THE CONTROL: An Arranged Marriage Romance by Elena Monroe (ebook reader android .txt) 📕

Elias looked up, completely unfazed. “Still can’t say it? I fucked you first, Eve, because you let me. You were so deprived of human interaction that your legs fell open for me.”

I balled up my fists trying to restrain myself, Eve needed to fight for herself long enough for it to heal.

I buried my demons but I’m pretty sure they’re still alive so maybe I have it all wrong.

Her hand curled into a fist, driving against his face amongst all the other wounds making him wince. He recovered with a twisted smile like any kind of touch got him hard.

I was impressed at the way she refused to grimace at the sting vibrating through her hand when she pulled in back. She refused to nurse it, letting it drop to her side, shaking with anger when she shouted, “I never wanted you. I was always a Bowey girl.”

Pushing the safe end of the knife into her palm, she didn’t even skip a beat when she drove it through his hand. Knives were always her first choice.

Leaving the knife sticking out of his hand, she started to walk away. Grabbing her arm, I pulled her back to me. “Make sure you got it all off your chest before he’s dead.”

Looking around me, she tossed her question, “Did my mother know?”

Elias was crying, mumbling to himself like a prayer, and his face seemed even messier when he met my eyes. “Please, I won’t touch her again. Just let me go.”

He was committed, his body shaking—nailing desperation.

It’s easy to be desperate when you run out of options, and it’s the easiest to fake.

Kicking his chair, I witnessed every fake emotion he threw out vanish into thin air. He sat up straight, snapping right back together. He was in control more than I ever dreamed to be, and now I was glad I never got there.

I’m destroyed by my feelings—good or bad. I let them control every part of me in all the ways that made me horrible at being a horseman.

“Your mom knew. My dad knew. They had as much power over me as they had over you in being groomed and purchased for an inflated price tag.” Elias’s voice barreled over both of us. I was letting him say things I couldn’t explain without hurting her more, and I’m sure he knew as much when he continued to speak. “Ironic, isn’t it, Eve? All your pain and suffering done at the hands of your own husband. Who do you think I work for?”

Fuck.

His eyes were bloodshot, and his mouth was full of venom. All of him wanted to bury me right along with him, because if he couldn’t have her no one could.

Only she was never his. She was always mine.

I was still facing her with my hand closed around her arm when her face fell to the depths of hell. No touch of heaven detectable anymore. “What did he say?”

Her voice trembled, and I held onto her tighter, trying to find an excuse that would placate her enough to revisit this when Elias wasn’t taped to a lawn chair outside waiting for a not so honorable death.

“Let’s talk about this later. I’ll handle him first.” I was praying to whoever was listening to let her accept that answer, but the anger brewing in her dark blue eyes told me differently.

The ring on my ring finger felt heavier. At least it matched how heavy my soul felt—that shit was a brick knowing I was keeping anything from Eve.

“Why bother when you’re so satisfied with everyone else telling me the truth? I thought we were past hiding shit from each other, Bowen. You said you trusted me.” I was worried about the knife in her hand earlier, but her words were always the more dangerous weapon.

My hand dropped from the back of her elbow, and I let her words penetrate the parts of me I kept safe from feeling. My eyes were filling to the brim, threatening to flood over. “I never wanted you to know… I did what I had to in order to save you.”

She didn’t care how this hurt, if it hurt at all, because up until now I was impenetrable. I was a haunted boy with demons that didn’t quit and a heart that did a long time ago.

“Save me? Save me?! What do you think you saved me from, Bowen? All the bad shit happened already and no one saved me but my damn self. Don’t you dare take credit for my survival.” Her voice cracked over the last word like maybe it finally hit her that she had survived. She wasn’t fighting anymore; she survived.

Someone was listening when the dark clouds finally rolled in over the hills and the sky opened up into an acid rain. Every heavy drop felt like it had pinned me in place as Eve ran into the house for shelter.

She was uncovering truths I had never planned to tell her. How much I paid had no bearings on our marriage when I always planned on marrying her, willing or not.

I fought as hard as I could to save her before they let me. I used every contact, every back door, every piece of evidence, and every point of contact—and when every trail came up empty, I even had Donte do things I wasn’t proud of. My hands were soaked in blood, so more wasn’t going to change anything, and I deemed it all worth it if it could save the one girl I was supposed to be saving.

This truth was nothing but callous and cold in ways I couldn’t ever be towards her.

Already soaked from the downpour, I turned around facing Elias, still covered in blood that was washing away from