Maybe Moulin Rouge!”

“No, thanks.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“And I wasn’t stuttering.”

“You’ll spend time with me or I’ll find a man who can spare me his precious time.”

A muscle clenches in my jaw as I grab her arm. “Don’t you fucking dare say that again.”

“Glad you agree to come.” She smiles with glee. “Oh, also, you should sack Tyler from reception at King Enterprises and make Hailey senior.”

“Let me guess, she praised your looks and he didn’t?”

“Yeah, she’s nice and professional.” Her lips push out in a pout. “Besides, he was ogling my tits.”

“Consider him sacked.”

She laughs and shakes her head, probably thinking that she walked me straight into that decision.

Little does she know that I’m the one walking her round and round in the custom cage I’ve carefully constructed for her.