Castle | ✔️

Chapter Twenty Six

I kept the journal hidden at all times and would only read it late at night or when I was alone in the room. I couldn't risk Castle reading it because the contents in the diary could affect him.

I wasn't sure what other vile family secrets were in here, but I was going to find out.

After dinner, I was taking a stroll outside. Castle was being moody and sitting on the floor watching the trains move. He was upset because of the argument we had yesterday.

"Well, why didn't you ask me before?" I'd asked Castle when I came home after being told that I was co-chairperson by Devin.

Castle stared at me incredulously. "Told you what?"

"Castle, do you realize that I'm not qualified to become a co-chairperson of your company? Why did you sign those papers without asking me first?"

"You're my wife, and you'll...take decisions for me when I can't. What's so hard to understand?"

"You say I'm your wife, but you never ask me anything, not even when the decisions are directly affecting me."

"Fuck, Millie. I don't know...what the hell you want." He said, frustrated. "Why don't you just fucking say it?"

"What I want is for people in this house to stop deciding for me! That includes you too! And for god's sake, don't listen to your brother..."

He was sitting on the floor now, clearly upset by my outburst, and rocking back and forth, mumbling to himself.

The trains moved through the tracks, zigzagging, blowing smoke and whistle, moving through the tunnel in the hill.

"Don't talk to me like that!" He was breathing erratically.

I sighed, realizing my mistake. I started walking towards him, "Castle...I'm sorry...I was just..."

"I said don't talk to me! Leave." He screamed, swiping his hand over the moving trains and toppling them over. The engine lay on the ground on the side with its wheels turning.

I snapped back to reality. Castle has never been upset with me before, never screamed at me, so right now my heart ached with the thought that I was the reason he was feeling like shit. I shouldn't have said anything...I should have just let it go.

I was walking alone in the gardens; the mansion loomed at a distance, and the fog surrounding it was giving it an eerie look. I could hear the sounds of the water fountain. It was peaceful everywhere, the calm of the dead, and I was used to it. Nothing scared me more than people anymore.

I turned a corner and almost bumped into Theo.

He stood against the finely trimmed shrubs, holding a cigarette between his fingers.

"What the hell, Theo?" I stood there, dumbfounded. "You're just seventeen!"

He looked like he'd been caught doing a robbery. He took a long drag and puffed the smoke like a pro, which told me this wasn't the first time he was smoking.

"It's just a fucking smoke! Don't tell Devin or anyone about this."

"Drop it!" I ordered.

"Come on, Millie."

"I said drop the cigarette."

I guess it was my authoritative voice that made him drop it on the ground and crush it with his foot. He was still wearing the uniform from his private school.

I raised my hand towards him.

He rolled his eyes, fished out the packet of cigarettes, and handed it to me. "You know I can buy another packet, right?"