When The Devil Wants

Chapter Eleven

(Eleanor's POV)

Lucian stood in the doorway in a black suit, his tie was loose around his neck. His eyes scanned my whole body, like he needed to confirm with his own sight that I was okay.

His jaw was tight, his hands were tucked into his pockets.

“Then what would that make me?” Marcus countered.

He stood up from the chair he was sitting beside the bed. The metal legs dragged against the floor and made my teeth hurt. He moved in front of me, putting himself between me and Lucian.

The air went thin. I could feel it press against my skin.

“Step aside, brother.”

Lucian’s voice came cold and sharp.

The word brother sounded more like a blade than a title when it left his mouth.

The nurse froze. Her hand was still hovering over my chart. I watched her throat bob as she swallowed.

“Gentlemen, please,” she said. Her voice was too tight and careful. “The patient needs rest. She’s just come out of observation. I’m going to have to ask you both to leave.”

Marcus didn’t look at her, his eyes landed on me instead.

And the way he looked at me made the temperature in the room drop. It was slow and intimidating. Like he was trying to tell me, without words, that all of this was my fault.

Unease settled in my bones.

“We’re not finished, Ellie.” His voice was low. It carried a dangerous kind of warning.

Then he turned, and without another word, he walked out.

The nurse bowed her head once and followed him out.

Silence filled the room after they left.

Lucian walked straight to the bed and stopped there, standing over me. His eyes did that same search again. From my face to my hands and down to the bandages.

I stared back at him. My eyes were burning into him, a question bugged my mind and I had to let it out.

“Why did you lie to the nurse,” I paused and searched his face, “About being my husband?” I continued.

He didn’t answer.

I frowned. Frustration crawled up my throat.

“Lucian.”

He sighed and reached inside his jacket, then pulled out a file. He didn’t say a word as he set it on the blanket over my legs. The weight of it made me flinch.

I skeptically stared at the file. The last one from Marcus still had me thinking, and now Lucian was offering me another.

I picked it up after a few seconds of contemplating.

It was a divorce agreement.

Between Eleanor Vale and Marcus Vale.

I snickered lowly, my eyes scanning the sheet over and over again.

So that was it.

He wants me to divorce Marcus. As if signing a paper would fix any of this.

Tiffany was still in the ICU fighting for her life. Stella was probably doing the same. Then there I was in the middle of it all, and he thought signing this would solve it all.

A bitter, humorless laugh cut through my throat before I could stop it.

Did he really think if I signed this I would just fall into his arms? That I was that desperate? That broken?

I closed the file and shoved it back toward him across the bed.

“You think I’ll sign this?” My voice was hoarse but steady. “And what? Run to you?”

He didn’t flinch. It felt like he'd expected my reply. My words slid off him like water off glass, and something about that made frustration rise hot in my chest.

He exhaled through his nose.

“Our deal can only start if you sign this.”

I stared at him, waiting for more, maybe an explanation or something.

But he said nothing, and his eyes did well to hide whatever he was thinking.

“And what makes you think I still need your deal?” My voice rose with every word. I was tired of playing this game.

“You have my number, Len.”

“Call me when you’re ready to sign it.”

That was it. He turned, walked to the door, and closed it softly behind him.

The room was very quiet without the tension. The machines beeped. The IV pulled at the back of my hand.

I looked down at the divorce papers on the table.

The lines waiting for ink that would supposedly set me free, from a world I had known for two years.

I didn’t touch it, at least not yet.

Signing that meant walking away from the only leverage I had to get to the bottom of all this.

Every evidence I needed was somehow tied back to that house, to Marcus.

If I went ahead with the divorce, not only would I breach the contract, I'd be willingly giving my shares to the board, and Marcus gets to walk away from all this.

I sat up slowly. Pain pulled through my ribs, but I ignored it. My hands were shaking as I found the tape on the IV and peeled it off. Blood welled immediately at the site. I pressed my sleeve against it and wrapped it tight enough to hold.

I slipped out of the bed and ignored the loud throbbing inside my head, the machines beeped loudly in the quiet space. I picked my phone and hurried out the door.

The hallway was empty when I slipped out. I kept my head down, my steps were slow and calculated.

I made it to the end of the hall, I debated where to go from there.

Then from the ward beside me, I overheard a low male voice. Something about it made me stop.

I drew closer to the door of the patient's room, my ears tried their best to grasp the words being said.

“Are you going to keep lying about the pregnancy?” the man said.

Why would someone lie about a pregnancy? I wondered.

I realized the conversation didn't include anything I should know, so I sighed and pulled myself away from the door.

Then the woman's voice came, softer, but certain.

“Since it’s the only way to keep the plan going.”

I stilled at the voice.

Stella.

My thoughts began running in different directions, my mind felt fuzzy all of a sudden. My head spun at the new information, I struggled to steady my breathing.

The man sighed, frustrated. “But you know at some point they will discover you were never pregnant.”

“And before they do,” Stella said, “the damage will already be done.”

My heart started beating too fast. I pressed a hand into my ribs to keep it quiet.

The man’s voice dropped. “I never knew you were actually like this.”

Stella laughed once, humorless and cold. “Well. You’re getting my money. So you can’t bail on the plan either. We’re both stuck in this.”

The words hit me like ice water.

She wasn’t pregnant. She never was.

Inside the room, something shifted, then a chair scraped loudly against the floor.

I moved before I could think, slipping back into the shadow of the hallway, my heart hammering against my taped-up wrist.

I just found evidence number one.