Submitting to my Ex Uncle-Chapter 235

Theresa sat down proudly on the couch. Her legs were sassily crossed, with her gaze locked on Elias.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt. When he opened the door for her and turned away, she had seen the marks across his back. They were new, deliberate, and savage.

She smiled to herself, small and sharp. "I see you’ve been busy getting yourself torn up again."

Elias said nothing.

Theresa rose. Her heels clicked proudly against the marble. She looked around his quiet apartment. She scoffed, staring at the bare walls, half-emptied glass on the table, and the faint scent of smoke and antiseptic. "Still the same. Always the same. Cold walls, colder man."

Her eyes flicked back to him. "I don’t know what she ever saw in you."

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t look up.

Theresa tilted her head, circling him like someone studying a caged thing. "Amara’s gentle. She’s soft. She believes the world still has mercy. You? You’d burn it just to prove her wrong."

Elias finally lifted his eyes. The look he gave her was slow and heavy. It was like a warning that came too late.

She laughed, low and cruel. "What, did I hit a nerve?"

He gave her no answer. He just gave her a steady and cutting stare.

It made her restless. "Say something, Elias. Defend her. Defend yourself."

Still, he said nothing. He had been this way for days now. Since she walked out that door. He had abandoned the world.

She stepped closer, close enough to touch. Her fingers brushed a scar on his chest, following it like a trail she had no right to trace. "You always look like this," she murmured, her voice turning silken. "Half man, half ruin. Maybe that’s why she pitied you."

Her hand lingered. Her gaze dragged up to meet his. "But that’s what makes you interesting, isn’t it?"

When he didn’t move, she smiled and climbed onto his lap. Her skirt slid up her thighs as she straddled him. The space got filled with perfume and tension. Her breath brushed his jaw as her fingers trailed down his chest again.

"Still nothing?" she whispered, tilting her head. "Maybe you need a little reminder of what you’re missing."

Elias’s eyes didn’t change. They remained cold, and detached. As if she were made of smoke, or he didn’t take notice of what she was about to do.

Theresa leaned forward, lips nearly touching his. She smiled, and held both sides of his cheeks to seal their lips together

The sudden sound of his hand meeting her cheek broke the stillness.

She froze, stunned, before stumbling off him. Her hair fell loose over her face as she steadied herself. "You—" Her voice shook. "You hit me?"

Elias stood slowly, calm as if nothing had happened.

Her fury returned instantly. "You think you can scare me with that soldier’s act?" she hissed. "You’re nothing but a guard dog who lost his purpose."

He said nothing. However, his silence had shifted. It wasn’t blank anymore. His silence said so much now.

Theresa smiled again, but it wavered this time. "You should know," she said softly, "my father already assigned someone else to watch Amara. Someone... capable."

The words landed on him, and broke every defense in him.

Elias’s eyes lifted, sharp now, darkening with a slow, deliberate focus that made the air change. His breath came heavier once and his fists clenched by his sides.

Theresa swallowed, her smirk faltering. Her cheeks burned, but she went on. "What?"

"Who." The word came out low. He didn’t want to speak, but he needed to ask.

She laughed, too quickly. "Relax. You don’t get to demand names. You’re out of this now."

Elias took a step closer. His one step was enough to make her stumble back. His face was unreadable, but his eyes had turned darker.

"Theresa," he said quietly. "Tell your father..."

He paused, long enough that she felt it in her throat. "Tell him I’m still watching."

Her breath hitched, but she managed a scoff. "You’re not the only one who can."

"Then pray his man never reaches her first," he said, his tone even but deadly calm.

The room seemed to shrink around them.

Theresa turned away abruptly, brushing her hair back, masking her unease with bitterness. "You’ll destroy yourself for her, Elias. You already are."

He didn’t move.

Theresa grabbed her purse from the arm of the couch. "You don’t scare me," she said again, but her voice betrayed her. It wasn’t as sharp this time. It trembled a little at the edge.

Elias said nothing.

She turned toward the door, forcing a smirk back onto her face. "You should get some rest. You’ll need it when you realize you’ve been replaced."

She walked out of the door, and slammed it hard behind her.

Elias stood there for a long time. The air was too still. He could still smell her perfume. He hated how it clung to his skin.

He ran a hand over his face, exhaling through his teeth. His breath came out low, and controlled, but something inside him trembled.

Someone else was watching Amara.

The thought looped in his head, again and again, like a wire tightening around his throat.

His hand curled into a fist, and his knuckles met the wall. He slammed his fist hard on the wall once, and then, again, and again.

He left a dent in the plaster.

His breath came in short bursts. He leaned his forehead against the wall, and shut his eyes. For a moment, he tried to swallow the anger, but it refused to go down.

He could take insults. He could take pain. But the idea of someone else, anyone else, being near her... That was the one thing he couldn’t stomach.

He opened his eyes. His reflection in the glass window looked back at him. His jaw was tight, with blood running from his knuckles. His eyes were too dark to be human.

Elias turned, grabbed his shirt from the arm of the chair, and slipped it on. The fabric brushed against his healing scars, pulling at the stitches, but he didn’t flinch.

His phone was on the table. The screen lit up with three missed calls. He ignored them.

Instead, he picked up the half-empty glass and poured what was left down the sink. The water ran red for a moment. Blood from his hand mixed with the wine that had been there earlier.

He watched it swirl, then fade.

A muscle in his jaw ticked once. Then twice.

He picked up his gun from the counter and checked the magazine.

He tucked it back into the drawer and sat down. For a long time, he didn’t move. His mind wasn’t still. It was chasing shadows, and every possible version of who that "someone else" could be.

A name hovered at the edge of his thoughts, but he refused to let it form. Not until he was sure.

He reached for his phone again. This time, he opened a message thread. One he hadn’t touched in days. Her name was at the top.

Amara.

His thumb hovered over the keyboard. The cursor blinked, patient. But he didn’t type.

What could he possibly say? That he’d let her go, and already the world had placed her in someone else’s hands? That he’d tried to protect her, and failed?

He locked the phone and tossed it onto the couch.

Elias stared at the closed door for a long time.

Theresa’s words wouldn’t stop echoing.

It wasn’t just jealousy burning through him. It was fear. A deep, low kind that came from somewhere primal.

He had seen what Carlos did to the people he called assets. He had seen what those "capable" men were trained to do.

He sat forward, with his elbows on his knees, and his head low. His hands trembled.

He muttered her name again under his breath. "Amara." He stood abruptly, and the chair scraped backward.

He grabbed his jacket, slid it on, and checked the holster once more. His fingers lingered on the grip for a second.

Then he stepped out of the apartment, shutting the door softly behind him.

Somewhere in that endless dark sky, she was moving again, breathing, and unaware that the world around her was shifting again.

Elias started walking.

He didn’t know where to start yet, but he knew this much. He wasn’t going to sit still while another man stood where he once did.

And if Carlos had sent someone after her, Elias would find out who. And when he did, the night itself wouldn’t be enough to hide him.