IF ONLY YOU HAD LISTEN

Marcus POV The bass from the speakers thudded against my ribs like a second heartbeat, but it was the phone buzzing in my pocket that made me smile. I pulled it out under the table, angling the screen away from Marcus, who never missed an opportunity to read my messages over my shoulder. Isabella: Is this your last night as a respectable man, or should I still have your tuxedo burned? A laugh cracked out of me before I could stop it. "What?" Marcus leaned in, beer sloshing dangerously close to the rim of his glass. "What did she say?" "Nothing." I locked the screen and pressed it flat against my chest like that would somehow hide it better. "That's not nothing." Chris pointed his bottle at me from across the table. "That's the face of a man who's already whipped, and he isn't even married yet." "I'm not whipped." Marcus burst out laughing, shaking his head as he pointed at me. "Oh, come on, you can't deceive us." He leaned back, still grinning. "That's the smile of a man who is already in love.” I ignored them and typed back. Me: Burn it, and I'll marry you in sweatpants. Your call. Her reply came fast, like she'd been waiting. Isabella: I've seen your sweatpants, Adrian. I'd rather you be naked at the altar than in those. I laughed again, louder this time, and didn't bother hiding it. Let them see. Me: Oh babe, stop that. You're too naughty. We are waiting till marriage, remember. Isabella: Yes I know. But I can't just wait to be Mrs Adrian Sterling already. And finally, I have you all to myself. Me: Me too Mrs Adrian. In two days, I was marrying the only woman who could make me forget. I was sitting in a room full of my oldest friends, all of them trying to get me drunk enough to embarrass myself on camera. "Another round lover boy," Marcus called out, already waving down a server. "I'm done." I checked my watch. It's almost midnight. "Early morning tomorrow." "Come on, man, you've got two days, not tomorrow," Chris slid a fresh glass toward me anyway. "One more. For the last time, you get to be an i***t before you become a husband." I should have said no. I told myself I'd have one more, then leave. By the time I actually stood up, my head was heavier than it should have been, the room tilting a fraction when I turned too fast, my friends' voices blurring into a warm, indistinct hum behind me. The cold night air hit my face when I stepped outside, and for a moment it cleared my head enough to think about her. Isabella, probably asleep by now, her phone on the nightstand, dreaming about flowers and seating charts and whatever else she'd spent the last six months worrying over. Two days. I held onto that thought the entire ride back to the hotel, right up until I fumbled my key card against the door twice before it finally beeped green. The room was dark and silent, exactly how I'd left it. I dropped my keys somewhere near the desk — didn't care where — and made it as far as the edge of the bed before gravity won. My tie loosened, my shoes still on, the ceiling spinning slow, lazy circles above me. I remember thinking I should call her. Just to hear her voice. Just to say goodnight, but I couldn't. My eyes were already closing when I heard it. The door. Not the lock disengaging — the door itself, opening. I forced my eyes back open, my head swimming, my body refusing to cooperate when I tried to push myself upright. "Who's there?" No answer. A shape moved through the dark, unhurried, deliberate, and every instinct in me screamed that something was wrong even as my limbs refused to listen. I reached for my phone on the nightstand. My fingers brushed it, and it slid, clattering to the floor just out of reach. My arms had turned to lead. My tongue felt thick, useless. The figure came closer, and a scent reached me. A sweet, floral, familiar in a way I couldn't place through the fog swallowing my thoughts whole. I tried to speak again. Nothing came out but a broken breath. Someone leaned down close to my ear and murmured something too soft to catch, and for one disoriented second my chest lurched with something like hope. Isabella. But it wasn't her voice. I knew that much, even as the darkness closed in from the edges of my vision, dragging me under before I could grab hold of anything solid. A flash of white light seared through my eyelids. Then another. Then another, quick and merciless, a rhythm I couldn't escape no matter how hard I tried to turn my face away. The last thing I felt was the mattress dipping beside me, a weight settling in where it shouldn't have been, and a whisper of a laugh that didn't belong to anyone I loved. Then nothing. Only one thought followed me down into the black, looping over and over like a warning I couldn't heed in time. Who was in my room?