His Favorite Killed His Saviour Chapter 03

His Favorite Killed His Saviour Chapter 03

My fingertips caught the chain, and hope flashed through me. Then Blaine yanked my body back through the window.

The locket slipped free and vanished into the night, just as Elliot had slipped beyond my reach.

The chain flashed once beneath the window and then disappeared into the darkness eleven floors below.

That brief silver light felt like the last piece of Elliot being taken from me all over again.

“No. Give it back!”

I screamed.

I leaned out again, forgetting that the private lounge was eleven floors above the street. I could think only of the silver glint falling farther away.

Blaine hauled me inside and slapped me across the face.

“Who are you performing for?” he hissed.

“Don’t stand here pretending you’re capable of some grand love story.”

His face hovered inches from mine. My cheek burned, and I sagged against the wall as grief surged back with brutal force.

A broken sound escaped behind my hands. The harder I tried to stop, the louder I cried.

At first, the sobs came out muffled against my palms, but they soon filled the lounge until no one dared laugh.

I had endured their insults in silence; losing the locket broke what remained of me.

Warmth touched my shoulder. Blaine’s voice came out stiff and uncertain.

“Avery… don’t cry. It was only a necklace.

“I’ll buy you another one.”

I looked up with bloodshot eyes and twisted my fists into his shirt.

“We agreed to stay out of each other’s lives. Why did you interfere?

“Why did you take away Elliot’s chance to live?”

“Why?” The word tore out of me like an animal’s cry.

“Because I’m your husband,” Blaine shot back. “Did you forget?

“You spent millions and nearly destroyed yourself getting that doctor for him.”

His eyes reddened. “What was that supposed to do to my reputation?”

“Your reputation?” I laughed in disbelief.

“You declared your love for Brielle in public and placed an open-ended bid for her at that charity auction.”

He had instructed the auctioneer to top every competing bid, making sure the entire room understood that no price was too high for Brielle.

He had never once considered what that spectacle did to his wife.

“You let everyone in Cedarhaven treat me like a joke. What about my dignity?”

We stood inches apart like enemies, each determined to draw blood.

“Brielle is different,” he said tightly.

“So was Elliot.”

“Don’t compare that bastard to her.”

“He wasn’t a bastard. He was your mother’s older son, your own half-brother.”

Blaine tore my hands from his shirt. “Enough, Avery.”

“It was one stupid locket. If you don’t want a replacement from me, have Elliot buy you another.”

He straightened his collar and pulled out a cigarette. His lighter clicked again and again.

I pushed myself to my feet. Tears covered my face.

“He’s dead.”

“He’ll never give me anything again.”

Blaine froze. It took four tries before the lighter finally caught.

“Dead?” he said through the smoke.

“Good. The world is cleaner without him.”

Yet the cigarette trembled almost imperceptibly between his fingers, and the flame had taken four attempts to hold.

His cruelty sounded rehearsed, as if he needed the words to protect him from what he had heard.

Yet something hollow trembled beneath the words.

I wiped my face and realized I hated Blaine with every part of me. I did not want him to dismiss Elliot’s death with one careless sentence.

I wanted him to hurt the way I did.

I walked through the smoke, stopped in front of him, and touched his side with one finger.

“There’s something you still don’t know. The kidney inside you came from Elliot.”

“He hid the truth because he didn’t want you to feel guilty. The man you hated gave you your life.”

I watched disbelief empty his face, followed by a dawning horror he could no longer hide.

His gaze dropped toward the kidney Elliot had given him, as if his own body had suddenly become an accusation.

I watched the color leave Blaine’s face. Confusion turned to shock, then finally to pain.

His suffering made me smile.

“Why don’t you find him on the other side and say thank you?” I whispered with the sweetness of a nightmare.

Blaine stared at me, his eyes dark and still.

“Don’t listen to her,” Brielle said, grabbing his arm. “Elliot wasn’t your donor.

“If he was, why didn’t he say anything when your friends beat him?”

She said it too quickly and revealed far more than she intended, as though Elliot’s suffering were merely another secret she and Blaine shared.

The room seemed to tilt beneath my feet.

Her words drove a blade into the wound already open inside me.

“What did you say?” My voice barely sounded human.

Blaine moved in front of Brielle, blocking my view. I struck his chest again and again.

“He saved you! How could you let anyone beat him when he was already dying?”

“You should both go to hell. You should be the ones who died.”

I hit and bit him until my strength ran out. Blaine said nothing and let me exhaust myself.

He absorbed every blow with his mouth pressed into a hard line, refusing either to defend himself or explain what he had allowed.

His silence only confirmed that Brielle had told the truth.

At last I sank to the floor, empty except for the ache inside my chest.

“Blaine, I’m scared,” Brielle whispered.

“I’ll take you home.” He looked down at me as if he wanted to say something, but he put his arm around her and left.

The crowded lounge fell silent. Soon I was the only one left.

I staggered to my feet. Living felt pointless, but I could not die while the people who had destroyed Elliot were still untouched.

I followed them outside and got into my car first.

The moment Blaine pulled onto the road, I pressed the accelerator and aimed straight at him.

The engine screamed as I closed the distance, my headlights filling his rear window before metal crashed into metal.

There was no plan beyond the impact, only the certainty that I wanted all three of us to stop breathing.

I wanted them dead.

The world exploded into darkness.