Contract Marriage With My Billionaire Boss (Venus and Aaron) novel Chapter 123

Chapter 123

VENUS

The forest swallowed every sound except his footsteps and my sobs.

62

Gerald’s hand was a vice around my wrist, yanking me forward so hard my shoulder screamed in protest. My legs stumbled to keep up, dragging through underbrush, every jagged rock and thorn slicing bare skin. My breath came out in ragged gasps, half from the sprint, half from terror clawing at my throat.

“You” his voice cracked, a harsh, unhinged rasp, “you couldn’t just stay put, could you?” He dragged me faster, branches whipping my face, the cabin looming closer with every staggering step. “I give you everything. I keep you safe. And you still… still try to run to him.”

“Please,” I choked out, my voice shaking, desperate. “Gerald, just-listen to me-‘

99

He spun so fast I barely saw the movement before his hand cracked across my face. The sting bloomed hot, my ears ringing, my knees threatening to give out. He leaned in close, his breath ragged, his eyes wild, pupils blown wide like an animal driven to the edge.

“Don’t say his name,” he hissed, spit catching on his lips. “Don’t you dare say his name to me. Why can’t you just-” his voice broke, fury and desperation tangling in a terrifying mess “why can’t you just love me back?”

I sobbed, shaking my head, trying to pull free from his grip. “I-I don’t want to fight, please, Gerald, just let me go-”

He yanked me hard, his fingers digging bruises into my arm as he hauled me inside the cabin and slammed the door so violently the walls rattled. The room seemed smaller now, the air thicker, choking me as much as his presence.

He paced like a caged animal, running his hands through his hair, muttering under his breath. “They’ll come. They’ll find us. He’ll take you away from me.” His voice cracked on the last word, his gaze snapping to me, crazed and glinting with something dark, final. “If I can’t have you, Venus… no one will.”

My blood went cold.

I took a step back, trembling, my shackled breath the only sound. “Gerald… don’t—please, don’t do this. We can leave, we can go far away, just don’t—”

“Shut up!” he roared, the sound so loud it rattled in my skull. His face twisted in a mask of grief and rage, tears clinging to his lashes but never falling. “You were supposed to be mine forever! Not his. Not theirs. Mine.”

He lunged, grabbing me by both arms, shaking me so hard my teeth clacked together. “You’re forcing me to do this. I didn’t want to. God, I didn’t want to.”

Before I could scream, he shoved me toward the bed, forcing me down and fastening the cold bite of metal cuffs around my wrists, then my ankles. My heart pounded so loud it drowned out everything else, my body thrashing against restraints that didn’t budge.

“Gerald!” My voice tore from my throat, hoarse, panicked. “You don’t have to do this, please, you don’t—”

20:28 Wed, Jan 14 M…

Chapter 123

62

His face twisted with something that wasn’t love anymore. It wasn’t even obsession. It was possession tainted by despair. “If I can’t keep you safe from him, then I’ll keep you forever,” he whispered, almost tenderly, like this was some act of mercy.

He disappeared for a moment, dragging something heavy from the corner of the cabin. When he pulled it into the light, bile rose in my throat.

A wooden casket.

Where had it come from? Had he built it? Prepared it? Was this always his endgame?

“No,” I sobbed, panic clawing my insides raw. “No, Gerald, please, please don’t do this!” I kicked at the cuffs, screamed until my voice cracked, but it only made him move faster, his face twisting in a grimace like this hurt him too but not enough to stop.

He hauled me up, his grip iron as he dragged me outside, the cuffs cutting deeper into my skin. The night air was freezing, but it did nothing to numb the terror burning me alive from the inside out.

He shoved me toward the shallow hole he’d been digging for God knows how long. The dirt was fresh, the spade lying beside it like this had been inevitable from the start.

“I wish things could’ve been different,” he said hoarsely, his eyes glassy now, soft in a way that made the moment even more horrifying. “I really, really wish they could.”

“Then stop!” I sobbed, falling to my knees, desperation stripping away pride, anger, everything. “Stop and let me go! Gerald, I’ll stay quiet, I won’t run, just please don’t put me in there-”

His hands trembled as he grabbed my face, forcing me to look at him. “You’ll never stop running back to him,” he whispered like it was a truth that stabbed him too deep. “You’ll never be mine while he’s out there. And I can’t let him take you. I won’t.”

He kissed me then. Hard. Brutal. Nothing tender, just a brand of desperation and finality, tasting of salt and madness. My stomach lurched. My scream was swallowed by his mouth.

He pulled back, breathless, his forehead pressing to mine for a long, heavy second. “I’ll miss you,” he murmured like a lover heading off to war, not a man burying me alive. “You were the only real thing I ever

had.”

And then he lifted me, ignoring my thrashing, my pleading, my nails clawing uselessly at his arms, and lowered me into the wooden box.

The smell of fresh wood and damp earth closed around me as panic screamed in my veins. I begged, screamed his name, sobbed until my lungs burned, but his face was carved in stone as he looked down at me one last time.

“I love you,” he said softly. “Too much to let him win.”

The lid closed.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

20:29 Wed, Jan 14 M

Chapter 123

The scrape of dirt hitting wood was the last sound I heard before terror drowned everything else.

T

62

AD

Comment