✓ WICKED VOWS| JAKE (Book II )

THE ENDGAME

Jake

Everything was different, the things I never had imagined, since Anastasia came back into our lives. It felt unreal, driving her away for the first time from the mansion after her return. I could hardly believe that I actually convinced her to join me. Technically, I lied, telling her I needed a heart examination at the hospital. Truthfully, I'd concocted the whole thing in my head to give some sort of excuse that we had for being together that wouldn't raise suspicions. To my surprise, she volunteered to tag along, with more understanding than she appeared to. So I called my mother to sit Nymeria, now four months old.

Life had become a tightrope pulled between exhaustion and stolen moments. The nights were a confusion-one was woken up at least three times to attend to Nymeria, sleep-deprived yet thankful for little stolen minutes with Anastasia. Often, I used to relieve Nymeria from my mother's care so that Anastasia and I could steal some private time with each other. It was not easy, it wasn't those moments in the quiet of the night with Anastasia beside me that made every sleepless night so well worth it.

Nymeria had this big way of demanding attention, most especially from my uncle Alex and my older brother Jay. I remembered the first time Alex laid eyes on her. His face was a mix of confusion and fascination; he acted like he was trying to figure out what kind of creature she was. But the more he spent time with her, his initial skepticism melted, replaced by sincerity. Meanwhile, Jay could not hide his disgruntlement. Often, he would frown at me, grumbling about how I was so lucky to have a daughter, yet he himself had given birth to his second son four months prior from Nymeria. Poor Jay-it was not easy to balance family dynamics, especially when there was an addition to the Salvatore family.

Evening, after yet another exhausting day, our car finally stopped in front of The Wild Joker, which for such a long time had been a cornerstone for our family. Once well engulfed in fire, now it was remade with great thoroughness and prepared to open its doors widely before its patron, my wife.  I firmly pressed Anastasia's hand, trying to calm my nerves. She was wearing dark skinny jeans and heels with a white long top that hugged her in all the right places. Her dark hair cascaded down her head in the form of a ponytail, longer and more elegant than it used to be whenever I last saw her.

"Let's go," I said, excited to take her to the place that was filled with memories.

She looked at me with guileful eyes, and somehow, she could tell that something was amiss. "Why aren't we at the hospital?" she asked suspiciously. She already knew I had lied.

We stood before The Wild Joker, risen from the ashes of its formerly tumultuous life into a building that represented resilience and rebirth. I breathed in deep and turned the latch, pushing the door open for her to step inside. It was beautifully done inside, every little element of design still intact from before the fire, a testament to our family's effort to restore what had been lost.

We walked through the familiar halls; Anastasia scanned every room with a critical eye, her commanding yet fragile. Finally, we came to the old office site of her near-death smoke-and-chaos-filled experience. She stopped at the door, and I had to ask the one question that had been haunting me.

"Why did you come back to your office that day?" I asked in a near whisper.

Anastasia shrugged, an expression of so much pain and determination etched on her face. "I came for this," she said, her eyes dropping to the wedding ring on her finger. "I had forgotten it here that day." She spoke before she ignored my haunting eyes on her as she looked around her office place now filled with orchids. Did she dare to die in a fire because a fucking wedding ring? Sunday I wanted to strangle her alive because I am sure that my heart had stopped that day for all the minutes she lost consciousness because of the explosives. My darling wife does not care about her life and one day she will be my endgame.

"Orchids again?" she thought, referring to the flowers I brought her. Every room in the house was filled with them, which cost me millions but was worth every penny to see her tend the flowers she once ignored.

"Anything for you, Orch," I exclaimed in a whisper as my arms wrapped closely behind her. She shivered slightly with my touch as I leaned into her and pressed a gentle kiss on the skin of her cheek. "Sometimes I wonder if you are more obsessed with the lady blue orchids than me."

She whispered in my skin, "Maybe, I'm obsessed with your taking care of the flowers you planted inside my heart. With how you make those flowers bloom from love and lust. The way you make them bloom to choke me to death."

Overwhelmed with her smell, I stopped for a moment and kissed her again. "And to think of it, I might have fallen for you on the day I saw you taking care of the orchid flowers," I said, inhaling her perfume.

She smiled, with her eyes shining. "I love you."

"I know, Orch," I said, leaned in and gave her another kiss, then led her outside, where her new bike was sitting, updated from the one that exploded. She didn't look back; she simply stared at the motorcycle fluid, practiced motion to her as she moved toward it.

"You ready for a ride?" she asked, already moving toward the bike as she adjusted her gun on her jeans, the gun that she had just taken from my hostler under my suit. Great, fucking great. She was for her fire again.

"I am always up to anything you want to do with me, Lady Anastasia," I said in a jolly, relieved voice, as a wave washed over me. She came into my life and tore apart everything I had considered sacrosanct, ripped through the very core of me. Anastasia didn't just ruin my heart; she brutalized it, twisted it beyond recognition, and left it bleeding and raw in body and soul. In the ruin, in the ashes of what was whole, she planted something dark and voracious.

Love had risen among the ruins, grotesque and powerful, insatiable. Desire was a poisonous flower, beautiful and menacing, with the stench of destruction she left behind. It all flourished because of her, because of the devastation she created, because of the chaos she brought into my life.

But I'd always choose the darkness she stirred in me, the ruin carved into my soul. She's my flower of ruin.

And I will follow her into the ruins. Every. Damn. Time.

this is the last chapter, there's is still an epilogue where the whole Jay Inna, Aleksander, and Lyskander are in the same scene.

and if you want to be a beta reader for this book send me your email on ig (mine is @inkbywinter)I will contact you the first draft of the of version of this book <3