Is This Love Or Madness?
Chapter sixty four
Angel Bella’s POV
I stepped into the torture room, my eyes landing on Lord Erik . He was sprawled out on the floor, lying in his own blood, naked except for black briefs, his arms and legs tied to hooks in the ground with rope. Bruises and cuts littered almost every inch of him. On the table to the right, I could see torture tools. The knives covered in blood, but some of the others were still pristine and untouched, waiting for their purpose.
Lord Erik ’s eyes peeled open in his blood-covered face, and they knocked the breath out of me again.
A dark smile twisted his mouth, but there was an emotion in his eyes that tightened my stomach
. “Angel, have you come to watch your family cut off my dick? I hear that’s scheduled for today.”
I crept closer to him, my sneakers trudging through his blood covering the rough floor. My steps didn’t falter. Blood did nothing to me. Not anymore.
Lord Erik regarded me quietly. His eyes slid down my arm to the tip of the knife peeking out from my long cardigan sleeve. “Or have you come to do it yourself?”
I stopped right above Lord Erik . Even though he was on his back, cut and bruised, covered in his own blood, he appeared powerful. Lord Erik couldn’t be broken because he didn’t fear pain or death
.
Was this love? Or madness?
I sank down to my knees beside him, kneeling on the sticky floor, my white linen pants soaking up the blood greedily. My pants soon stuck to my skin with Lord Erik ’s blood. “No,” I whispered, finally answering him
.
Lord Erik ’s eyes traced my face. He looked almost at peace. “To kill me?
”
I tilted my head, regarding him. Lord Erik was Jordan . Jordan was Lord Erik . As if they had been carved from the thesame template. My children were the spitting image of their father. Even if I didn’t have feelings for the man before me, I could never kill him because the faces of Jemima and Jordan would remind me of him every day of my life.
“I always thought it was meant to be that way. Your hand ending my life.”
I shook my head. “I won’t kill you.” I leaned over Lord Erik , my fingers spreading through his blood on the ground, my hair dipping in it. So much blood
.
“You didn’t marry Rapheal ,” Lord Erik murmured.
“How could I?” I whispered, bending low until Lord Erik and I were almost touching. “How could I marry him when I was pregnant with your children?”
Lord Erik stiffened. I’d wondered how he would react if I ever told him about Jemima and Jordan , but nothing came close to the look on his face.
Complete and utter shock, and more than that ... wonder.
“When you gave me up, I carried your babies in me, Lord Erik . You gave us
up.”
“I thought you’d return to me,” he rasped.
“You pushed me away.”
“I set you free.”
“I wasn’t free,” I hissed. How could I ever be free when his name was
etched into my heart?
“You were pregnant,” he said quietly.
“I was pregnant, a living breathing reminder of the greatest failure of the Heavens, a living breathing reminder of something dark and shameful. A reminder that you took something from theHeaven , took something from me. That’s what everyone thought. My family and everyone else in the Heavens . I knew giving birth to a child of yours would ruin any chance I had to find my way back into the Nirvana , back into my family. I knew I’d seal my fate if I had your child. I’d be damned to live a life of pity stares and disgusted expressions.”
Something flickered in Lord Erik ’s eyes. Dread, maybe even fear. “You got rid of the babies.” And his voice wavered ever so slightly.
A cruel, unbreakable man.
My nemesis, my captor, the man who took everything from me and without knowing it gave me the greatest gift of all.
I’d always wondered what it would take to break Lord Erik , and I realized I held the power to do it, to crush the cruelest, strongest man I knew in my hand, held it on the tip of my tongue. One word would shatter him. The knowledge filled me with unparalleled joy, not because I could break the man before me. No, because our children even without knowing them meant so much to him that their death would destroy him
.
“Oh, Angel, have they sent you to deliver the ultimate blow? Tell my uncle he wins.”
I shook my head.
“No,” I said quietly, then fiercer, “No. I didn’t get rid of the babies even though everyone wanted me to do it.”
Lord Erik held my gaze.
“How could I get rid of the most beautiful creation I can imagine? Jemima and Jordan are pure perfection, Lord Erik .”
He exhaled, and the look in his eyes ... God, that look. This cruel man had stolen my heart, and I had let him.
“They look like you. Jordan is you. Everyone who sees him knows he’s yours.”
Lord Erik smiled the darkest, saddest smile I have ever seen. “Have you come to tell me before my death that I’ll never see them? Angel, I must say you are crueler than I could ever be.”
I linked my fingers with his bloody ones, the blade cupped between our palms.
“Our children are perfection but here, in the Outfit, they represent shame and dishonor. People whisper behind their backs, call them Devils as if it is something sinful, something dirty. Our children are beautiful.”
My voice became fiercer with every word. “They are meant to hold their heads high, not be ashamed for who they are. They aren’t meant to bow, aren’t meant to live in the shadows. They are meant to rule. They are dragon Lord . They belong in Hades where their names carry power and respect. They are meant to rule at the side of the cruelest, bravest man I know. Their father.”
Lord Erik didn’t say anything but his expression set me aflame with emotion.
“How badly injured are you?” I whispered in his ear.
“Badly,” he admitted.
I nodded, my throat tightening. I reached for the syringe in my pocket
and pulled it out. “Adrenaline.”
Lord Erik ’s mouth pulled wider. I injected him with the liquid and he shuddered. His pupils were dilated when he met my gaze again.
My lips brushed his lightly. “How strong are you, Lord Erik ?” “Strong enough to take you and our children home where you all
belong, Angel.”
I smiled. I wedged the blade under the rope. “Swear not to kill my family. Not my brother, not my father, not my uncle. Swear it on our children, Lord Erik .”
“I swear it,” he murmured. I cut through the rope when I heard the creak of the door. I dropped the knife in Lord Erik ’s now free hand.
“Bella , get the fuck away from the asshole!” Rapheal growled, gripping me by the shoulders and pulling me to my feet. I whirled around on him, getting in his face. “Don’t tell me what to do. I have a right to be here.”
Rapheal was breathing harshly, his chest heaving. I took a step back, closer to Lord Erik again. my uncle and my father stepped in. I shielded Lord Erik mostly from their view but that wouldn’t last long.
“You shouldn’t be here, dove. This isn’t something for a woman,” Dad
said gently.
He still believed in my innocence, but my uncle and Danilo regarded me
more cautiously. “Where’s Gabriel ?” my uncle asked
.
I wrapped my arms around my body and slid my hands beneath my
cardigan, my fingers curling around the gun strapped to the holster there. “I’m sorry,” I whispered and pulled the gun on them.
my uncle put his hand on his gun at his waist but didn’t pull it. My father and Rapheal were completely frozen.
“Gabriel ’s going to be okay. He’s knocked out behind the sofa.”
“Bella ,” Dad said in a soothing voice. “You’ve been through a lot. Put down the gun.”
I took another step back, releasing the safety catch. “I’m sorry,” I said again, biting back tears, thinking of Gabriel , of what he would think once he woke up. In my peripheral vision, Lord Erik cut through the last rope around his ankle.
my uncle pulled his gun and so did Rapheal, but I barred their view of Lord Erik .
They wouldn’t shoot me, not even now that I was holding them at gunpoint. I was a woman, someone to protect. I was their responsibility and their failure. Lord Erik staggered to his feet behind me, and Rapheal aimed. I shot at him, nicking the outside of his upper arm. He gasped, his eyes flashing at me.
“Not a single move,” I warned. Lord Erik pressed up behind me, as usual not heeding any safety measures, towering a head over me. “We only want to leave. No one has to get hurt,” I whispered
.
Lord Erik reached for my gun but I shook my head. “My back,” I told him. His hand slid under my cardigan and pulled the gun from there.
“Dove,” Dad croaked. “You don’t owe this man anything. He raped you. I know emotions can get confused in a situation like this, but we have people who can help you.”
I smiled sadly at him and then Gabriel stumbled inside, holding on to the doorframe. I hadn’t dared use a higher dose on him than was absolutely necessary; obviously it wasn’t enough. He stared at me uncomprehendingly, his arm with his gun hanging limply at his side. My twin, my confimy uncle
. For most of my life I had been sure my love for Gabriel , for my twin, could never be challenged, and I still loved him, loved him so much the look of betrayal on his face splintered me in half, but now there were my children and the man behind me.
Lord Erik ’s gaze moved from me to him, and he touched my hip. I swallowed the rising emotion.
“Please let us leave, Uncle,” I addressed my uncle . “This war is because of me, and I can tell you I don’t want it. I don’t want to be avenged. Don’t rob my children of their father. I’ll go to Jades with Lord Erik where I belong, where my kids belong. Please, if you feel guilty for what happened to me, if you want to save me, then do this. Let me return to Vegas with Lord Erik . This doesn’t have to be an endless spiral of bloodshed. It can end today. For your children, for mine. Let us leave.”
my uncle ’s cold eyes were on Lord Erik , not me. “Is she speaking in the name of the name of the. heavens ?”
Lord Erik ’s grip on my hip tightened. “She does. You breached my territory, and I breached yours. We’re even.”
“We’re not!” Gabriel roared, stepping forward, swaying. Lord Erik lifted his gun a couple of inches.
“You kidnapped my sister and broke her. You twisted her into your fucking marionette. We won’t be done until I’m standing over your disemboweled corpse so my sister is finally free of you.”
“Gabe ,” I choked. “Don’t do this. I know you don’t understand, but I need to return to Vegas with Lord Erik , for myself, but more importantly for my children.”
“I knew you should have gotten rid of them,” Gabriel rasped, his eyes glassy. Lord Erik ’s hand on my hip jerked and I knew without the promise he’d given me, he would have killed my brother for his words
.
Dad came up behind Gabriel and put his hand on his shoulder. “Send them with him to Jases . They are the devils , but you aren’t Fina. Be free of them and him. You can start a new life.”
“Where my children go, I will go,” I said. “Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough for all of your sins? Don’t turn me into another pawn in your chess game. Set me free.”
Realization settled in Gabe ’s eyes, and it broke my heart. I ached, ached for my family who would never understand. I could only hope they’d come to hate me one day so they didn’t miss me anymore. Lord Erik ’s grip on my hip loosened. Even the adrenaline wouldn’t keep him on his feet for an endless amount of time. He was too injured for that.