She Got The Ring And The Marriage, I Got The Silence Chapter 02

She Got The Ring And The Marriage, I Got The Silence Chapter 02

The wind hit the tears on my face and turned them sharp, each one stinging like a cut.

I couldn’t stay in that house another second.

I opened a rental app. The prices knocked the air right out of me.

Eighteen hundred a month, minimum, for anything near Fort Ridgemont.

I had less than fifteen hundred in my personal checking account.

Then I remembered my mother’s jewelry, the pieces she’d left me before she died.

Selling even one piece would be enough to get me through.

I couldn’t stomach the thought of letting them go. But I was out of options.

I pulled open the vanity drawer. The jewelry box was empty.

I ran to the guest room. By the time I found Graham, I was shaking so hard I could barely get the words out.

“Someone broke in! My mom’s jewelry, it’s all gone. Call the MPs!”

Graham’s shoulders went rigid. He adjusted his glasses and looked away.

“I took it.”

“Her family is greedy, Tessa. I told you I had to make this marriage look convincing. They wanted proof I was taking care of her, so I gave her the jewelry to get them off her back. She needed collateral.”

I stared at him. My brain couldn’t make the words add up.

He wanted to give Brielle security? Fine. But what gave him the right to take my mother’s things to do it?

I’d told myself this was pity, a commanding officer looking out for a soldier he barely knew.

I was wrong.

No amount of sympathy explained this. He’d crossed a line no sympathy could justify.

He had feelings for her.

That was the only thing that could make a man like Graham, a man made of ice and duty, do something this insane.

I went straight for Brielle. Backed her against the wall, grabbed her by the shoulders, and got in her face.

“That jewelry was my mother’s! She left it to me! You want heirlooms? Go ask your own family!”

Brielle’s eyes went wide and wet, but the look underneath was pure defiance.

“You know my family treats me like trash, and you’re rubbing it in my face on purpose. Just because I didn’t grow up rich, I don’t deserve nice things?”

I was so angry I laughed.

“I never said that. You want jewelry? Buy it yourself. You don’t get to steal mine and play the victim.”

“How could you—!”

Brielle ducked behind Graham, hands pressed to her face, sobbing.

“That’s enough.”

Graham caught my wrist. The look he gave me was exhausted, like I was the problem.

“Your family had money, Tessa. You don’t need a few pieces of jewelry. What’s the harm in letting Brielle borrow them to keep her family off her back? You weren’t even wearing them.”

“I’ll replace them. I promise.”

Replace them.

He could buy me a hundred pieces of jewelry and none of them would be my mother’s.

I tore through the entire house, every drawer, every cabinet, every corner.

Nothing.

I dropped onto the couch. My throat was raw, and my body had nothing left.

Brielle glanced over at me, and her voice dipped low, just enough sweetness in it to twist the knife.

“Don’t worry. What the general gave me is locked away. Very safe.”

“You’re never getting it back.”

The way she said it, like those pieces already belonged to her, hit me like a needle behind my eyes.

I grabbed the nearest coffee mug and hurled it at her face.

Graham pulled Brielle behind him on instinct. The mug caught him instead, right at the temple. He grunted.

The blood on his temple was bright. So bright.

The same temple. The same place he’d bled years ago, when an explosion on base sent shrapnel flying and he’d thrown himself over me to shield me from the debris.

I closed my eyes. There was nothing left in me to fight with.