The first thing I felt was rope.

Not pain. Not fear. Rope.

It bit into my wrists so deeply that for a second I thought my skin had been stitched to the coarse fibers. When I tried to move, the rope dragged over broken flesh, and the pain came awake all at once.

I swallowed a sound before it could leave my throat.

The second thing I felt was Adrian's back against mine.

Warm. Solid. Familiar.

For five years, that warmth had been the safest thing I knew. It had stood beside me at charity dinners where women smiled at my dress and whispered about my family. It had blocked a drunken cousin at a winter ball. It had leaned over me when I was sick and told me, in that low certain voice of his, that no one would make me feel small again.

Now his shoulders strained against mine, and the first name out of his mouth was not mine.

"Lily?" His voice was rough. "Lily, answer me."

Something inside me went quiet.

I opened my eyes.

The room swam at first: dark beams, warped planks, a hanging bulb that buzzed like an insect. The air smelled of gasoline, old water, and mold. We were inside a boathouse. I could hear the river shifting under the floorboards, slow and black beneath us.

Lily Vale lay a few feet away, tied to a rusted post. Her blond hair had fallen over one side of her face. She was crying before she was fully awake.

"Adrian," she whimpered. "Addy, I'm scared."

Addy.

She only used that name when she wanted to remind everyone she had known him first.

Adrian jerked against the rope. Because his hands were tied behind him with mine, the movement tore another strip of skin from my wrist.

I sucked in a breath.

He paused for half a second. "Evelyn?"

That was all. My name like a checkmark. Alive. Accounted for.

Then he twisted again, trying to see Lily. "Don't move, Lily. You'll hurt yourself."

I stared at the damp floorboards. A drop of my blood hit the wood and spread into the grain.

"I think I'm already hurt," I said.

Adrian turned his head as far as he could. His jaw tightened when he saw my wrists. For one brief moment, something like alarm passed over his face.

Then Lily sobbed harder.

"My hands," she cried. "I can't feel my hands. Adrian, you know I can't bleed. You know what happens if I bleed."

His attention snapped back to her.

Of course it did.

"Look at me," he said to her. "Breathe slowly. You're not bleeding. I can see your hands. You're not bleeding."

I almost laughed.

My wrists were wet. The rope had turned dark beneath my skin. But Lily was not bleeding, so the room belonged to her.

A door groaned open.

Three men came in from the far side of the boathouse. All wore dark masks. The one in front carried a hunting knife loosely, as if it were a pen he might use to sign a receipt. He was tall, broad through the shoulders, with a voice made rough by cigarettes.

"Everyone awake?" he asked. "Good. I hate repeating rules."

Adrian went still.

Even tied up, beaten, and trapped in a boathouse that smelled ready to burn, Adrian Blackwood looked like a man people obeyed. His suit jacket was torn at the sleeve. Blood marked his mouth. But his eyes were cold and focused.

"Name your price," he said. "You know who I am. Whatever you want, my family will pay it."

The masked man laughed. "That is exactly what makes this fun."

He came closer and crouched in front of us. His gaze moved from Adrian to me, then to Lily. When it landed on Lily, she shrank against the post.

"Pretty," he said. "Both of them. But this one is the bride, right?"

He pointed the knife at me.

Adrian's body tightened against mine. "Don't touch her."

I hated myself for noticing how fast my heart answered him.

It had always been this way. One sentence. One sharp look. One moment where he remembered I existed, and the foolish part of me would lift its head like a starving thing.

The man turned the knife toward Lily. "And this one?"

"Leave her out of this," Adrian said.

The man smiled behind his mask. I could see it in the creases around his eyes.

"That's the problem, isn't it? Everybody keeps saying leave her out of it, but somehow she's always in the middle."

Lily started crying again. "I don't know what he means. Adrian, I don't know him."

"Quiet," the man said.

She shut up so quickly I felt the shape of it.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out two rings.

My breath stopped.

One was Adrian's family ring, heavy black onyx set in old gold. He wore it every day, a Blackwood heirloom passed down with the family name. The other was mine.

My engagement ring.

The diamond looked pale in the weak yellow light. I remembered the night he had given it to me. I remembered his hand closing around mine. I remembered his mouth at my ear.

No one will make you feel second again.

The masked man tossed both rings onto the floor between Adrian's feet.

"Let's start simple," he said. "The bride or the girl?"

Lily made a small broken sound.

Adrian said nothing.

The silence stretched.

For five years, I had defended him in every room where people doubted us. When the first wedding date moved, I told the chapel I had been unwell. When the second moved, I told my relatives Adrian had urgent family matters. When the third and fourth moved, I became so good at lying that even my mother stopped asking if I was happy.

Yesterday, he had delayed the fifth wedding because Lily had a nightmare.

A nightmare.

Today, I sat tied to him in a boathouse while a stranger asked him to choose.

And still some ruined part of me waited.

Adrian turned his head toward me.

His eyes met mine.

They were gray, darker than usual in the bad light. I saw calculation there. Fear, too. Not cowardice. Adrian was not a coward. That would have been easier. He was worse than that.

He was a man who believed he could make the cruel choice and explain later why it had been necessary.

"Adrian," Lily whispered. "Please."

His eyes left mine.

That was the moment.

Not the words. The eyes.

I knew before he spoke.

"Let Lily go," he said.

The boathouse became very quiet.

For a second I heard only the river under the boards.

Lily gasped, then sobbed with relief. "Adrian."

The masked man clapped once, slow and soft. "There it is."

Adrian's voice sharpened. "I said let her go. My family will pay double if you release both women."

"Both women?" The man tilted his head. "That's generous, now that you've named the important one."

"You asked who to release first."

"I asked who you chose."

Adrian's shoulders pressed hard against mine. "Evelyn knows I didn't mean it that way."

I looked at the ring on the floor.

It had rolled close to my knee, just out of reach. A thin smear of my blood marked one side of the band.

"Do I?" I asked.

He flinched.

Small. Almost nothing.

But I felt it through the rope.

The masked man stood and walked to Lily. He cut the rope around her ankles first, then her wrists. Adrian watched every movement like a man counting heartbeats.

Lily crawled toward him the moment she was free.

"No," the masked man said, catching her by the back of her coat. "You don't go to him yet. Chosen doesn't mean saved. It means useful."

Lily froze.

Then he turned to me.

"Now," he said, "the bride gets a choice too."

I should have been afraid. I was afraid. My body knew danger even if my heart had gone numb. My wrists throbbed. My throat tasted like rust. My knees trembled against the floor.

But fear was not the largest thing in me anymore.

The largest thing was exhaustion.

Five years of it.

The masked man crouched until his face was close to mine. His knife rested against his thigh. "If you want to save him," he said, nodding toward Adrian, "you can."

Adrian's head snapped up. "Don't talk to her."

The man ignored him.

"One word from you," he continued, "and I'll leave Mr. Blackwood breathing. But you pay instead."

Lily went silent.

Adrian's voice dropped. "Evelyn, don't answer him."

That almost made me laugh.

All day, all year, all these years, he had answered for me. He had decided what I could bear. He had decided which humiliation was temporary, which wound was acceptable, which promise could be delayed because Lily needed him more.

Now, at last, someone had asked me.

The masked man leaned closer. "So, bride. Do you still want him?"

I lifted my eyes to Adrian.

For the first time since waking, he was looking only at me.

Too late.

Always too late.

My lips were split, and smiling hurt.

But I smiled anyway.

He Chose Her Again, So I Married His Brother — Chapter 003 - The Girl Everyone Protected

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