Chapter 4 - The Price of the Throne
The return to the city was not the triumphant homecoming Marcus might have imagined.
Evelyn sat in the back of the armored limousine,
Leo and Mia squeezed between her and their father.
The children were mesmerized by the man who looked like them,
the man who spoke in a voice that sounded like thunder and honey.
Marcus was surprisingly patient,
answering their endless questions with a gentleness she hadn't seen in years.
But when he looked at Evelyn,
the gentleness vanished,
replaced by a possessive hunger that terrified her.
The Vale estate had been renovated,
the dark mahogany replaced with lighter woods and modern art,
but it still felt like a gilded cage.
"This is your home now,"
Marcus told the children,
his hand resting on Leo's shoulder.
"Everything you see will one day be yours."
Evelyn watched from the doorway,
feeling like an intruder in her own life.
That night,
after the twins had been tucked into their sprawling new bedrooms,
Marcus found her on the balcony overlooking the gardens.
"You're still angry,"
he noted,
lighting a cigar,
the tip glowing in the darkness.
"You kidnapped us,"
she pointed out,
her voice flat.
"I brought my family back to where they belong,"
he replied.
"You lied to me for years,
Evelyn.
You let me think you were dead."
"And you let me think you were a monster,"
she shot back.
He laughed,
a low,
bitter sound.
"I am a monster,
Evelyn.
How do you think I kept this empire together while you were playing house in the woods?"
He stepped closer,
trapping her against the stone railing.
"But I am your monster.
And I have been very lonely in this house."
"What about Chloe?"
she asked,
needing to hear it again.
"She's where she can't hurt anyone,"
he said.
"She betrayed her own blood for a paycheck.
I would have killed her myself if she weren't your sister."
Evelyn looked at him,
searching for the man she had once loved beneath the layers of cold steel and shadows.
He was still there,
hidden in the way his jaw tightened when she looked at him,
in the way his breath hitched when she didn't pull away.
"I can't just go back to the way things were,"
she said.
"I'm not that woman anymore."
"I don't want that woman,"
he whispered,
his lips grazing her ear.
"I want the woman who had the courage to run from the devil.
I want the woman who raised my children in the wild."
He kissed her then,
a hard,
demanding kiss that tasted of smoke and desperation.
Evelyn fought him for a moment,
her hands pushing against his chest,
but then her resolve crumbled.
She had spent five years starving for this touch,
for the feeling of being seen by the only man who truly knew her.
But as he pulled her closer,
she felt the cold weight of the wedding ring he had slipped back onto her finger.
It was a reminder that in his world,
love and ownership were the same thing.
The next morning,
the news was filled with the return of the Vale queen,
speculation running wild about where she had been.
Marcus handled the press with a ruthless efficiency,
silencing any whispers that dared to question his family’s honor.
But in the shadows of the estate,
a new threat was forming,
one that didn't care about Marcus Vale's power.
Chloe had escaped from prison,
and she wasn't coming for the money this time.
May you like
She was coming for the one thing Evelyn loved more than life itself.
The twins.
