She Got The Ring And The Marriage, I Got The Silence Chapter 04

She Got The Ring And The Marriage, I Got The Silence Chapter 04

I woke up fighting. One thought. Just one.

Grandma. Lenora Bellamy.

I had to get to Alderwick. I had to see her one last time.

Even if she was already cold.

The IV line tugged against the back of my hand.

I made it halfway out of bed before I ripped the catheter out of my vein. Blood welled fast, and the pain punched the air right out of my lungs.

Graham burst through the door.

He saw the blood, clamped his hand over mine, and bellowed into the hallway. “Doctor!”

The doctor rushed in, stopped the bleeding, and started a new line in my other arm.

I reached for it. The doctor caught my wrist.

“Stop fighting! You just suffered a miscarriage and lost a dangerous amount of blood. You need to stay in this bed. If you keep tearing these lines out, you will hemorrhage, and we’ll have to perform an emergency hysterectomy.”

I didn’t mean to scream at him. The words tore out of me anyway.

“Then let me die! I need to see my grandmother. Just let me see her one more time!”

The doctor shook his head grimly and left with his tray.

Graham pinned my arms down and pulled me tightly against his chest. The exact way he always did after we fought—one hand pressing my back, steady, patient.

“Tessa. Look at me.”

“Once you’re stabilized, I’ll take you to see her. I promise.”

He was lying. By the time I was medically cleared to leave this bed, they’d already have put her in the ground.

I sank my teeth into Graham’s shoulder, biting down with everything I had. Every ounce of agony I had nowhere else to put.

“Do you know how she died?”

“Someone told her I was the dirty mistress of a married man. When she tried to defend me, they shoved your damn marriage license in her face. Yours and Brielle’s.”

“The shock killed her, Graham. A stroke. And she died thinking I was a homewrecker. She died believing that about her own granddaughter.”

I bit down harder.

The sharp, metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I didn’t know if it was his or my own.

Graham let out a low grunt but didn’t move. Didn’t push me off. He just took it.

His voice shook.

“I’ll go to the IG’s office myself. Every person who spread those lies, I’ll hunt every single one of them down.”

I laughed. A hollow, wet, broken sound.

“But they weren’t lying, were they?”

“Brielle’s your wife, Graham. Legally. So what does that make me?”

“I’m the mistress. So my baby was just a bastard, right? At least it was smart enough to take itself out of the picture. One less scandal for you to cover up.”

Something shattered behind Graham’s eyes.

He shook his head fast, frantic, like he could erase the words.

“No… Tessa, no, that’s not… that’s not what this is…”

This was a man who had never fumbled a single syllable in a high-stakes combat briefing. Now, he couldn’t even string a sentence together.

I could see it in his eyes: he wanted to explain. Wanted to swear I wasn’t the other woman, that I was the only one who mattered.

But that marriage license was still in his pocket. His name next to hers. In black and white.

What could he possibly say that would hold up against the law?

He gripped my hand so hard my knuckles ached. Every word was dragged out through clenched teeth.

“Tessa, I’m ending it. Tomorrow. I’ll sign the papers and divorce Brielle.”

“And then I’m marrying you.”