Chapter 8:BURN IT
1526 Words
*CHAPTER 8: BURN IT*
The house was quiet. Too quiet.
Police tape still cut across the front door in bright yellow strips. A temporary lock had been fitted where Kunle kicked the old one to pieces. Outside, two guards stood in the dark. Inside, two more were stationed at the top and bottom of the stairs.
But the silence wasn’t from safety. It was from what had happened hours ago.
Tolu was asleep upstairs. The doctor said the stress could trigger a relapse, so Zara had the nurse give her something to help her rest. Through the baby monitor we could hear her breathing. Even and steady.
Zara herself was at the precinct. This was her third statement. Fourth if you counted the phone calls.
Vanessa was gone. Her car was gone from the driveway. No one knew where she’d gone. No one had asked.
And Damian hadn’t let go of my hand since we walked out of the panic room.
Now we were standing in the living room. In front of the fireplace.
In his hands: the contract.
Thirty pages. Bound with a black clip. Every page initialed in the bottom corner. DM. AM.
Page 9 was face up.
_Section 5: Merger Contingency. In the event of a public, stable marital union lasting no less than 180 days, Party A agrees to transfer 20% of Carter Group shares to Langston Industries as part of prior merger negotiations._
Day 63.
“You sure?” I asked. My voice sounded small in the big room.
Damian didn’t look at me. His eyes were fixed on the paper. On the words that had started all of this. “I’ve never been sure of anything else.”
He struck a match.
The flame caught the corner of page one.
_Clause 1: Party B will not ask questions regarding Party A’s business, family, or past._
The paper curled. Blackened. Turned to ash and drifted down into the hearth.
He dropped it in.
Clause 2. _Party B will not become emotionally attached to Party A._
Ash.
Clause 3. _Public appearances only. No intimacy outside of required events._
Ash.
Clause 4. _Term of agreement: 180 days. Non-negotiable._
Ash.
One by one he fed them to the fire. Page 5. Page 6. Page 7.
_Don’t ask about the sister._
_Don’t go to the office._
_Don’t wear that dress._
_Don’t look at me like that._
All of it burned.
When he got to Page 9 he stopped. Held it between his fingers for a long time.
The Langston clause. Twenty percent of a four-billion-dollar company.
“Damian,” I said quietly. “If you do this, the penalty—”
“I know what the penalty is,” he cut in. His voice was low. Flat. “And I know what I’m keeping.”
He dropped it into the fire.
The flames jumped higher.
Page 10 through 16 went next. All the legal language. All the ways we’d tried to keep this from being real.
Then Page 17.
The one he’d added himself. In pen. After the first week.
_Addendum: For better or worse._
He stared at it. “The only clause that mattered.”
It caught fire fast.
The last page was the signatures.
_Damian Carter._
_Adele Morgan._
He held it for a second. His thumb brushed over his name. Then mine.
Then he let it go.
We watched until there was nothing left but gray flakes and the smell of smoke.
Silence settled over the room again. But it was different now. Lighter. Like the house could breathe.
Damian exhaled. A long, shaky breath. Like he’d been holding it since the day I signed.
He turned to me. “I don’t have a contract to hide behind anymore.”
My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it. “Then what do you have?”
He stepped closer. Close enough that I could see the tired lines around his eyes. The way his jaw wasn’t clenched for the first time in weeks.
“The truth,” he said.
The word landed between us.
“I’m in love with you, Adele.”
Not _Mrs. Carter_. Not _Party B_. Not _the wife_.
My name.
“You don’t have to say that,” I whispered. “Not because of tonight. Not because Kunle—”
“I do have to,” he said. He reached up and brushed my hair back from my face. His thumb lingered on my cheekbone. “Because I’ve been trying not to say it for two months. And I’m tired of lying. To you. To myself.”
Tears pricked at the back of my eyes. “What happens now? Without the contract?”
“Now we do this for real,” he said. “No rules. No deadlines. No penalties. We wake up together because we want to. We fight and make up because we want to. We build something that isn’t written on paper and signed in a lawyer’s office.”
The front door opened.
Zara. She stopped in the doorway when she saw the fireplace. The ashes. The way Damian was standing in front of me like he was afraid someone would take me away.
“Langston’s lawyers called,” she said. “Three times. They want to discuss the penalty for breaching Section 5.”
Damian didn’t look away from me. “Tell them we’re not discussing it.”
“Sir, the penalty is estimated at—”
“I don’t care if it’s a billion dollars,” he said. “Tell them the marriage is real. And it’s not part of any deal. Not anymore.”
Zara blinked. Then a small, surprised smile touched her lips. “Yes, sir.”
She turned and left, closing the door softly behind her.
Damian finally looked at me again. “So. No more contract wife.”
My voice shook. “Then what am I?”
He smiled. Small. Tired. Real. The first one I’d seen that reached his eyes.
“My wife,” he said. “If you’ll have me. For real this time. No clauses.”
I nodded. Couldn’t speak or I’d start crying and never stop.
He kissed me.
Not the 3-second kiss from last week. Not the desperate one from the panic room.
This was slow. Deliberate. His hands came up to frame my face. His lips moved against mine like he had all the time in the world and he intended to use every second.
When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
“Come on,” he said, taking my hand. “You need sleep.”
We walked upstairs. Past Tolu’s room. Past the guest rooms that had been mine for two months. To his.
It was the first time I’d been in here without it feeling like part of the agreement.
The room was big. Dark wood. A king bed. A window that looked out over the city. On the nightstand was a mug. Cold tea. Ginger.
He pulled back the covers. “You first.”
I slid in. The sheets were cool. He followed, lying on top of the duvet, one arm around me, pulling me against his side.
We didn’t talk. There was nothing left to say that the fire hadn’t already said.
For the first time in months, I felt safe. Really safe.
I must have drifted off.
Because the next thing I knew, my phone was buzzing on the nightstand.
3:17am.
Unknown number.
I sat up. Damian was already awake, watching me, his arm still around my waist.
I picked it up. Opened it.
A photo.
Me and Damian. In the kitchen. An hour ago. After the contract burned.
His arms around me. My head on his chest. Eyes closed.
Underneath:
_117 days left, Mrs. Carter. I’m watching._
The blood drained from my face.
“Damian,” I said, my voice barely there. I handed him the phone.
He took it. Read it. His jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might c***k.
“It’s not Kunle,” he said. “He’s in holding. No phone access.”
“Then who?”
He deleted the message. Threw the phone across the room. It hit the chair and clattered to the floor.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I will find out.”
He pulled me back down. Held me tighter than before. Like he could hold me through the walls. Through the cameras. Through whoever was watching.
“The contract is gone,” he whispered into my hair. “But I’m not letting anyone take you. Not Kunle. Not Langston. Not whoever sent this.”
Outside the window, the sky was starting to lighten. Gray turning to blue.
Inside, the ashes were still warm.
And somewhere, in the dark, someone was counting down.
117 days.
Damian’s phone buzzed. He ignored it.
Mine buzzed again. Another unknown number.
He took it from my hand and turned it off.
“No more tonight,” he said. “Tonight is just us.”
I nodded against his chest.
The fire downstairs had gone out.
But something else had just started burning.
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*END OF CHAPTER 8*
- Writer
