Chapter 140: A Sovereign in Hell

The air in the room grew heavy, charged with a tension that threatened to shatter the very walls.

“Another wife?” Isabella’s voice dropped to a dangerous, disbelieving whisper. “Have you finally lost your mind?”

“Yes, Isabella,” she replied, her voice hauntingly hollow. “It would be better for him. My presence… my very consciousness… it is as if he is shackled to a demon.”

The silence that followed was broken by the sharp, stinging crack of a palm meeting flesh. The blow sent her head snapping to the side, the world spinning for a heartbeat.

“Isabella! You wretch! How dare you strike me?” she gasped, clutching her burning cheek.

Isabella didn’t flinch. “You looked like you were in desperate need of it.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that Mathias couldn’t care less about your past or your ghosts,” Isabella hissed, stepping into her personal space. “If he wanted another woman, he would have found one a lifetime ago. For heaven’s sake, what has possessed you? The man accepted everything. He stayed by your side even when he believed you were the one who had murdered his own mother. And yet, here you are, acting like a spineless coward, trying to conjure an escape route out of thin air.”

“Isabella, you don’t understand…”

“What don’t I understand? That you’re too yellow-bellied to be the wife you claimed you wanted to be? Honestly! All you do is bleed him dry. Do you think your ’noble sacrifice’ will bring him joy? He has endured your worst, and now you’re making his every effort look like a mockery. Wake up! The least you owe him is a sincere apology. Did you even see his face when he walked out of here? The sheer agony in his eyes?”

The woman paused, her voice trembling. “What… what face?”

“What did you say to him?” Isabella demanded, her eyes narrowing. “Tell me the truth.”

“I told him…” she swallowed hard, the words tasting like ash. “I told him that looking into his eyes felt like looking into hell.”

Isabella slapped her own forehead in a fit of pure, unadulterated rage.

“Damn it! Have you gone completely mad, woman? Are those not the exact same eyes as your late son? Are his eyes ’hell’ too? If you truly want to repay his kindness, running away is the coward’s exit—it is never the way.”

As the words landed, the weight of her error crashed down upon her. She pulled the silk sheets around her body, wrapping them tight like a shroud or a makeshift bridge to sanity, and let out a long, shuddering sigh.

“It really is quite funny,” she whispered, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. “That you, who have always been beneath me, are the one offering me counsel.”

“The hierarchy doesn’t matter,” Isabella snapped, turning toward the door. “But you had better fix this. And you’d better do it fast.”

****************

He stared at the parchment as if it were a scaffold, the very platform of his execution. He lifted the quill, but his hand faltered, the nib hovering indecisively over the grain. The weight of that slender piece of wood felt more burdensome than anything he had ever carried in his life. Only his pride—that brittle, iron-clad armor—stemmed the tide of tears threatening to spill.

But before he could commit the final stroke, a hand surged into his field of vision, snatching the paper away with a sharp rustle.

“Mmm… divorce papers, I see.”

He was so drowned in the silence of his own ruin that he didn’t hear the heavy thud of boots approaching.

Mathias looked up. He found himself pinned by a gaze that was a haunting echo of Olivia’s, though the rest of the man’s features were the cold, chiseled legacy of Lucius.

Kyle lifted the document, scrutinizing the script with a clinical detachment before casting a frigid glance toward Mathias.

“Kyle? It… it isn’t what it looks like,” Mathias stammered, the words caught in his throat. “I cannot explain… not now.”

“No, there is no need for explanations,” Kyle replied, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “I believe I have a fairly clear idea of what is transpiring here.”

“An idea?”

Without a word, Kyle gripped Mathias by the shoulders, his strength sudden and irresistible as he hauled him to his feet.

“Kyle, what are you doing?”

Kyle didn’t answer with words. Instead, his fist arced through the air, a brutal, uncompromising strike that collided with Mathias’s cheek. The force of the blow sent Mathias reeling, his legs giving way until he collapsed back into the chair he had just vacated.

“I came here to discuss why you have allowed Olivia to wither away under the influence of drugs,” Kyle hissed, looming over him like a dark omen. “But it is all painfully clear now. You truly are a scoundrel. First, you stand by while she destroys herself, and now? Now you seek to cast her aside?”

Mathias wiped the smear of crimson from his lip, a bitter, jagged laugh escaping his throat. “Strike me again,” he provoked, his voice laced with a dark yearning for penance. “I deserve it. Please, Kyle… hit me until I can’t feel anything else.”

Kyle’s fury flared anew; he lunged forward, seizing Mathias by the collar with white-knuckled intensity. Yet, as he looked into his friend’s eyes, he saw a man more thoroughly shattered than any physical blow could ever achieve. The fire in Kyle’s stance flickered and died.

He released the collar with a rough shove, looking away as he searched for a shred of his fading indignation. “You’re lucky,” Kyle muttered, nursing his hand as a hollow excuse. “My hand is injured. Were it not for that, I would have mapped your face in bruises.”

Mathias offered no rebuttal. He simply sat there, staring into the middle distance with eyes that had gone utterly vacant—hollow orbs reflecting a soul already departed.

Despite the heat of his earlier rage, the sight of Mathias’s profound desolation sowed a seed of doubt in Kyle’s mind. Something was profoundly wrong.

“As friend to friend, Mathias… I want the truth,” Kyle said, his voice dropping its edge. “Why this? Why divorce? You were the one who always stood between her and the world. How did you let it fall this far? You’ve stood by her madness, her vices… and now, you just cast her away?”

Mathias finally met his gaze, his smile a ghost of a thing. “Tell me, Kyle… if Layla looked at you and told you that she saw the fires of hell reflected in your eyes, could you stay? Could you bear to be the source of her torment every time she looked at you?”

Kyle stiffened, the air catching in his throat. He swallowed hard, the hypothetical striking too close to home. “I… Layla and I are different. I love her. Of course, I wouldn’t let her suffer—if leaving her was the only way to grant her peace, I would do it. But you and Olivia… you’re not like us.” He paused, searching for the right words. “Your union… it was a political arrangement. Why must you be so sensitive about a contract?”

Mathias turned a sardonic, weary smile toward him. “I don’t recall ever telling you that I was indifferent to your sister. What gave you the impression that my heart wasn’t involved?”

A stunned silence filled the room. Kyle took a step back, his eyes widening in genuine disbelief.

“You… Mathias Lucron… do not tell me,” Kyle stammered, the realization dawning on him like a cold shock. “Do you actually love Olivia? Not as a duty, but… truly?”

Mathias let out a long, ragged sigh, the sound of a man surrendering to a truth he could no longer hide.

“God help me,” he whispered, “it would appear that I do.”

The air in the study seemed to thin as Kyle’s voice failed him. He stared at his friend in sheer, stark disbelief, his hand finally coming to rest on Mathias’s shoulder with a weight that felt like an anchor.

“You love her?” Kyle managed at last, the words barely a breath.

Mathias turned a mocking, weary gaze toward him. “Do I truly need to repeat myself, man?”

Kyle let out a sharp, incredulous huff. “I have never seen a fool quite like you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You love her,” Kyle paced a small circle, his voice rising in agitation. “You want her to be happy, and yet, instead of building that happiness, you decide—no! I shall be the grand martyr! I shall be the idiot who divorces her! Honestly, Mathias, you are the single greatest fool humanity has ever produced.”

“Build her happiness when she wants no part of it?” Mathias shot back, his voice cracking. “I think you’re the fool here, Kyle, not I.”

“Oh, brilliant! And divorcing her makes everything better? Truly, a move deserving of a standing ovation!” Kyle’s sarcasm bit like a lash. “By heaven, man, divorce means her return to that wretch, Roland. Is that your grand plan? To hurl her into the wolf’s fortress so he can exploit her until her last breath? You know exactly what kind of man he is.”

“But… I have become her hell,” Mathias whispered, his eyes fractured with pain. “Do you not understand? I am the fire that burns her.”

Kyle stared at him, and for a fleeting second, it was as if Olivia herself—with all her jagged energy and ruthless cruelty—had taken root in Mathias’s soul. They were two halves of the same tragic storm.

Without another word, Kyle snatched the divorce papers from the desk. He struck a flame and held it to the edge, watching as the fire began to consume the ink.

“Then so be it,” Kyle hissed, the flickering orange light dancing in his eyes as the parchment turned to ash. “If you are the hell she sees in your eyes, Mathias… then don’t leave her. Stay. Make her Lilith—the queen of this very hell.”

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