A Vow Of Hate by Lylah James

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

 

THE PRESENT

 

Julianna

 

 

I told my husband everything. Starting from the very beginning, until now.

The first time we met – how scared I had been to reveal my identity, and then how the fear of losing him had kept me from telling him the truth for the longest time.

Knowing he was betrothed to my sister, that he was meant to be married to her – I just wanted to have him a bit longer.

For him to be mine before he became hers.

And then I explained to him how I hid my identity after the accident. Dyeing my hair black and changing my voice. Controlling my pitch when I was heavily emotional was hard at first, but after two years of practice, I was able to carefully modulate my voice to sound different than how I usually sounded.

And with my black veil covering my face, it was easier to become someone else in Killian’s eyes than the woman he loved.

Halfway through my story, I started choking on my tears, but Killian’s face remained expressionless. Impassive. Almost like he wasn’t even here. Killian sat up against the wall, one of his legs stretched out in front of him and the other bent to the knee. He was still bare-chested and my gaze brushed over the bullet scar on his stomach.

The bullet he took for me.

The scar he got from protecting me.

The only indication I got that he was listening to my version of our story was the way his jaw tightened, in the slightest way. There was a muscle tick in his left cheek as he gritted his teeth. As if to force himself to remain silent.

His eyes darted to me once, over the unmarred side of my face before his gaze lingered on my left side, my scars – before looking away and at the wall beside my head. His arm was rested on his bent knee and I watched him clenching and unclenching his fist.

“I wanted to tell you the truth, so many times,” I said, my voice breaking. “Especially after our engagement party. But it was never the right moment. I tried; I really did. You have to believe me, Killian.”

The accident happened exactly a week after our engagement party. I had seven days to tell him the truth, and every time it was on the tip on my tongue, I swallowed my bitter lies.

I thought I would have more time. We still had two weeks before my sister’s plan to run away and four months before our wedding.

The night of the accident, it was completely out of character for both of us to sneak out.

I never had any friends. Hell, I didn’t even know what girls my age would talk about or what they’d do for fun. I was confined within the four walls of my room and that was my life. I only had Selene and Gracelynn…

Until Killian.

Gracelynn was planning to run away the next week and we didn’t know when we’d see each other again or if ever… We wanted good memories, something fun that normal sisters would do together. Sneaking out, going to a party, just… living. Instead of being a proper lady, sitting quietly and nodding, smiling when we were told to, speaking when we were expected to.

For just one night, I had wanted to experience something other than the confines of the Romano’s manor. I wanted to live beyond my father’s expectations.

Just one night.

With my sister.

Only for it to end in tragedy.

When Gracelynn had gotten the invitation, she had simply refused. She wasn’t interested in parties and getting drunk anymore. There were more important issues for her to worry about. Simon and her baby – and their plan to elope. I was the one who convinced her to go the party, thinking it would be a good idea to get her mind off things, to be less stressed.

If only we hadn’t…

I wanted to defend my impulsive decision, but at the end, it wouldn’t change what happened that night.

I wiped my tears, my fingers brushing over the jagged lines of my scars. I never thought this day would come, where I would stand in front of Killian without my veil.

Where my lies had come undone and I was bare in front of him – my scars on display and my secrets no longer hidden.

If he had cut open my chest and tore out my heart – it would have probably hurt less.

“Say something,” I begged him, when the silence became too heavy to bear. My fingers curled into the bedsheet, where I was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Please.”

Killian worked his jaw, his fists clenching and unclenching, but didn’t respond to my pleading.

“Tell me you hate me,” I cried. “Scream at me. Say something, please!”

“Why?” he questioned, his voice composed. It surprised me, but I had learned to fear Killian’s calm over his rage. There was something serene about his calm – quiet and peaceful, like the eye of a hurricane before it forces you to collapse under the weight of the destruction it brings.

His calm should never be trusted.

It was deceitful.

Like me.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth after the accident?”

“There was no way for me to get out of this marriage,” I explained. “I couldn’t go against my father and I knew how important this union was for our families. But I thought that once we were married, it would be easier to make you hate me more than you already did and we’d eventually go our separate ways – that way, you would be able to move on. I wanted to make sure that you could move on. To find love again. With another woman, who deserved you more. No lies, no deceit, no secrets.”

The ache in my chest grew more intense and I practically gagged at how bitter the words tasted on my tongue. It hurt, confessing that truth out loud. To tell Killian that I wanted him to move on with another woman…

For my love was a catastrophe.

It didn’t matter that it killed me, the mere thought of my husband being with another woman. Touching her. Bedding her. Loving her.

It was so unfair, but our love story was just that.

Something tragic.

An incomplete story, with missing pages and a dubious ending.

“That should have been my choice. Not yours,” Killian hissed. He surged to his feet in a quick motion and straightened to his full height, imposing and menacing. There was a deadly glint in his dark gaze that worried me. “You took that choice away from me. You don’t get to choose when or how I move on, Julianna. You should have told me the truth and I would have decided if I still wanted you or not, despite the lies and the scheming. You didn’t give me a chance to choose you!”

“Because I didn’t want you to choose me,” I bellowed, lunging off the bed. I stood on unsteady feet, practically swaying. My left leg jerked, a muscle spasming up my calf and into my knee. “Don’t you get it, Killian? I didn’t want a happily ever after with you. Not after what happened. Not after my sister… I couldn’t.”

Killian released a bitter laugh, filled with venom and sorrow. I swiped my tears away. “Marrying you was supposed to be my repentance.”

His body tensed, the muscles of his shoulders growing rigid. “That was where you went wrong. I’m not your atonement; I never was.” He shook his head, his jaw tight and dark eyes violent with rage. “It was always about self-loathing. I was right, you have a penchant for pain. You needed to somehow alleviate your guilt. So you thought the best way to hurt yourself, to destroy yourself was to marry the man you loved but have him hate you. Self-destruction.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” I choked, my hands shaking so bad I didn’t know how to stop my tremors. There was an insistent tingle growing inside my body. It slithered through my arms, burrowing into my chest and then down to my legs. My toes were starting to feel numb.

“If it’s sympathy you want, you won’t get it from me,” Killian said flatly, devoid of any humane emotions.

“Pity is the last thing I want from you,” I cried. My heart hammered in my chest and my body felt out of sorts, odd and detached. My emotions were in turmoil, but my brain didn’t seem to register them.

The warning signs were clear, but I was too slow at recognizing them. Too lost in this moment, in the madness in Killian’s eyes and the unmasked sorrow in his voice.

He advanced toward me, his steps slowed and measured, almost like he was trying to remain in control. “It’s ironic how you called me out on my rage; you said a lot of things about how I can’t deal with my issues, therefore I was taking them out on you. You fucking preached about how problematic I was. That I was the reason for my own unhappiness. But yet, we are so alike. Goddamn it. You’re self-destructing and bringing everyone else down with you,” Killian snarled. “You are no better, Julianna! Huh, how ironic, is that?”

My whole body flinched at the cruelty of his words, their hostility. I wanted to scream that none of it was true… that I wasn’t self-destructing. That he was wrong.

But it would just be another lie.

Killian read me like an open book and he clawed out all my insecurities, all my thoughts and ugly emotions. He tore apart my pages and forced me to bare myself completely open, before shoving my own words back into my face.

He saw me.

Like he did three years ago.

Killian saw the real Julianna.

The one who was tormented by the ghost of her sister. The one who succumbed to the disease that was guilt. Cursed with memories that were moored inside of me – my sister’s bloodied and mangled face. A soul that howled in despair, a resentment that had burrowed itself inside my bones and sorrow that was too heavy to carry.

Atonement was only an illusion that I was desperate to believe in.

With each step he took toward me, I moved back. But he quickly erased the distance between us, pushing me into the wall behind me. The room still smelled of sex and our arousal, but it was his scent that engulfed me. Musky and earthy.

“You were in that car with her, I get it. You watched your sister die, I get it. It was traumatic for you, I get it. You suffered physically and mentally, and you’re guilt-ridden, I. Fucking. Get. It. But that doesn’t give you the right to play with me and my feelings, to deceive me or to make me mourn the woman I loved when she wasn’t even dead!” His palm slapped over the wall beside my head and I flinched, hiccupping back a sob.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, so softly the words were barely audible.

Killian pulled away quickly, as if I had burned him with my words, with my apology.

I wished I could tell him just how sorry I was, but where to begin? The only thing I could mutter was a useless sorry.

“Did you even love me? Was anything that we had even real, Grace?” He shook his head, smiling bitterly. “Sorry, I mean… Julianna.”

“I didn’t fall in love with you,” I whispered. His dark eyes flared and his chest rattled with a shuddering breath. The torment on his face killed me. It shattered whatever was left of my already broken heart.

I dug my nail into my thighs, feeling the burn. The pain kept me grounded. “I plummeted into chaos because your love was everything beautiful and pure, but my love was everything deceitful and destructive. So, I didn’t just fall in love with you, Killian. I crawled, on my knees, bleeding for you. So, it was real. Every moment, every smile, every kiss… it was real and it hurt.”

The pounding ache in the back of my head grew more acute and I blinked several times, trying to clear my blurry vision.

“I mourned you,” he said, his voice breaking for the first time. “You were right here, in front of me, while I was chasing a ghost. I fucking mourned you for three years, Julianna. How do you think I can… move past this? You turned this marriage into a joke!”

Killian took a step back. He made it obvious that he couldn’t bear to be close to me, to be in my presence. His hands shook and he brought a fist to his mouth, his expression pinched in agony.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated when my words failed me.

“I told you… I told what I wanted,” he said darkly. “I whispered things to you that I never spoke with anyone else. My fears, my dreams, my secrets. You knew what my parents’ marriage did to me. And you knew what I wanted for myself. Something real. But you walked into this marriage with lies and secrets…and FUCK!”

He stabbed a finger into my direction. “You’re a deceitful woman and I can’t even fucking trust you anymore. No, goddamn it. I don’t even know if what I feel for you is love anymore.”

“No,” I choked. The room swayed and I reached out for him, limping. More tears slid down my cheeks, my throat closing around the large lump.

“I crashed and burned for you,” Killian hissed. “And you left me there, bleeding. So cruelly. So mercilessly.”

His lips curled, in an almost threatening manner. “There’s a fine line between love and hate. And I just realized that I love you as much as I fucking hate you, Julianna.”

I thought giving up on Killian as part of my atonement was difficult. It killed me, to marry him, to watch him hate me while I loved him in silent. To swallow my lies like a bitter pill. To enter this marriage with deceit. My repentance had shattered my heart and turned my love story into something ugly and tragic.

But I hadn’t been prepared for this moment.

When my truth came out and I truly lost him.

I stumbled back into the wall as my body grew cold, numb.

My brain stuttered.

My left leg spasmed again and the muscle in my bicep jerked.

His face hardened, cold and impassive. “I thought you were just a mere storm, but you are the goddamn hurricane – fascinating but deceptive. Tempting but destructive. You’re pure chaos. Once upon a time, I would have gladly let myself be destroyed by you and counted it as a blessing, but now I want absolutely nothing to do with your martyrdom.”

A sob spilled from my throat and I clutched my chest, feeling as if I had been torn open and ripped apart.

This was what I wanted, I thought guiltily.

For him to hate me.

For him to leave.

So he could move on. Start over again.

For the burden of my guilt would not be so heavy anymore.

And I could finally find peace.

I had waited for this day – for my atonement to come to an end.

But God, it hurt.

The agony was brutal, cutting through me so mercilessly. I reminisced of my love, but it was a seed that never sprouted. That was never meant to be.

Tragedy ran through our blood and our love story was just a mere wilted rose.

Our beginning was tainted with lies.

Our ending was stained by my deception.

But it was the wailing of our broken hearts that tormented me.

Killian’s gaze roamed my face, lingering over my scars before meeting my eyes.

One heartbreaking eye-lock.

Two agonized heartbeats.

Three shattering seconds.

“You were the thorn, Julianna. You always were,” Killian said, his voice deceptively soft.

When he spun around, a devastating sob spilled from my throat.

I watched him walk away.

Thud.

The numbness spread through my body.

Thud…Thud….

The room swayed. I gasped.

My tremors started from my toes, slithering up my legs, digging into my stomach and slicing through my chest. My tongue grew heavy in my mouth and my jaw locked.

Thud… Thud… Thud…

The moment my body seized; the world went pitch black.