"I... I am leaving." My voice trembles as I force the words out, my legs weak beneath me.

Even though I am standing in an open garden, I feel invisible walls closing in around me, rendering me incapable of breathing. I need to get out, need to be away from here, need to be in my husband's embrace before I succumb to some kind of an anxiety or panic attack. I reach for my sling bag, but my hands are trembling so badly that I nearly drop it. My chest aches from holding back the urge to cry loudly, but I can't cry anymore. Not here. Not in front of her even though my treacherous tears fail to stop.

"No, you aren't." Her silent command is like a blade cutting through all the hazy voices in my head. It's a tone I've known my entire existence—the voice that commands, controls, and suffocates. The voice that has always kept me on leash. But that won't be happening today.

"I am." I manage standing a little straighter, daring to match her unflinching, soulless gaze, even as my legs feel like giving up. "I need Areston."

"You're not going anywhere in this state. I won't allow it. You need to stay here until you feel fine." Her voice cracks with fury—the worst kind of fury—for the first time. It's not the calculated, measured disapproval she's the master of always wielding with precision and scaring even the mightiest of men without a frown on her face. 

"Have you been listening to my outburst at all, mama? I don't feel fine anywhere here... anywhere near you. I don't want to stay here." I end up yelling, louder than I mean to, but the words tumble out before I can stop them. She flinches, just slightly, but it's enough for me to notice. I've never seen her flinch before—that's not her. Not once. Not ever. "You don't get to tell me what I need. God knows I've had enough of that. Besides, I wasn't asking for your permission. You can be happy that I am not wasting your precious time which you can invest on rather important work related matters. This... our lunch is a forced event anyway. You don't want me slipping off your fingers like Chase did. Don't call Areston," I continue, my voice lower now but equally determined. "Don't text him. Don't call him. I'll talk to him when I see him."

She looks like she wants to coax me with her emotional blackmailing to stay, but she decides against it. Not that would've given in anyway. Not in the state I'm in.

"Peter will take you. He'll take care of you." He has been her trusted chauffeur since she was in her 20s. Her tone appears dejected but I'll think about it later.

"I have Oliver. He'll take care of me. He always has." I have no idea where I get the miraculous strength to run and escape.

"Ms. Rothschild... Juliette?" Oliver panics for the first time in front of me as he watches my disheveled state.

"Take me to Areston." I jump in the passenger seat next to him instead of the back seat of which the door he's holding open for me.

"Yes, of course. Is everything alright?"

I squeeze my eyes shut and sink in the seat, curling in a ball, and shake my head. "Don't want to talk."

"I understand," he says, his tone softest I've ever heard. He hovers a bit without closing the door and speaks after a beat. "May I tuck you in the seat belt?"

"No touch." I barely suppress a sob. "Can't stand it."

"I won't, I promise," he assures and does exactly what he promises, tucks me in the seat belt without touching a single part of me.

💗💗💗

Like a selfish person, I run out of the car and inside the mansion as soon as the Maybach comes to a halt. 

I know I shouldn't be spoiling whatever little precious time they've barely gotten with their son, but I can't help myself. I need him before I lose my sanity. 

I promised to let him see my most vulnerable self and help me through it.

The smile on Adrianna's face as she talks to her son disappears as she watches my state. "Juliette, are you alright?" She shoots upright.

Her husband follows and they both rush in my direction. "What's wrong?"

"Areston. Where's he?" I speak, wiping tears with the back of my hand.

"He's in his father's study with Gus on a work call. Let me take you," Adrianna tries to touch me but I shake my head, crying, and take a step back.

She retrieves her hand, understanding my silent plea. "It's upstairs."

"I'll find it myself, thanks," I murmur, running for the stairs. My legs are trembling as I climb them.

"It's to the left. First door," Giovanni says loudly to guide me from the end of the stairs.

Walking through the large double doors, I find my sanity seated in a chair with his head leaning back, appearing pissed at his brother as his fingers massaging his forehead as he talks to him.

"Belle?" He acts with an alarming swiftness. So does his brother. Concern etched on both of their faces.

The room spins and I hit my chest a few times as if it'll return me to oxygen, and my legs buckle. Areston's arm reaches me in a record time, locking around me with an unyielding strength and drawing me in his possessive embrace.

"I'm home. This is home." I weep against his shirt.

His arm tightens around me, and his other hand moves in my hair, his fingers stroking it with a soothing tenderness.

"Yes, you are, and it is," he assures, his breath hot against my ear, his voice steady and grounding.

"I need you." I breathe in his scent and cologne, the familiarity and his supreme calm control anchoring me amidst the chaos going on in my heart and mind.

"I'll give you two privacy," August says, casting a wary glance between me and his brother. It looks like he wants to say something, but decides against it. He leaves, closing the door behind him.

Areston grips my face, gently forcing me to match his unfathomable gaze—the same that always unfailingly penetrates right through the turmoil of my soul. They've darkened like midnight regardless of their blue color. Those are the eyes of a monster. My monster whose heart beats only for me.

"What happened? Talk to me," he commands in a gentle tone, yet it's an unmistakable order nonetheless.

My fingers clench around his t-shirt as a sharp, uncontainable pain pierces me and I break into an uncontrollable sob. "They raped me at the rehab, Ares. it was rape. Those monsters raped me. I was raped."

Areston is a fortress of extreme restraint. However, the edges of his arctic demeanor display the faintest cracks for the first time. There's a subtle tightening of his jaw as his arms tighten around me in a strange blend of possession and comfort. He strokes the length of my spine, his movement unhurried and methodical. I can feel him restraining his dark impulse just for my sake.

"I couldn't save myself, Ares. I felt so helpless," I sob, burying my face into his chest, wetting his shirt. 

All the emotions I've kept suppressed in me for so long start pouring out, raw and painful. 

"I deluded myself into tricking my mind that it wasn't rape because I orgasmed every time. But it was. They raped me."

"I know, baby," his voice is a low rumble, vigilantly modulated yet not enough to showcase the undercurrent of suppressed rage it carries. "When humans are trapped in a situation there's no escape from, they accept it as their reality and make peace with it. Regardless of how vile the situation is. There was nothing you could have done back then to fight back after the situation they had put you in."

"I accepted it as my fate."

"As anyone who'd have been in your situation would have done," he kisses my hair. "It's not your fault those vile bastards chose you."

"Will you hold me as I cry? I want cry."

He wordlessly swoops me in his arms and carries me to the couch. "I am here. Cry all you want until you feel better. I'll always be here," he cups my face, running his hands in my hair.

Straddling his lap, I press my face into his neck and let the 19-year-old me cry her heart out. 

She wanted to do this eleven years ago, but couldn't because no one was around—he was not around. 

And he lets me. Just like an anchor, he secures me as I drift into the dark place I hate to go to, but I am not worried about revisiting because I know he's here to hold me and yank me out of it if I go deeper.

"I wanted someone to help me," I whisper between the sobs. "I would wait for someone to come and save me. I don't believe in gods, but I started praying every night to whoever was up there so they'd send someone to rescue me from that hell. I would dream of you or mama or Chase coming to save me. But then I'd get scared of the hurt they might cause you three so I would pray for no one to come. I would pray they'd just come to their senses or get bored of me and let me go."

"I am sorry we failed you, Belle." His words are sincere.

"No one failed me. I failed myself. I would have never been trapped in their plan had I not left you. I befriended Lily and Fletch. Why did I trust a man like Nikolai despite how much I loathed him? I should have sensed his hidden agenda when he introduced me to them in front of my mother the night before I was flying to London. He said they would take care of me. Mama didn't know his intentions toward me, I did since I was a kid. How could I have been so naive to fall for his trap?"

He rocks my body to-and-fro gently like I'm a baby in a cradle. It's soothing. "Don't blame yourself. You did nothing wrong. You were already too distracted by your suffering because of our breakup to have sensed his hidden agenda. And even if you weren't, you were too young to sense the trap they were laying out for you. Even a shrewd woman like Jennifer couldn't have sensed it coming."

I inhale a deep breath, wrapping my arms around his neck as a sob harder than before wracks out of me. He lets me cry, knowing how desperately I need this release. Like a safe haven, he keeps me enveloped in the strength and safety of his arms, his fingers tracing calming patterns on my back as I shed all the tears I've suppressed within for the past decade.

"Will I ever be able to overcome it?" I ask with a trembling lower lip. There's a hollowness between my chest as tears have dried out at last.

"You never overcome trauma, tesoro," his voice is devoid of emotion, his fingers combing through my strands. His chin is perched upon my head. "It becomes a part of you and keeps settling in a deeper background as time passes by. You can never erase it. That's impossible regardless of whatever the psychobabble bullshit psychologists feed you. What they did to you shouldn't have happened. But it did, and it showed you the truth about people and the masks they hide behind. The scars will never disappear. You've to keep moving. That's what matters and that's what you did. You did not let it break you or wasted your time trying to overcome it. You let it make you tougher. You made your lesson a weapon. You are a survivor, not a victim."

I hold him tighter, his words sinking deep into my heart. 

"I know it isn't easy–to open up and relive those horrors, Belle. You've done the hardest part. Acknowledging it happened. It takes admirable courage you might not feel right now. I see it. All of it. And I'm proud of you." 

I draw back, those words bringing a strange kind of comfort. "You are?"

"Incredibly." His thumb brushes away my dry tears, his touch is so tentative as if he's afraid I'm a fragile object he might end up breaking, which he usually doesn't mind as he often keeps teasing me about.

This is perhaps the first time he has opened up to me in such a raw manner. He never does. Not even when he manipulated me into accepting him back after having barged into my penthouse.

He places his forehead on mine and his breath mingles with mine. It smells of his expensive cigar. Of premium chocolate and cognac. Gurkha HMR. His go-to. He must have been having it before I interrupted.

"I know you're too strong to need anyone taking care of you, but I always will. I am not going anywhere. To me, you'll always be my fragile rose, my little ogre, my tesoro that I have to protect. I'll be your shadow come what may and protect you. Every day of my life and beyond. You'll never have to go through another such trauma again. I will never fail you again."

I knew his presence would hold me together as the weight of acknowledgement of what I went through in the past threatened to crush me. His words are the balm I knew I needed to soothe my wounds that may never heal. They wrap around my wounds, attempting to piece me back together. 

Eleven years ago, I was praying for this. So desperately. I needed him because he's the only one who has always seen me for me. Without any veneer. He understands me. Truly knows me. And sees right through me. His words, his touch, and his security, it's all I've ever longed for. 

After years of having felt the crippling pressure of fighting everything and never showing any weakness, it feels safe to just give up, let myself crumble into pieces for him to piece back together.

I finger his hair, curling them around his thick and smooth strands. "I need you. Help me put a stop on those dreaded memories." I graze his mouth with mine as I speak in a barely audible voice.

He regards me cautiously, pulling back, but enough. Just a couple of inches away. "You're not in the right mindset. We can talk more. You are always complaining we don't talk enough."

It's as if I'm some volatile wild creature he's trying to placate. It irritates me that this is what it has come down to. He's worried I might get triggered. The man who never hesitates to throw me around and handle me rough.

"Please," I follow, my lips persistent against his, my voice breaking. "Please. We both know this works the best for me. I need your words and you. I have your words. I need you now. I don't want to talk."

He threads his fingers through my hair, slightly pulling my head back so my chin is tipped a little up. "You have me, wife. All of me."

"I am not a fragile doll," I whisper against his mouth, kissing him softly. His hesitation is palpable. "I won't break."

"Belle—"

"You are my only source of sanity. It'll drive me insane if you treat me with this maddening degree of caution and cannot be yourself around me. As much as your ruthlessness gets on my nerves at times, it's what I crave. Please, baby. If you don't want me right now, just tell me. But don't treat me as if I am a wounded stray pet you've nursed with a gloved hand but won't nuzzle against your cheek or kiss out of your extreme OCD."

"Christ, Belle." His rough groan vibrates through his chest, an intoxicating sound of possession and surrender, as he grabs my nape along with my hair and kisses me deliberately slowly, taking his time with me, as if savoring the feel and taste of my mouth to etch it into his memories.

The blend of raw need and tenderness and silent vow of fixing me makes a sob I'd thought dried away bubble once again into my throat. He feels it, his arm on my waist tightens, but he doesn't stop kissing me. That's what I want. I don't want him to stop. Tears cascade as I close my eyes and I melt into him.

"I am so fucking proud and honored that it's me you chose to come to. I shouldn't be but I am."

"You're the only one I look for. Only one I need. Always. I couldn't before. I can now. It'll always be you."

"That's how it should always be." His lips part in a smile for the first time since I arrived here and he claims my mouth again, his fingers painfully yanking my hair.

There's none of the gentleness this time. He kisses me with a desperate fervor, his mouth unrelenting, his tongue devouring every inch of my mouth, sparing no part untouched. Just as I need him to stop me from unraveling, keep my sanity from abandoning me at times like today, he needs me just as much. For all the same things. To grasp onto whatever scraps of sanity he has left. Today, my husband has been his most restrained self. He has never had to be before. Not when he persuaded me to give him a chance after the way he badly fucked us up in Sardinia, not when he told me about his past with Esmeralda, or even when that the truth about his sexual relationship with that Witch of East came to light.

Areston De L'Aquila is a storm of chaos and anarchy, unleashing destruction on anything and everything that comes in his way. He's unhinged, always, and remains unapologetic and boldly accepting of his nature. The only time he exercises caution is when he's introducing me to his world... the kinks and stuff he enjoys because I pester him for it, but worries that something might trigger me the wrong way. He's a different kind of monster then. Tender regardless of his signature rough handling of me, almost too guarded, and not willing to push me too far.

But today it's different. The way he has handled me, it was not just caution. It was empathy. His touch gentle all the time, his words softer than usual, and his fury caged, even if momentarily. It just showed me how far he's willing to go to ensure I am safe, even if it means leaving an integral part of who he is behind and embracing the rare humanity, something he considers boring, even though he cares deep down. Today, he didn't use sex as a coping mechanism until I begged him to because it's mine and I love it that way.

I pour my everything into the kiss. All emotions. My body clings to him, my fingers sinking deeper in his shoulders, as if any amount of distance might cause me to evaporate in thin air. He's my lifeline, grounding me in the reality of the present, slowly pulling away from the clench of the ghosts of my past. Nothing else exists. Just us. This moment. His touch. His presence. His scent. His taste. He's my salvation, my sanctuary, my escape from everything. He's the one I'll always find my way back to.

"Your cock. In me. Now." My hands lower and my fingers fumble with his belt.

Without me needing to beg, he helps me unbuckle it without breaking the precious contact of our mouths and positions me on top of his cock while his one hand brushes my panties aside.

"So good." I gasp as my slick core brushes over his pierced head. Using my one hand, I hold him and guide him into me, filling me and stretching me.

He grabs my waist and slams himself into me, entering with a deep, hard thrust that causes my muscles to shudder around him.

"Yes," he hisses, biting my lips, until I taste blood. "Is this what you want, baby? My cock feeding your depraved soul?"

"Yes. Yes. Yes."

Keeping me steady, he pulls himself out of me and slams into me deeper again.

He grasps my chin with one hand. "I need you so much it fucking drives me insane but it's worth it when I get to be the only one capable of piecing you back together."

He twists me around so that I'm on my back and he's on top of me. Arching my legs upwards until he's pinning me to the arm of the couch, he starts thrusting into me in deep, hard, consuming strokes, making me forget everything else but this. Us. The sensation of him stretching me. He does it over and over again until we're both spent after having found our relief.

"I am so proud of you, wife." His beautiful sapphire gaze and the reverence with which they're regarding me is the last thing I see before I fall asleep. 

How was the chapter? 

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