Page 63 of The Captive
The realization hit me with physical force, driving the air from my lungs. "No," I whispered, the knife suddenly heavy in my hand. "No, no, no..."
I looked down at Aoife, at the knife still suspended above her throat, at my fingers digging into her skin. What was I doing? What had I become?
The clarity that had guided me shattered into a thousand fragmented thoughts, each one cutting deeper than the last. I was Beatrice Ashford O'Brien. I had graduated summa cum laude from Oxford. I came from one of the oldest families in England.
And here I was, straddling a woman on the floor, a knife in my hand, ready to commit murder for a man who didn't want me.
"This isn't me," I whispered, but even as the words left my lips, I knew they were a lie. This was exactly who I was—who I had always been beneath the veneer of medication and societal constraints. The truth I'd been running from my entire life.
"Put down the knife," Alexander repeated, moving closer. "It's over, Beatrice."
Something in his tone—finality, perhaps, or pity—rekindled the rage that had driven me this far. If I couldn't have him, if everything I'd suffered had been for nothing, then what was left?
My grip tightened on the knife, a last desperate defiance. "If I can't have you?—"
I never finished the sentence. No doubt sensing my distraction, Aoife made her move. Her knee drove upward into my stomach with brutal force, expelling the air from my lungs in an agonised gasp. Her hand, still gripping my wrist, twisted sharply. Pain exploded up my arm as bones ground against each other. The knife clattered to the floor, and suddenly ourpositions were reversed—Aoife was now on top, pinning me down with surprising strength for her slender frame.
"It's done," she said, voice hard as she restrained my flailing limbs. "You've lost."
Alexander was beside us now, carefully retrieving the knife. His eyes, when they met mine, held something worse than hatred—indifference mixed with clinical assessment. I was no longer the object of his desire. I was merely a problem to be solved.
"Alexander, please," I whispered, one final, desperate appeal. "Remember what we had. What we could be together."
For a moment—one beautiful, agonizing moment—something flickered in his expression. I wasn’t sure what. But then it was gone, replaced by a cool mask. Much like the raven mask he’d hid behind during the hunt. Had I imagined our connection?
"What we had," he said quietly, "was a night of meaningless sex during a sick game. Nothing more."
The words struck like physical blows, shattering what remained of my composure. A sound escaped me—something between a laugh and a sob—as the last threads of my sanity began to unravel.
"Meaningless?" I repeated, hysteria rising in my voice. "You think what we shared was meaningless? You saw me. Yousawme!"
His expression didn't change as he turned to Aoife. "Are you alright?"
She nodded, her eyes never leaving me even as she addressed him. "Fine. Though if you'd arrived a few seconds later, we might be having a very different conversation."
"I heard you call my name," he said simply, as if that explained everything.
And perhaps it did. He had come for her. Would always come for her. The knowledge burned through me like acid, corroding hope, reason, everything but the pain.
As security personnel flooded the room, as I was dragged to my feet and restrained, as Alexander helped Aoife up with gentle hands that had once delivered such exquisite pain to my willing body, one thought crystallized with perfect clarity: This wasn't over. Not while I still drew breath.
I might have lost this battle, but the war for Alexander Moore's soul had only just begun.
Nineteen
ALEXANDER MOORE
The screamthat tore through the night air jolted me from sleep with violent immediacy. Not just any cry—my name, shouted with desperate urgency from the room next to mine. Aoife.
I was moving before conscious thought took hold, bare feet hitting cold marble as I grabbed the Glock from beneath my pillow. The hallway stretched before me in silver moonlight, Eleanor's old bedroom door standing ajar, shadows dancing beyond the threshold.
I threw the door wide, weapon raised, taking in the scene: Aoife pinned beneath Beatrice on the floor, knife suspended inches from her throat, auburn hair spread out like a halo.
"Beatrice." My voice cut through the struggle like a blade. "Let her go."
She looked up at me then, blonde hair wild around her face, eyes burning with manic fever. The next few minutes were the hardest I ever had to endure as my fear for Aoife’s life became a very real, living thing.
When Aoife overpowered Beatrice, I moved quickly, retrieving the knife while keeping my gun trained on the woman.My eyes met Aoife's briefly—she was shaken but alert, alive. The relief that flooded through me was almost overwhelming.
