Sometimes rejection hurts more than getting stabbed.
If someone had told me that I, Aaron William Laurent — the one who kills people without blinking, the one who wrote the orchestra of his own mother's death, the one whose sole goal was always being the patriarch of the Laurent family — would be willing to beg for that one person to look my way…
I would have laughed, or maybe strangled that person to death.
Yet here I am, breaking every traffic rule, driving my black custom-made Pagani at 217.48 mph, blurring the city behind me, almost running away from the intense bitterness and agony I am feeling in my chest.
The cold air inside the car does nothing to calm my mind, which is in total chaos.
My body still remembers hers pressed against mine — how her small frame fit under mine perfectly, like two missing pieces of a puzzle coming together after decades of being separated.
I gulp dryly, as if trying to physically escape from my body. Why can't she feel it if I can feel it?
Why can't she give me one chance?
I even told her to give me no name, just let me exist in her orbit. I thought if I made her need me, she would let me stay.
I was overestimating myself, or I was underestimating the walls she has built around herself. Maybe both.
I run my fingers through my hair and unbutton the first three buttons of my shirt, feeling the air thicken around me.
This is fucking crazy. I just want to kidnap her and lock her in my secret mansion on my private island, far from the world — both hers and mine. I want to adorn her in luxury and love. I want to tattoo my name on her thighs and hers on my chest.
A dark, raw, primitive emotion makes my blood go cold and steady. It makes my skin crawl with excitement, like a territorial beast.
Excitement to imprint.
I catch my eyes in the mirror. They are ominous, but I am not even trying to make sense of them. Because I know losing Nova means losing the only being in this entire universe who makes me feel and act like a human, not a vengeful monster.
My phone buzzes with Nikolai's text. I glance at it from the corner of my eye, already knowing the context.
Nik: I have dropped Sister-In-Law to her apartment building. She offered me tea and guess what — I saw her home before you. Smirk
My jaw clenches tight. I hit the accelerator, my body burning in jealousy, my stomach twisting and turning in rage.
Seriously? Nikolai got to see her house before me?
"Fucking hell! I need to stop driving or I'm surely going to crash cars in rage!"
I mutter to myself, low and dangerous, throat dry and eyes fixed on the road, trying to find a suitable spot to park and release this unfathomable emotion inside me.
As I park my car near a tree, I realize I have left behind the main city and somehow ended up on a forest road.
Fucking gorgeous.
I get out of my car and slam the door with a loud thud, my hands flexing to punch something — anything.
And the thing bearing my fit of rage happens to be the tall, wide pine tree next to which I parked.
"JUST STOP PUSHING ME AWAY! LOOK WHAT YOU MAKE ME BECOME! DON'T MAKE ME CAGE YOU AND HIDE YOU AWAY FROM THE WORLD, PRINCESS!"
I punch again and again with each spoken word. Blood starts dripping from my knuckles, bristles of the tree penetrating through my skin, yet this physical pain is nothing compared to the pain in my chest.
I do not wish to become the monster who locks away his beloved from the world… like my father.
I don't want to become a fucking lunatic like my father, who locked away my mother inside the most luxurious mansion in the world — which he built only for her with rubies, stone, and gold.
My mother had access to luxuries that are beyond even some of the richest men in the world. But she loved freedom. She wanted to fly around the world without guards and maids following her. She wanted to…
She wanted the company of different men, but my father would never allow such a thing. He always wanted his eyes on her. He needed her to live like he needed oxygen.
And unfortunately, I happen to look exactly like my father. Same arctic blue eyes, blonde hair. Yeah, I have blonde hair which my mother once set on fire out of her rage directed toward my father. And now I dye it black every week.
I still hate looking at my face, remembering how my mom used to torture me, thinking she was punishing my father.
And my father knew it all, but he never stopped her, even when…
My chest tightens. My eyes sting with the memory of the past I am so desperate to forget — the screams nobody ever heard, the scars nobody ever kissed other than Nova.
I rest my head against the rough surface of the pine tree, careless of my wounded knuckles and the blood drenching the dry, crunching leaves under my feet.
Pain is my most familiar partner. Yet all I want right now is her arms around my waist, her lips kissing my neck, her voice calling my name.
"I can't become like my father. I won't. I will make her love me, need me, desire me. But I won't ever cage her."
But even as I say those words, I somehow doubt how much of the 'not caging' part I even mean.
My phone suddenly buzzes.
Half-expecting Nikolai bragging about how Nova hosted him, I pull out my phone — but my eyes darken with cold rage and calculated thoughts.
I answer it.
Silence.
Pure, heavy silence, with neither of us speaking first, until—
"You have grown some balls, isn't that right, my dearest nephew?"
A deep, mature voice with rough edges hidden behind a polite tone, yet unable to mask the disdain, hatred, and rage.
I sneer in pure ecstasy. "If my beloved uncle says this, I might have done something rather amazing."
He says nothing, but I can imagine him holding the hilt of his infamous knife — the one he was gifted during his engagement with my aunt nearly forty years ago.
There is something rather unique about the Laurent men.
In the history of the Laurent family, there have been psychopaths.
There have been sociopaths.
There have been black sheep.
There have been wild cards.
There have been men greedy beyond words.
There have been men who would kill their own blood — fathers, brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces.
But in this entire history of the lunatic bloodline of mine, if there is one thing that remained unchanged...
If a Laurent man's heart chooses someone, there is no one after her.
The men of this bloodline makes some of the finest, most loyal, expressive, persistent, obsessive husbands.
Yeah, surprisingly, there is really no arrange marriage in this family....
Because again... a Laurent man only loves once and that woman is all Laurent Man will know, worship and love
— even if she is a total abuser like my mother, for whom my father still grieves.
My mother had her three children just to torment my father by abusing me. But since my younger siblings have her green eyes, she never hurt them — but she never loved them either.
Though I would still say they had it a thousand times better than me.
Realization hits me like cold water. I am thinking about the past way too much suddenly.