Page 36 of Angels Are Falling

He set his glass down on the credenza with a precision that was almost ceremonial. When he turned, his face was perfectly composed, which was how I knew he was furious. “Answer me.”

I didn’t trust myself to speak. My fingers tightened around my glass. The ice in Kai’s eyes had me frozen. He had never seemed so lethal before. The quiet fury radiating from him made the air between us feel dangerous.

My fingers trembled as I pushed my hair back from my face. I pursed my lips, unsure what to do. My thoughts whirled like the drink in my hand, unable to make sense of his mercurial moods. How could talking about Stefan trigger him like this?

Kai abandoned his drink and moved to the window. He stood with his back to me, one hand braced against the frame. The stillness in him made the room feel smaller. “This goes against our agreement.”

“What?”

“Thinking about him goes against our agreement about your wifely duties.”

I wanted to laugh. He was serious. As ridiculous as it sounded, my thoughts were no longer my own according to a clause in the contract. Kai’s lawyers had outlined the importance of compartmentalization. They referred to Stefan as my boyfriend since bigamy was illegal. Thinking about my boyfriend while I was with Kai was strictly prohibited. I was supposed to make a considerable effort to keep my mind from wandering.

The clause was so preposterous that I never thought he’d enforce it. How was I supposed to control my thoughts? Defiance ignited in my chest.

“It can’t be news to you that I think of Stefan.” Why was he acting surprised that I wanted Stefan during a panic attack? My love for him was what drove me to marry Kai. “Did you think spending a weekend together would erase my husband from my memory?”

Apparently, it was the worst thing I could have said.

Kai pivoted to face me with so much fury that I backpedaled. I had never considered him threatening before.

“I am your husband.” He said it quietly, each word distinct and separate, as if he were speaking to someone who might not understand the language. “You aren’t supposed to mention him while we’re together. I deserve that much.” He looked at me for a long moment. “He left you alone tonight. I didn’t.” A beat. “That should mean something to you.”

Kai’s contempt-filled words struck me like physical blows. Guilt clawed at the back of my mind. Perhaps I was the asshole for thinking about a man who wasn’t even there. After all, Kai dropped everything to console me while Stefan left me high and dry.

I had no idea how the situation had flipped on its head. I was mad at Kai for my new reality, but somehow, I had become the villain.

He looked at me for a moment, then away. “You’re a disappointment.”

His words knocked the air from my lungs. Sure, Kai manipulated me into this marriage and tricked me into consummating it, but so far, he hadn’t deliberately wounded me with his words. No matter the relationship, when someone says you’re a disappointment, it cuts deep.

I swallowed hard.

Kai stared at the wall in front of him. “I thought after we spent some time together⁠—”

He trailed off, the sentence hanging incomplete in the air between us. His expression crumbled, giving way to raw defeat that aged him in seconds. Without warning, he drove his fist into the wall, leaving behind a crater in the plaster. The sound of it was much quieter than I expected.

My hands instinctively covered my mouth.

What the actual fuck?

His knuckles came away smeared with blood, fresh crimson welling from torn skin. Just as he reared back to strike again, I sprang forward and caught his arm mid-swing. The momentum carried through, but my grip weakened the blow enough that it only spiderwebbed the surface rather than punching clean through.

“Stop. You’re mad at me. Don’t take it out on yourself.”

He stepped away from me and paced in a wide arc like he was trying to cool off but didn’t know how to.

How had things escalated so fast?

“Is there anything I can do?” I whispered, even though I felt utterly lost by his over-the-top reaction.

“Leave,” he said, his voice as lifeless as his eyes fixed on the hardwood beneath us.

“Kai.”

He didn’t acknowledge me. Didn’t even glance my way. For the first time since meeting me, Kai did something entirely unexpected. He ignored me.

I had no idea how to comfort him or why he was this angry. I took one step toward him, then another, like approaching a wounded animal. The man before me, with his bloodied knuckles and rage-filled eyes, wasn’t the same Kai. The Kai I knew was mature and collected, he didn’t destroy walls with his fists. The explanation couldn’t be as simple as petty jealousy over my other husband, could it?