Chapter 9

Damien shook his head, his eyes wet. "I didn't know, I didn't know how bad it was. I never thought it would come to this. I thought she'd never leave me."

"Sel wasn't incapable of leaving." Each word a hammer. "She just couldn't bring herself to, before. You strangled that part of her yourself."

"You killed her pup. You killed her trust. You killed every last hope she had. She doesn't want you anymore. Hear me, Damien. She does not want you."

"She's not someone you can control anymore. She's not the soft idiot you could apologize back into your arms. She's a Hart. She's my daughter. We will protect her for the rest of her life. You do not get to exist in hers."

My brother leaned in, his eyes like ice. "You think you get on your knees and apologize and she'll come cry on your shoulder? Wake up. She's happy right now. Overseas. Away from you, you snake. If you have any decency left, stay far away and stop making her sick."

"Every one of us regrets letting her Mark you in the first place."

My father spoke each word cleanly. "Damien, from today on, you don't step into my home. You don't come near her. You don't come near any of us. We don't want to see you."

He turned his hand toward the house steward.

"See him out."

The steward nodded. Two enforcers from the estate stepped forward, and before Damien could react, they began walking him off the grounds.

His lips moved. No words came out.

The heavy doors closed in front of him with a deep, dull thud.

He stood there, empty-eyed. His throat felt like he was swallowing knives.

His head was full of one sentence. She doesn't want you.

He walked down the steps unsteady.

How? How could I not want him?

He drove home alone, and the road looked like it was under fog.

In his head, I was everywhere. My voice accusing him. My face crying over the urn. My voice saying, I don't trust you anymore.

He got back to the house. Nothing was different. And yet everything felt wrong.

That night he lay in bed, turning side to side. He couldn't sleep.

He reached to the right side of the bed without thinking. It was cold.

That side used to be mine. I'd turn toward him and press the pad of my thumb between his brows and ask, softly, if he'd overworked himself again.

Now only a cold sheet.

He shut his eyes. He said, under his breath, "Sel…"

No answer.

He sat up. His head felt like it was going to split.

He went down to the closet. My clothes were gone. Hart's people had taken them. Just empty bars of wood left.

He stopped for a moment, then slid down against the wall and sank to the floor. He dropped his head.

Upstairs, Fiona was sobbing.

"Big brother. I'm going to be put away. She wants to put me in a cell. You're not going to help me?"

Damien was silent for a long beat. "I'll get you counsel. Don't be afraid."

"But you can't, can't talk to her?"

"She has no evidence," he said, staring out the window. "Don't worry."

Fiona froze for a second, then lit up. "Really?"

"Stop making it worse."

Damien walked back upstairs and shut his door and leaned against the edge of the bed.

For the first time he understood. The gentleness he'd taken for granted. Her quiet presence. They'd grown into the bones of his life long ago.

And now I was gone.

Now he knew what losing something meant.

The next morning he went to the office and watched one termination letter after another come into his inbox.

Within three days, he'd lost ten major projects. The market value gone was close to a hundred million.

Worse, the partners weren't moving to competitors. They were "waiting to see." They'd already been brought into the Hart fold.

Finally he couldn't take it. He picked up the phone and called Tristan.

The moment the line connected, he pressed down his anger and forced words through his teeth. "Tristan. Do you really have to go this hard?"

There was a second of silence on the other end. Then the cold, amused laugh of a man. "This hard? You know what 'this hard' means now?"

"Tristan, I know you're angry. But these projects reach too far. Too many people depend on the work." Damien's voice dropped. He was trying to leave a thread of dignity intact.

Tristan exploded. "Damien, you have the fucking nerve to talk to me about dignity?"

The shout hit him. His hand tightened around the phone.

"I'm asking you. Because you grew up without a father's love or a mother's love, you figure you can be this heartless to Sel? She's my sister. My blood sister. Her pup is my niece. I watched her grow up. That's a life. An actual life."

"Damien, you treat Fiona like your world. Don't forget Sel is my blood. When she Marked you, she didn't become an orphan."

"You not having a heart doesn't mean the rest of us don't."

Line by line, the words cut him open.