All Chapters of Marry Mafia King or My Fifth Fiancés Dies: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

I didn't answer. My gaze was instead fixed on Maximilian's bare shoulder. There, a long scar split across his skin. The pale line stood in stark contrast to his sturdy body. This man before me must have been through many battles.Without realizing it, my fingertip lifted. I nearly touched the scar. But I held back at the last second.“You have so many scars,” I murmured softly.Maximilian followed the direction of my gaze. The corner of his lips lifted into a thin, proud smile.“I prefer to call them marks of victory,” Maximilian replied casually.I shook my head slightly. “If every victory leaves a mark like that, I think the price is too high.”Maximilian's gray eyes stared at me for a moment. The gaze was so deep it made me quickly look away.Knock. Knock. Knock.A knock at the door broke the silence between us.“Tsk!” Maximilian clicked his tongue softly, clearly annoyed.Maximilian rose from the bed, then began putting his clothes back on. Within seconds, the black shirt was alre

“Where did you see Owen?”The words tore out of me before I'd even finished sitting up. My phone was pressed so hard against my ear it hurt, but I barely registered the pain. My heart was doing something violent against my ribs, some frantic drumbeat that made the whole room feel like it was tilting.“Emery, calm down.” Olivia's voice crackled faintly, distant traffic noise bleeding through the line. “I'm serious, I just saw him. Like, two minutes ago. He walked right past the coffee shop I'm sitting in.”“That's not possible.” I was already on my feet, pacing toward the window, though there was nowhere for me to actually go. “He left me a message. He said he was leaving. He changed his number, Liv. His phone doesn't even exist anymore.”“Well, his body very much exists, because I watched it walk down Fifth Avenue thirty seconds ago.” A beat of silence, then her voice sharpened. “Wait. Emery, back up. Aren't you supposed to be married right now? In Bali? What is actually going on with

Fifteen years.The number lodged itself somewhere behind my ribs and refused to leave, even after Calista had gathered the tray and fled the room with a hurried apology, even after the door had clicked shut behind her and I was alone again with nothing but my own racing thoughts for company.Fifteen years was not the timeline of a hired bodyguard. Fifteen years was history. Loyalty forged in something deeper than a paycheck. And somewhere in that history, apparently, there was room for a red door nobody was allowed to open, and a man named Lucas who could stand behind Owen on a New York sidewalk without anyone finding it strange at all.I pushed my lunch around the plate without eating it, my mind already three rooms away, already standing in front of that door again.By the time the afternoon light had softened into a lazy gold, I decided I wasn't going to wait for answers to come find me. I'd spent my whole life reading rooms for a living, coaxing secrets out of nervous brides and t

“They were friends,” I said slowly. “Weren't they? Before all of this. Before the guns and the syndicates and everyone hating everyone else.”Elias set the book back on the shelf with careful.“I told you,” he said, not looking at me. “Some questions aren't mine to answer.”“That's not a no.”“It isn't a yes either.”I crossed my arms, watching him straighten books that were already perfectly straight, the same nervous habit Calista had shown me only hours earlier. Apparently everyone in this house had learned the same lesson, silence kept you safe, and safety was worth more than honesty.“Elias,” I said, softening my voice, “I'm not trying to get you in trouble. I just want to understand the man I married. Is that so unreasonable?”He paused at that, his hand resting against the spine of a book, and for a moment something almost sympathetic flickered across his weathered face.“Understanding him won't make any of this easier for you,” he said quietly. “Sometimes it makes it worse.”“

“You can threaten me all you want,” I said, my voice shaking. “It doesn't change who I am underneath your last name.”Maximilian didn't answer. He simply straightened, tucked my phone into his coat pocket without asking, and turned toward the stairs as if the conversation had already ended in his favor.“Dinner is at eight,” he said over his shoulder. “Don't be late.”I stood there long after he'd disappeared down the hallway, my hands curled into fists at my sides, rage and humiliation tangled together so tightly I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. He'd taken my phone. He'd threatened Owen. He'd done it all with that same infuriating calm, as though nothing about any of it cost him anything at all.By the time eight o'clock arrived, I hadn't cooled down in the slightest. If anything, the hours alone had only sharpened my anger into something more precise, more deliberate.Two can threaten, I thought, smoothing down my dress before stepping into the dining room. Let's