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

If I were a few minutes later today, would I have been too late to save her from Elias?

That kind of guilt doesn’t get to be redeemed. I’m the guy who doesn’t get to forget who I am just because I found a happy ending. One I never lost and yet I still lost my ability to let it heal me.

EVE

Two Weeks Later…

Bowen had been drunk for days on end. Drinking himself numb until he could barely crawl into bed next to me. There wasn’t much of him left; syllables fading from his name, leaving behind Bo instead of my Bowey. I took what I could get even if that was sex laced with alcohol and hands that stopped being timid of my body.

I was making my way through his library and now I was onto Donte’s Inferno, the only story on his shelves that wasn’t traditionally considered a romance. It seemed too out of place to not be important so I figured it was a great starting point.

Severus Snake was curled up in his favorite mug on the nightstand under the heat of the lamp, always by my side, everywhere I went.

The papers sticking out like an oversized bookmark caught my eye when I opened the book more than halfway and turned it over, making sure I didn’t lose the page number. I knew just from looking at it that this wasn’t Bowen’s perfect cursive that seemed slightly angry but still decadent.

This was Braedon’s chicken scratch dug into the white paper that had been discolored and worn down with age.

Bowen,

You were kept in the light for most of your life, and if you’re reading this then I’m not here anymore.

Sucked up by the darkness that’s always been in the back of my mind, tempting me and seducing me to take it one step too far.

You’re probably wondering why I did what I did. I’m writing this before it's done so I can’t tell you how I decided to go when I’ve had more than one plan since I turned ten. It’s not an easy answer. My hand is shaking writing this, and the booze leaking from my eyes stings with regret already but I know better.

There’s no light in my life to make me stick around.

Eve was never promised to you.

Turning eighteen would mean slaughtering your heart by marrying the one person you consider your everything.

She was promised to whoever became the horsemen, lucky for us it was always going to be me.

I was always the strength you lacked, the anger you refused to lean into, the danger they desired, and the damage they predicted.

I wanted to find a way to save her for you. Save you both from the certain hell of this life. Everything comes with a price.

It’s a steep one, brother.

To save Eve, you’ll have to save yourself. And you’ll have to save yourself every damn day of the life I’m handing you on a silver platter. That’s the price.

How badly do you want Eve, Bowen? Enough to die a little each day and still survive?

You will be a horseman, whatever the fuck that truly means, and you will be taking over my life like you are absorbing my death and everything I am. You will take over my life like the burden it is, but you will get the love you deserve.

Love I can’t and won’t accept.

I’m darkness but you have always been the light, Bowen. Don’t forget that.

-          Your evil side

I watched a fat teardrop land on the paper and explode trying to reach the ink of his words that I felt branding into my soul.

Braedon didn’t end his life selfishly; he ended his life to save ours.

He handed me angel wings and handed Bowen horns.

Tucking the paper where it was before I closed Donte’s Inferno, I tried to regain composure. Braedon made sure to leave Bowen the purification in his note, all the words were right here: survive and save yourself every day.

Purifying his soul came with a heavy heart full of guilt that wouldn’t ever allow him to repent. He carried the guilt that wasn’t his to bear. Guilt I was learning to let go of and let myself heal from before it ate me whole.

Slipping down under the covers even more, I held my arms to my chest counting all the ways that were pinning Bowen to hell. The list was longer than I probably really knew, and it would burn him alive if only someone gave him a match.

It didn’t matter how drunk he was, he always somehow poured himself into bed every night. Crawling over the covers and wrestling with his pillows. Every time I watched him fight with everything around him the same pang of jealousy filled my rib cage. I wanted to be who he fought with, who he noticed in the room, who his hands grasped the way he did that pillow. I would swallow hard and rub my thighs together like it would help the burning go away. Nothing helps the urge when you crave him; it’s a feeling that could drive you mad and have you contemplating his lifestyle if it numbs desire down too.

Stumbling into the room, he crawled over my body still under the blankets and his arm muscles tensed while holding himself above me. “I know that look… Why do you look so needy, Evey?”

His hot breath licked my ear in a swift kind of seduction. I didn’t need much persuading; I was on the verge of sneaking my own fingers inside myself if he wasn’t coming to bed soon.

It was all he had been giving me—the parts of himself