Call You Mine (Servite Academy)

Chapter Twenty-Six

WYNTER

D amon releases me, and his stunned expression destroys me. The agony etched into the corners of his eyes, marked by my treachery—at least that’s the way he sees it—makes me want to fall to the floor in despair. He doesn’t know my truth—that I was forced to marry a monster and only came to him when I thought I was free after murdering him—but now I fear he isn’t really dead. It doesn’t matter that my marriage to Enzo was nothing more than a smokescreen to fool his enemies and the men under his regime.

All Damon hears is that I betrayed him in the worst possible way. I used him for protection, practically forced him to break the vow he made to himself of keeping our relationship strictly platonic, and again here I am telling him something he never wanted to hear.

That I’m married to someone else but having his baby. I can’t stand here and stare at his pained expression for a moment longer.

Without contemplating the consequences, I push away from him, easy now that he’s dumbfounded by the situation, and rush out of the bar. I don’t stop until I step out into the chilly night. My lungs burn, an agonizing fire scorching me from the inside out. A blaze unlike anything I’d ever felt. Catching my breath and forcing my lungs to cooperate, I try my hardest to calm the fury and pain inside of me that wants to knock me out before rushing toward the now empty parking lot.

I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is I need to get out of here, and Damon won’t be coming after me.

Without stopping, I reach the end of the street, about half a mile from the bar, before I pull out my phone from my pocket. With trembling fingers, I search down my contacts list, looking for someone, at least one person I can call to come help me. Hopelessness exhausts me when I can’t find a single soul who’d come to my rescue.

I press down on Luke’s name, trying him once more, although I know he won’t answer me. As expected, the call once again goes to voicemail. Scrolling down the list, I come across Stella’s name. She’d help me, I know she would, but with a new baby at home herself, I don’t want to disturb her. Especially since I know how much they’ve gone through with little Ember.

There’s no way I can call my brother. Although our relationship is better than it’s been in years, I can’t call him, not with this. Not to tell him I’m pregnant with Damon’s baby and that he wants nothing to do with us. Which leaves me with only one person left to call.

I know I shouldn’t. I can’t put her in this situation between choosing to help me, keeping my secret, and lying to my brother. But I can’t think of any other way. Before I hit send, I open up my Uber app and request a car. Luckily, it says there’s one only two minutes away, which should be plenty of time for me to muster up the courage I need to make the call. My only other choice is to wait here for Damon to snap out of the haze caused by my lies and come find me.

Swallowing my pride, I press down on Scarlett’s name and watch the light flicker as the phone rings.

“Hello,” she answers on the third ring, her voice groggy from sleep, but no sound comes out of me. “Hello?” she says again, but still I’m speechless. “Wynter,” she mutters, her voice now more tense with worry.

My breath hitches, my voice quaking as I speak. “I need your help,” I whisper into the speaker. “Please, I didn’t know who else to call.”

A shiver creeps up my spine when she speaks again, a dog howling in the distance, making me aware of how I’m all alone in the middle of the night.

“Wynter, is everything okay? Where are you?” I hear another voice in the background. Shit, of course she’s with him, and now she has not only to come to my rescue, but she has to lie to Ace about it because I can’t face my brother with the truth, not yet.

“I need your help, Scarlett. Please…” I mutter before my voice cracks completely, new tears streaming down my cheeks.

“Wynter, what’s going on? You're scaring me?”

“Give me the phone,” I hear Ace demand, followed by a rustling sound in the background.

I hold my breath as I try to cover up the sound of my crying. “I need your help. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“No,” my brother shouts back as he takes the phone. In the distance, Scarlett mutters something I can’t understand, but he shushes her before speaking. “We’re on our way to you. Where are you Wynter?”

It’s no use trying to hide it from him. I doubt he’ll allow her to come to my rescue unless he’s coming with her. “The Silver Wolf,” I say, making one last plea I know they’ll ignore. “Please, Scarlett, come alone…” is the last thing I say before the line goes quiet and I click to cancel my Uber.

I anxiously pace back and forth down the empty street. It’s past one in the morning and although I should have locked up the bar, I can’t go back now. I’m sure Damon will figure it out and I’m actually relieved he hasn’t come to follow, surely because he can’t leave the establishment unlocked. He’s probably on the phone with Jade, trying to figure out where she hides the spare key.

Five minutes come and dread fills me when I hear the crunching of gravel behind me.

“Get your ass back to the bar Wynter,” Damon demands, and I don’t know why, but it only makes me angrier. “You can’t be out here by yourself.”

“Go fuck yourself, Damon,” I snarl, crossing my arms over my chest as I shiver in the cold, wearing only my mini skirt and vomit-stained cropped t-shirt.

Just as he places a hand on my waist to tug me toward him, the shrill sound of tires burning rubber on the concrete blares as a car, my brother’s car, comes to a screeching halt right before us. Fuck, I should have known he wouldn’t have let her come alone.

Ace leaps out of the car, not bothering to shut off the engine or even close the driver door—luckily he shifted the gear into park—before hauling ass to where Damon stands beside me, with his hand digging into my waist.

Scarlett throws open the passenger side door, now eight months pregnant and struggling to get out. “I’m sorry Wynter, I tried. He wouldn’t let me leave without him.”

Everything happens so fast, for a few moments I’m not even sure it’s real. In the blink of an eye, Ace rushes Damon, slamming his fist against his jaw like a fucking madman. Ace gets him good, the element of surprise on my brother’s side, but only momentarily, before Damon snaps back to his senses. In the next second, Damon is back on his feet, tackling Ace down into the bushes behind us.

There’s a loud scream, only I’m not sure if it’s Scarlett or I who let it out first.

Punches fly back and forth, the sound of teeth crunching and blood spewing from their mouths as they beat on one another like savage animals. My brother can hold his own in any other fight, but against Damon, he’s truly outgunned. Damon is a fucking beast, and there’s just something that comes over him when he’s this worked up, like he becomes possessed by the demons of his childhood and past.

“Ace, stop,” Scarlett shrieks as she rushes over to them, but I block her, not letting her put herself or my future niece or nephew in any danger.

“No, Scarlett, please get back in the car,” I shout out, grabbing her arm, but the stubborn bitch shakes her head, though she isn’t completely stupid when she snaps out of it and steps back.

Though I can’t say the same for myself. “Stop both of you,” I cry out as I foolishly try to step in between the rabid dogs on attack. They’re back on their feet, blood spilling from both their mouths as they eagerly try to outdo one another. They’re both feral, fighting like they’ve been trained to. In a sense, they were—at least Ace was. Trained by our father like a soldier, while Damon trained himself like a militant with all the cage fights he got into in the past.

“For fucks sake, stop!” I shriek one last time before I'm silenced. The air is completely sucked out of me when a rogue fist knocks me to the ground on my ass. I hear Scarlett’s loud gasp first, the moment my ass hits the pavement, but the searing pain on my jaw numbs the pain of what certainly is going to be a bruised pair of cheeks.

Ace is the first to react. “You motherfucking son of a bitch,” he shouts, as he rushes over to me, but Damon stands frozen like a fucking statue when he discovers what he’s done.

It was his fist that knocked me down. Of course it was, it would be ironic if it hadn’t been, since he’s already made me feel worse suffering with his words and rejection.

But Damon doesn’t react or say a damn thing. What is there to say, really? He laid a hand on me, not intentionally, but because his rage blinded him—something he’s always feared losing control of. My brother isn't innocent in all this. It could have just as easily been Ace’s fist, who smashed into me. I guess Damon and I are just unluckier than we’d thought.

The look of horror in Damon’s eyes as he stares at me and my swelling cheek—which I’m sure is already turning purple as I feel the blood pulsing within me—renders me speechless. Pain, excruciating pain, threatens to blind me, to knock me down further until I’m a meaningless pile of flesh and bones laid out on the concrete for him to step on.

It’s not just the physical pain from the hit, but the pained look in his eyes. The sorrow and regret that’s going to eat up at his soul until there’s nothing left because he’s bruised me—painted me just as purple and blue as when I first arrived at his doorstep seeking his protection.

My protector has turned into my assailant—at least in his eyes, although that’s the farthest from the truth.

“You’ll stay the fuck away from her, Drake,” Ace shouts out, bringing me back to reality. “Or I promise I’ll fucking murder you myself.”

Damon’s eyes never once leave mine, even when I know at any other time he’d fight back against my brother’s threats. The rivalry between them was stronger than I first imagined, but these last few weeks, things had gotten somewhat better. They'd been cordial, and although Ace hadn’t accepted the relationship, he thought Damon and I were in. He’d stopped insulting it to patch up our strained relationship. Especially since I’d done the same to repair my relationship with his wife.

“Ace, please, let’s just go,” Scarlett begs, one hand cradling her stomach as the other tugs at her husband. If anything were to happen to Scarlett or the baby because of this, my brother will never forgive me.

Unable to take any more emotional distress, I turn away from Damon and head toward my brother’s car. Though just when I don’t think he’s going to say anything to stop me or justify what just occurred, he speaks.

“You can’t leave me like this Wynter,” he mutters under his breath, so low I can barely hear him, though I know Ace and Scarlett have as well. “I need to know.”

I know what he’s asking, but I won’t make it this easy for him to walk away. I want him to ask me why I lied, why I ran. I want him to fight for what I thought we had. What I wish we had between us now is that there’s going to be three of us. I don’t want to do this alone, though since I’m the one who’s betrayed him, I’m not allowed to make that choice.

I don’t know what the future will hold. Is this just a bump in the road, an obstacle we need to fight to overcome? Or is this it? Is this how it ends?

With one hand on the door handle, I turn and look over my shoulder to meet his gaze once last time. “Then ask Damon. One last thing you get to ask me before I disappear and you never hear from us again.” I hope my brother and Scarlett don’t catch what I’ve implied by saying the word us , but it’s not like I’ll be able to hide the truth for long.

For the first time tonight, Damon’s expression shifts from pain and anger to vulnerability. “Who is he?”

I swallow the lump stuck in my throat and it burns, bile making its way back up. There’s only one thing I can say, and it’s the truth.

“A monster.”

The drive back to my brother's beach house is in complete silence. For one, I know his mouth is bloody and sore from the way Damon’s fist used his pretty face as a punching bag, and vice versa. On another note, I don’t think either Ace or Scarlett knows where to begin.

I’m not sure about him, but I know Scarlett caught on to what I said to Damon—u s . There is an “us” he’s never going to see again. I’m sure she’s concluded what’s going on besides my sudden weight loss and dark circles underneath my tear-stained eyes. Not to mention the argument Damon and I just had. But she’s giving me the space to decide what I want to say.

So I break the ice first, unable to stand the damn silence any longer. I’ve always hated silence. When the world ceases to exist is when my mind reels with unanswered questions and hateful thoughts of my past, present, and future.

I should have left it buried in my memories, yet the past refuses to stay dead.

“Where’s Caeli?” I ask, having wondered since they both arrived where they’d left my niece in the middle of the night.

“The wonderful thing about having your best friends as neighbors, late night emergencies like this one, are easier to manage with stand-in babysitters. Jade came over to watch her, but I just texted her to take Caeli back over to her house for the night. It seems like we won’t be getting much sleep tonight.”

Dread fills me with how much of an inconvenience I’ve caused.

“I’m so sorry for getting you out of bed and away from you, baby. I thought about calling someone else, really the only other person who came to mind was Stella but, with Ember being so little still and everything they’ve gone through recently, I just…”

“Don’t apologize,” Scarlett tells me, turning to face me. “We’re family Wynter. Family is always there for one another.”

But he was their family first, and now I’ve gone and fucked shit up for him.

Ace scoffs as we pull into their driveway, and I’m not so sure he meant to aloud. Only my brother has never been one to do things unless he means them.

“Sounds like not everyone feels the same way,” I murmur under my breath.

“Trust me little sis, there’s a lot I’m feeling right now,” he says as he throws his car door open and slams it after stepping out.

Enraged by his mood and frustration like he’s the one who got dumped and beat on by his baby daddy, I rush out after him, not stopping until I push him from behind. He stumbles but quickly catches himself before he trips.

“We’ll get in line, big brother. You’re not the only one and frankly, I’m not interested in hearing about it. I asked your wife to come to me, not you, so don’t think I’m just going to spill my guts because you showed up and beat the shit out of my boyfriend, when honestly no one asked you to.”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” he shouts, for the first time tonight, getting a good look at my disheveled state. His eyes flick to the vomit stains on my chest. “Goddammit, Wynter,” he curses, turning away from me.

“No, please say it. You said you have so much to say. Why don’t you just say it?.”

“Want me to say it. Say how you never should have gotten involved with him. How you called my wife in the middle of the night begging for her help, like you were in danger? How when I arrived I saw him with his hands on you while you were crying. How I saw red and beat the shit out of him for whatever he’d done to you without even knowing the extent of it. All I knew is that you were hurting.” Ace’s eyes go nearly black, anger vibrating within him as he waves his hands in the air in desperation. “Then he fucking hits you, regardless of how it happened, he lost control and hit you, knocking your ass on the floor, Wynter. Now this,” he points down at the stains on my shirt. “Please don’t tell me it’s what I think it is.”

Without thinking twice, I lay my hand across my stomach, confirming what he already suspects. Scarlett comes up behind me, placing her hand on my shoulder. “Come on, let's continue this conversation inside before we wake everyone up. I’ll make some tea, get you some ice and some clean clothes to change into.”

I nod, letting her lead me into the house. Ace doesn’t immediately follow us and I know it’s because she must have given him a look to warn him to back off.

Once inside, Scarlett leads me upstairs and into one of their guest bedrooms. She steps out for a moment, only to come back with a clean pair of sweatpants and a shirt for me to wear. She lets me know she’ll leave me to change while she gets us some tea and ice for my face. If it weren’t for her reminder, I’d have forgotten I was injured. The wounds underneath my skin hurt ten times worse than anything physical.

Stepping inside the bathroom, I lean against the marble sink, staring at my frightful reflection in the mirror. My eyes are bloodshot, black mascara smeared all around them and the skin right under my left eye is bright red with hints of purple forming where the blood vessels have bursts. This is going to look nasty in the morning.

I splash some water on my face, rinse my mouth out and quickly change into clean clothes before heading back out into the room where I find Scarlett waiting for me on the bed, a warm cup of tea in one hand and an ice pack in the other.

“Thank you,” I tell her, taking the tea and ice from her as I sit down beside her.

“When you become a mom, it’s kind of hard not to mother everyone. You learn things the hard way and once you do, you become afraid of unlearning it. Especially since I didn’t have a role model to look up to, either.” Her words hit me deep, especially because she’s voicing my exact fears. We both were raised by terrible mothers, yet she’s raised Caeli wonderfully and is about to do the same with her second baby.

Words fail me, the emotional toll today’s taken on me overpowering all of my logic. “Ace is right outside the door,” she says and my eyes flick to his shadow lurking outside the open door of the guest room. “I told him I’d ask you, but if you want me to kick him downstairs and lock the door, I will. This is your choice, Wynter. If you want me to leave and maybe talk tomorrow…”

“No, if I don’t get it out now, I’m afraid I never will.” Scarlett nods, though Ace remains in his spot outside the room. “You can come in, Ace,” I tell him, and he immediately enters, slowly making his way toward the bed. “But you won’t interrupt me until I finish.” He nods, his demeanor changed, somewhat calmer and I know that’s Scarlett’s doing. “And you won’t look me in the eye. I don’t think I’ll be able to speak if you do.”

Fear flashes in his eyes, eyes that look just like mine, at the gravity of what I’m about to say. Neither one of them knows what to expect. “Where do I start?” I ask, not really expecting an answer, but just killing time.

“From the beginning, Wynter, what happened to you?”

With a quick sip of tea and a deep breath to muster up the courage to speak, I talk.

“Senior year at the academy was truly horrible for me. You would have never guessed it. By then I became fantastic at suppressing all emotions and faking I was fine. I was a total bitch, had the worst of friends I thought at that moment were genuine. Ace, you and I hardly talked. Willa was Willa, Warren was never around and Wesley, well, every day he kept getting more paranoid and psychotic. I tried my best to avoid everyone, barely spending any time at the Manor. I only had one person I could confide in, an unlikely friendship I’d come into after a drunken night that ended with the two of us in bed together. Hate sex, revenge sex, drunk sex—call it what it was—it was one of the best nights I’d ever had. Of course, the two of us knew nothing could come of it, we were completely different, from different worlds, yet we somehow kept running into each other in the most awkward of places. From then on we kept in contact, simple texts to one another when we had nothing else to do. We hung out when we felt truly alone, but it never led to anything else. We were playful, sure, but for some odd reason, we swore to each other we’d never go there again. We couldn’t.”

I swallow the lump in my throat as I continue fiddling with my fingers on my lap. “Three years ago, the day after graduation, to be exact, a man showed up at my door. I was staying at the apartment Willa kept downtown, the one she thought none of us knew about. Wesley had already died, the house already blown up. Our parents had fled and the two of you, well, you were dealing with the aftermath of it all.” I look up at Scarlett. “The death of your bio dad, your mom, your near death. I was alone and at that moment, I was perfectly fine, having escaped all the chaos. But when the man showed up, a man claiming to come collect what was owed to him for Wesley’s hand in his uncle’s death, my world fell apart. I had no one to turn to for help. No one who’d care to listen. The only person I thought could help me was powerless against someone like Enzo Marchesi.”

Scarlett gasps in horror as I say his name, the recollection of the man who tried to kill her and Ace, the man who killed her mother, father, and mine—Franco Marchesi. “Enzo was Franco Marchesi’s nephew, though he was much higher in the hierarchy of their organization. He came for me, the daughter of the man who humiliated his family, therefore humiliating him. I had no choice but to leave with him.” Tears stream down my face as every memory comes back to me.

“I had no one, Ace, not one person who I could go to. I left for almost three years and no one batted an eyelash.” I shut my eyes tight. “I was forced by Enzo, given an ultimatum I couldn't fight. When we arrived in New York, he forced me to marry him.”

“Son of a bitch,” Ace shouts, his anger at what he thinks I’m about to confess blazing within him, but I can't stop.

“I married him and became the wife of El Capo of the Marchesi Famiglia. I became his trophy, a prize to be won, and an example to be made to all those who thought twice about going up against him. I became his prisoner, locked up in his gilded tower, a penthouse in the upper east side of Manhattan I might add, only taken out to parade around town when he saw fit. He never touched me. In all honesty, I think it's the only thing that stopped me from ending my suffering. The hope that he’d soon tire of me and release me once it was obvious he wasn’t interested in me in that way. But he didn’t. It was six months before he let me make a phone call. Damon was the first person I called, and he felt betrayed that I’d just left without saying goodbye. After my first visit, we made up. I spent a few days with him under the ruse of visiting with you in order for no one to suspect. Why would I want to come back after the scandal that our family had fallen victim to? Everyone found it typical of me to have bolted now that we were branded a joke.”

“The next few years were horrible. I watched him beat and kill so many men all for simply looking at me. Cutting off the fingers of those who dared touch me.” I blink away the tears and watch as Scarlett’s eyes flood with tears of her own. “The next and final time I came back to see Damon, I was picked up by Enzo at the airport when I arrived back in New York. He showed me a video of three of his men attacking Damon, the man he feared I was having an affair with. I’m not sure if she kept him alive on purpose, something to hold over me whenever he felt I’d fallen out of line, or if his men simply left Damon to die and he was rescued in time.”

“I felt horrible, so guilty for what had happened to him because of me. I got in contact with Stella to check if he’d survived. When I found out he was fine, I swore I’d never come back, never reach out to him or any of you again. Until one night, the night before I came home,” I pause, taking a sip of the tea. “Enzo came into my room, drunk and completely out of character. He'd been accused by a few of his men of keeping me by his side just for show, to hide the fact that he wasn’t a real man. He came to me to prove he was.” My eyes burn like acid, filling them to the brim. I choke back my sobs and push through. “It was the only time he ever tried to force himself on me. He knocked me to the ground, tried his hardest to rip my clothes off, but to my luck he was too fucking drunk. I laughed at him, at how even then he still couldn’t find the courage to do it. He pulled a knife out of his jacket and cut me along my chest.” My hand falls against my chest where my wounds luckily healed without scarring, though the ones inside remain, aching as I recall that night.

“I couldn’t scream. I could barely feel the burn when my entire body ached. I kept laughing. Surely by now I was in shock. So he wrapped his fingers around my neck and squeezed until almost all the color left my face. Until I was an inch from my death. I don't know where I got the strength to pull through, but I did, and I reached for the knife he’d set down beside me. I stabbed him in the neck with it, his blood splattering along my chest as I gasped for air. I got up and ran, leaving his lifeless body behind. The staff was all gone. I think he must have sent them home, so there’d be no witnesses to whatever he was planning to do with me. I ran up to the roof of the building, covered in his blood, shaking from what had almost happened to me. From what I’d done. I stood at the edge of the roof and contemplated jumping. Oh, it would have been so easy. I could have followed my fears and demons all the way down, ending my suffering once and for all. But just before I let go, Luke Prescott showed up to my rescue.”

Both their expressions go awry, not expecting Luke’s name to be part of this tale. “Apparently, Luke had been in New York the whole time, hired by Enzo to keep tabs on me. Enzo, the smart man that he was, somehow found out about my close relationship with Luke and when he killed the last of Wesley’s men, he’d spared him, thinking he could be useful. Luke had seen what I’d done and offered to help me escape. I foolishly trusted him, but I had no other choice.” I take a deep breath and turn to my brother, meeting his gaze for the first time since I started talking. “I didn’t want to die, Ace, not really.”

Unable to hold off any longer, my brother rushes over to me, throwing his arms around me and pulling me tightly against his chest. “Fuck Wynnie, I’m so sorry,” he whispers against my head, kissing me. I lose my shit and sob uncontrollably against his chest, and I feel him do the same. But I quickly recover when I realize I’m not even halfway done with my sordid tale.

Straightening up, I wipe away the tears with the back of my hand, though it does nothing to dry up the floodgates I just opened. “Luke helped me come home, but I knew I still couldn’t trust him. When I got off the private plane he’d got me on, I was a mess, having had no time to change or clean myself up. Panicked, I went to the one person I knew would not ask questions. I showed up at Damon’s doorstep, covered in dried blood, bruises, and open wounds. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to seeing me again after not hearing from me. We had a pretty nasty argument the night before his attack. Damon refused to help me at first when I refused to tell him what happened to me. But eventually he caved when he saw I had no other choice. He took me to his house, told me what had happened to him since the last time I saw him. The night of the attack, it was his Uncle Nico who saved him.” Scarlett gasps, shocked and in disbelief. It had been a miracle that Nico, who’d ended up Damon’s savior after leaving him his fortune, was the guardian angel who’d saved him from death.

“Stella’s wedding was coming up. I wanted to go, but I was a mess. So I asked Damon to take me so you would all be too distracted to ask questions and notice the flaws in my intricately woven disguise. It worked, though what I wasn’t expecting was Willa’s return. She’d run out of money, come to me for my inheritance and when I refuse she threatened to groom me and sell me off to the highest bidder in some fucked up arrangement. Afraid of falling to the same fate I’d just escaped, I told her I couldn’t because I was in a relationship with Damon.”

I feel Ace’s arms tighten around me, so I look up at him to assure him I won’t go there. “We don’t have to get into the details of all of that, but the truth is I hired Damon to be my fake boyfriend to fool Willa into leaving me alone. She accepted it, begrudgingly, since Damon was now wealthy and she figured she’d get her payday, regardless. He agreed, though he made me sign a contract that stated we’d be strictly platonic, only a couple to the outside world. He was still weary of me, especially since I refused to tell him anything about what happened, why I left for New York, who was after me.”

“After you?” Scarlett asks, and I realize I left out the best part.

I turn to her, her bright blue eyes swollen and red. She’s aching for me, for the pain I feel for the hell I went through, when just a few years ago she’d gone through so much worse. God, my brother really got lucky in finding someone like her. My heart breaks once more at the thought that I’d believed to have found someone like that in Damon, but I was so awfully mistaken.

“Shortly after my return, I started getting threats. Text messages, packages, all claiming to be from Enzo. They came from his same number. At first I thought maybe one of his men had found out what I’d done and was trying to blackmail me, though no money request ever came. Then I figured maybe they were just fucking with me. Until recently, I feared Enzo might not really be dead. Damon caught on to that, to the fact I was still hiding something, and he refused to let me in unless I confessed. I knew I couldn't do that. When I quickly realized I wanted this thing between us to be real, I tricked him, seduced him until he caved. Things between us were great these last few months. It felt real, an actual relationship, until tonight.”

I look over at Scarlett. “When you texted me earlier, you reminded me it had been over a month since I’d gotten my last period.” I bite back the tears. I’m so close. “I took four tests in the bathroom before my shift tonight after I’d puked in the toilet before I left the house, just to confirm what I already knew. I’m pregnant. I didn’t know what to feel. I was scared, scared shitless about the whole thing, about telling Damon. But when I was alone at the bar during closing, I got another threat from Enzo. A picture of Luke, tied up to a chair along with a message that said he was close to coming for me for what I’d done with Luke as my accomplice. I’d called Damon when I was scared someone was trying to break in. It turned out to be Carrington, who somehow found out about Luke and me in New York. She showed up looking for me threatening me then Damon showed up and kicked her out, but when we were alone, as we were um talking,” I say, leaving out the whole thing about what we’d done on the bar top. “I got the urge to throw up again, and I rushed to the bathroom, with him following close behind me. That only means one thing.”

Scarlett nods in understanding, but Ace’s face just turns cold. “Damon became furious, blaming me for planning this all along. Reminded me we were supposed to be fake, nothing but a contract we’d both signed. It broke me to hear him say that. That what we had wasn't real. It felt so real.”

Ace pulls me in tighter. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

I shake my head, desperate to make my brother see reason. He can’t go after Damon and do something we both will regret. Despite everything Damon said to me, the way his words cut me like daggers and instilled pain I have never felt before, I still love him. Every part of my soul still aches for him, and hurting him will only damage me further.

Blinking away my tears that don’t seem to cease falling down my cheeks at my brother’s desperate attempt to defend me, I look up at Ace. “But how could I have thought it to be real, when Damon doesn’t know any of this?” My body aches, my entire being deflated by the pain I currently feel over my entire being. I see no end to my suffering, no instance where any of this sorrow I feel vanishes.

Not without Damon by my side, and there is no world where that will happen.

“That’s enough, Wynter,” Scarlett says, her voice suddenly breaking as she wipes away her tears. Teasers she’s shed for me after all the times I was so horrible to her, insulting her and her upbringing like she meant nothing compared to me and my family. Yet here I am now, begging her to save me.

Scarlett places her hand tenderly on my shoulder as she scoots in closer to us, her voice so gentle and heartwarming. “You need to rest and Ace needs to calm his anger before he says or does something he will regret. This is between you and Damon, and all we can do is to be here for you, to support you in any way you need. What we can’t and won't do,” she says, looking her husband in the eye. “Decide your future with him.”

“Like hell we won’t. There is no way I’m ever letting Damon fucking Drake come anywhere near my sister or her baby. You’ll move in with us, have this baby with us, and we can help you raise it alongside Caeli and our new baby. We’ll move away if we have to, but there is no fucking way I’m letting him get to you. Not after he laid a hand on you…” his voice breaks, sorrow so visible in his eyes is almost palpable. He feels guilty, guilty he didn’t see all of this before, and now he’s desperately trying anything to ensure my safety.

But Scarlett’s right, that’s not what I need from him.

“Ace,” she says, her voice now calm in order to not further incite him. “Baby, we can talk in the morning, figure this all out, go to the cops and tell them about the threats. Do whatever we have to do, but right now we need to let Wynter rest.”

“Thank you for being here for me, for listening.”

Ace hugs me tight, tighter than he ever has, and kisses my forehead. I wrap my arms tightly around his body, snuggling into his neck and cursing the years we let keep us apart, the monster we let interfere with our relationship. “God, Wynter, I don’t even know where to apologize for all of this. All you went through because I failed in my one job to protect you.”

My brother, my dear brother, breaks down sobbing for me, for my pain, my sorrow and it nearly kills me.