Chapter 125
The video had become a sickness.
Elias Crane knew it. He knew it the same way he knew the sun would rise the same way he knew the scar on his right shoulder would always ache when the weather changed. He was aware, painfully and humiliatingly aware that what he was doing was toxic, obsessive and beneath him.
But that did not stop him.
For days now, he had watched the sex tape Justin sent him. Not once. Not twice. But over and over again, like some broken machine stuck in a loop. The message now sat open on his phone, and he replayed the video so many times that the screen brightness dimmed from inactivity before he forced himself to tap the screen again.
The sound did not play anymore. He had muted it after the second day, when the raw noises....Jace’s voice, Jace’s breathing, Jace’s pleasure had made something inside him fracture.
Now he watched in silence.
Silence was worse.
Silence meant he was left alone with his thoughts, with the images carved into his mind. Silence meant the betrayal echoed louder inside his head.
He sat in the dark of his penthouse office, the only light coming from the laptop. The city glittered below him. The world did not stop just because Elias’s did.
He took another gulp from the glass in his hand.
Scotch. His fourth, maybe his fifth, he was not tracking anymore.
The liquid burned down his throat, familiar now, almost comforting. He liked that it hurt. He liked that something made sense enough to sting.
He leaned back in the leather chair, eyes glued to the paused frame on the screen.
Jace....Naked.....Under another man.
A large man... Strong.....Hands on Jace’s waist.....Mouth on his throat....Jace’s head thrown back, his lips parted.
And worse Jace was not resisting neither was he uncomfortable or hurt.
Jace looked… alive.
Alive in a way Elias had not seen in months.
Alive in a way he had not been with him. Elias reached for the glass again, his movements slow and mechanical.
He took another sip. Or maybe a swallow.
“Who the hell is he?” he muttered to himself.
He already knew, of course.
He had hired a private investigator the moment shock gave way to fury three days ago.
The report lay open beside the laptop.
MORGAN COLE
Age 32
Former military security
Recently hired by Jace Crane as personal protection.
The details kept looping in Elias’s mind, weaving themselves between the images burned into his memory.
So Jace chose a bodyguard over me?
The thought was acid.
It ate through him slowly, painfully, until only raw ache remained.
Was this the reason Jace had pulled away?
Was this why Jace told him he was tired of their marriage?
Needed space?
Needed distance?
Was Morgan the space Jace needed?
Elias clenched his jaw so tightly the muscle jumped.
“So this is it,” he whispered to the empty room. “This is who you want now?”
Suddenly, he felt ridiculous.
Ridiculous and angry and hollow.
He dragged both hands through his hair, gripping at the strands as if grounding himself. He did not cry. He never cried. The Crane name did not bleed. But his breath shook, unsteady and ragged. It betraying him.
His gaze shifted again to the laptop.
To the stranger’s hands on Jace’s body.
To Jace arching into the touch like it was second nature.
Like he wanted it.
Like he loved it.
Elias’s stomach twisted violently.
“He is just a bodyguard,” Elias growled through clenched teeth. “What has he done? What could he possibly have done for Jace that I have not?”
His mind did not want to give an answer.
But it did, anyway.
He took a bullet for Jace.
He threw himself in front of his father’s gun.
He made himself a target, a shield, a weapon all to keep Jace alive.
Could Morgan do that?
Would Morgan even know how?
The bitterness tasted like metal on his tongue.
Elias reached for the bottle this time, not the glass. The moment he refilled the scotch, he felt the familiar numbness begin to veil the sharper edges of his pain. It would not erase anything. He was not trying to erase anything. He just needed quiet— quiet from the roaring in his chest, quiet from the image looping endlessly behind his eyelids.
Jace’s voice, the one from the muted video, still echoed anyway.
He shut his eyes.
But shutting his eyes made everything worse.
He saw the video again, clearer than ever.
Jace’s skin.....Jace’s hands.....Jace’s pleasure.
And suddenly, Elias hated himself.
Hated the weakness.
Hated the replaying.
Hated the way he was unravelling over a man who was clearly moving on.
Jace was living.
Laughing.
Moving on with someone else.
And here he was—
Drinking himself numb.
Replaying betrayal like a punishment.
Falling apart in a dark penthouse while Jace’s world carried on.
A sharp wave of self-disgust rolled through him.
He sat forward, elbows on knees, the bottle dangling loosely from one hand.
“Get a grip,” he muttered.
But his own voice sounded empty.
He lifted the bottle, took another long swallow, and let the alcohol settle into his bloodstream like a slow sedative.
He remembered the last words he had said to Jace.
The final conversation before their separation.
Before everything shattered.
Don’t call me again....
Goodbye, Jace.....
At the time, those words came from Pain, from fear. A desperate instinct to protect what little dignity he felt he had left.
Did he mean them?
Was he truly willing to live without Jace?
His throat tightened.
But what choice did he have now?
Even if he forgave the cheating....
Even if he forgave the lies....
Even if he forgave the secrecy....
He could never erase the image from his mind.
Jace under another man.
Jace gasping under him.
Jace clutching Morgan’s shoulders.
Jace moving like...
Elias grabbed the glass and threw it.
The explosion of shattering glass filled the room.
Amber liquid sprayed across the hardwood floor.
Shards glinted under the faint glow from the laptop.
The silence after the impact was deafening.
Elias stood there, chest rising and falling fast, anger and humiliation burning under his skin.
“What am I doing?” he whispered. “Why am I here killing myself over someone who was squirming under another man?”
The office felt suffocating suddenly, the walls too close and air too thin.
His phone buzzed, a sharp, insistent vibration against the desk.
Elias froze.
His chest tightened suddenly, irrationally.
Every nerve in him sharpened....anticipation, fear, anger, hope, all tangled into something raw.
He turned slowly, eyes dropping to the device.
The name on the screen lit up.
A text message.