That’s when I realized, all of this was never about getting one coin.
It was about me.
About creating a situation where I’d crack…and I played right into my grandfather’s hands.
I reached into my pocket.
“Grayson don’t!” Story looked at me with wide, pleading eyes. “He’ll kill you like he killed your father! Don’t! This is what he wants! It was never about me, Grayson, it was always about you—”
Another blow landed harshly on her back, then another. Relentless.
Beryl’s eyes flashed to hers. “You keep forgetting your place.”
“Stop!” My yell bounced off the domed ceiling, and I pulled out the first gold coin. “Story is free,” I growled.
My grandfather closed the distance between us, taking the first coin.
“No.” Her voice was thready and weak; she could barely keep her head up.
“Our child is free.” I handed him another.
“No.” Her cry shredded me, left my lungs in tatters. “Don’t.”
“Don’t fucking think about challenging either of these.” I placed the two coins in his palm. My fingers flexed on the fourth one, before leaving it.
His smile stretched, showing the dimples I’d rarely seen.
Dimples that reminded me too much of my own.
Story wept as our happily ever after shattered.
His fist closed over the coins. “I think you have about five minutes before the police arrive.”
Fifty-Nine
STORY
Grayson dragged me off the floor. My shoulder blades burned, my back ached, I was in pain everywhere. Vaguely, some primal part of me screamed the contractions were coming too fast.
I didn’t care about any of that. All I cared about was the broken, thorny boy standing before me.
“What did you do?”
“What I had to do,” he gritted.
I could see the crown on his head.
The weight on his shoulders.
“I won’t lose you again. I—” I broke off as another contraction hit me. Too fast now.
His eyes blazed at that, and he breathed heavy through his nostrils. He gripped my arm, dragging me from the ballroom. “You have to go. Now.”
“No!” I couldn’t leave him. This can’t be it. It can’t be over.
Coins he’d saved for over a decade, all in the hopes he could leave this world. In one fell swoop, he’d used them to cement his stay in hell forever.
I was free, and Atlas was chained.