Chapter 56 I Love You
Celene's POV
I didn't know when the tear fell from my eye. I was unconscious, trapped somewhere between awareness and oblivion, but I was conscious enough to hear his voice while he said those three words.
I love you, Celene.
And I was angry, so angry I could feel it burning through the fog of pain and medication.
He loved me? After lying to me? After hiding who he really was? After dragging me into a world of violence and blood without my knowledge or consent?
That wasn't love. That was possession.
For two days, I drifted in and out of consciousness. And every time I surfaced even just a little, I always hear his voice beside me. Talking to me, apologizing and begging me to wake up.
Part of me wanted to wake up and another part of me wanted to stay under forever.
But on the third morning, my eyes finally opened fully.
Sunlight came through massive floor to ceiling windows. The room was huge, decorated in blacks and grays with minimal furniture. It looked expensive, cold and impersonal.
Except for the photographs.
They were small, scattered across a dresser and nightstand. Photos of Cole at various ages and he was not smiling in any of them. Even as a child, his face held that same serious and guarded expression.
This was his bedroom and personal space.
I slowly sat up, my body screaming in protest. My ribs ached with every breath and my arm felt heavy in its cast but I needed to move and feel like I had some control over my own body again.
I spotted a door across the room and assumed it was the bathroom. My bladder was protesting, and I needed to see myself, to assess the damage.
Standing up was harder than I expected. My leg nearly gave out, but I caught myself on the nightstand and limped slowly toward the bathroom.
When I opened the door, I gasped.
The bathroom was very big. It could fit an entire apartment inside it. It had marble floors, a bathtub that looked more like a small pool, a shower with multiple heads, and a vanity with a mirror that covered half the wall.
I approached the mirror slowly, almost afraid of what I would see.
The woman staring back at me was barely recognizable.
Bruises covered my face in various shades of purple, yellow, and green. My bottom lip was split and swollen. My left eye was puffy and, the skin around it darkened. My hair was a tangled mess, sticking up at odd angles. I looked like I'd been through a war.
I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on my face, wincing as it touched the tender spots.
"Celene? Celene!"
Cole's voice, panicked and loud, came from the bedroom.
I turned and limped back out of the bathroom to find him standing in the middle of the room, his eyes wild, scanning everywhere like he'd lost something precious.
The moment he saw me, he rushed forward and pulled me into his arms.
"I thought you were gone," he said into my hair, his voice breaking slightly. "I... I thought I'd lost you again."
His arms were tight around me, almost crushing, but I didn't hug him back. I stood there, stiff and unresponsive, my arms hanging at my sides.
After a moment, he seemed to notice. He pulled back, his hands moving to my shoulders while his eyes searched my face.
"How do you feel?" he asked quickly. "Can you walk properly? Does anything hurt? Do you need water? Food? Should I call the doctor back?"
Of course I hurt. Everything hurt. My head was pounding, my ribs felt like they were on fire. My leg throbbed with every step and worse than the physical pain was the emotional pain, the mental anguish of knowing that the man I'd started to care for had been lying to me from the very beginning.
But I didn't say any of that. I just pulled away from his grip and walked slowly back to the bed, sitting down carefully on the edge.
He followed me immediately, kneeling in front of me so we were at eye level.
"Celene, I'm so sorry," he said, his voice raw with emotion. "I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that. I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you. I'm sorry they took you... I'm sorry for everything."
I finally spoke, my voice hoarse and unfamiliar. "Why did you lie to me about who you truly are?"
He flinched like I'd slapped him. "I didn't lie to you."
"Don't." I cut him off, my anger finally finding its voice. "Don't you dare say you didn't lie. You hid who you are and what you do. You let me believe you were just a billionaire, just some rich guy with a mysterious past."
"I didn't lie," he insisted. "I just didn't tell you about the other part of me. Everything I told you about myself was true. My name, my family, my business. It was all true."
"That's a lie of omission, Cole!" My voice rose, and it hurt my throat, but I didn't care. "You knew exactly what you were doing. You knew I didn't know the truth, and you let me stay ignorant. You let me walk around thinking you were something you're not."
"I was trying to protect you," he said, his jaw tight. "I didn't want to bring you into this world, the violent part of my life yet because it is dangerous."
"Not yet?" I stared at him in disbelief. "Not yet? So this was always the plan? To eventually drag me into your mafia world? Into violence and death and torture? When exactly did you think I'd be ready for something like this, Cole? When?"
He stood up abruptly, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "I don't know! I didn't have it all planned out. I just knew I wanted you, and I was trying to figure out how to make it work."
"By lying to me?"
"I wasn't lying!"
"Yes, you were!" I stood up too, ignoring the pain shooting through my leg. "You were lying every single day you didn't tell me the truth. Every time you looked at me with those eyes and made me think you were just some misunderstood rich guy instead of a killer, torturer and a monster."
The word hung between us like a blade.
His face went completely blank and emotionless. The Cole I'd seen in that warehouse, cold and deadly, stared back at me.
"Is that what you think I am?" he asked quietly. "A monster?"