Time stopped.
Ethan's hips still moving.
Stella's nails still raking his back.
Her moan still hanging in the air..
Jace's best friend
His brother since their first year in college.
Ethan wasn't just any friend. He was a Montgomery—one of the five most powerful families in Eastern Europe, his bloodline dripping with old money and political influence.
Jace had never understood why Ethan had taken a liking to him back in college.
While Jace had clawed his way up from nothing, an orphan with nothing but his wits. Ethan had been born into a world of private jets and shiny mansions.
Yet, against all odds, they had become brothers.
Elliot had been there for every heartbeat…every 'celebration.'
From the first time Jace pointed Stella out across that Harvard lecture hall… "That one. She is different"…..to the wedding where Elliot stood as best man, clinking champagne glasses with the Whitmans like he belonged.
Ten years of brotherhood.
All leading to this moment…. his best friend's hips grinding into his wife, her teeth sinking into Ethan's shoulder.
Betrayal, sharp and suffocating, clawed at his chest.
Jace expected panic. Expected Ethan to scramble off Stella in horror, to stutter out apologies, to beg for forgiveness.
They didn't even stop.
Elliot chuckled and brushed his lips against Stella's flushed skin. Owning the moment.
Then he withdrew. Lazily.
Jace's body turned to stone
Still buried inside his wife, his best friend met his gaze and smirked. "Oh good," he panted, "you are just in time for the encore."
For a long, agonizing moment, silence hung in the air. Then, in a voice so cold it barely sounded like his own, Jace spoke, "How dare you?"
"Oh, relax."
Elliot dismissed him with a flick of his wrist, buckling his belt like Jace was nothing more than a servant interrupting dinner.
His gaze slid to Stella who was still naked, still sprawled across their marital bed like a conquest—her lips curled in bored amusement.
"Funny," Elliot drawled, "I thought Botswana was a one way trip."
"That question has been playing on my mind since you arrived, husband," Stella said coldly and asked, "Did you miss your flight? Because I saw you enter the Bentley earlier."
"I walked in on you fucking my brother—" His hands trembled, his vision blurring red. "—and you are worried about Botswana?"
Silence.
Then Stella sighed, "Oh Jace. Always so dramatic."
Elliot smirked. "We were just discussing your future."
"You bastard!" Jace seethed as he curled his fist in anger, "You snake!"
"Christ, must you always whimper?"
Stella rose from the bed…slow, deliberate…wrapping herself in a robe worth more than Jace's
last paycheck.
Her gaze raked him up and down, her lips curling at his wrinkled shirt, his shaking hands.
"Botswana was your one job," she sneered. "Couldn't even mange that without fucking it up?"
Behind her, Elliot buttoned his cuffs, amused. "Guess we will have to slash his allowance."
"You are pure evil Stella" Jace spat bitterly, "I thought you just couldn't stand me because of my social status, but now I see that it's pure hatred."
The slap cracked like a gunshot.
Stella's manicured claws…blood red, pointed filed….dug into his Jaws she forced his face towards hers.
"That filthy mouth," she hissed, her breath hot with champagne and contempt. "Don't you dare speak my name again. You are just a pig."
Being lost for words, Jace thundered down the stairs, determined in causing a scene as he shouted angrily, asking for everyone to come to the foyer.
Which they all did—angrily, including the two devils, who were both still clad in their bath robes, with a bored look still plastered on their faces.
"What is this disgusting spectacle?" Morana voice lashed the air, sharp enough to draw blood.
Then she saw him…Jace, standing in the wreckage of his own life, shirt crumpled, eyes wild with betrayal.
A vein protruded at her temple and snarled, "You." The word dropped venom. "Why is this stain still in my house?"
Behind her, Stella smoothed up her robe, looking unfazed and replied, "He missed his flight."
Morana's lip curled in an evil smirk. "Typical. Can't even leave properly."
Jace inhaled slowly, then spoke with a calm voice, as he tried to mask the emotions rolling within him. "Funny story. I forgot my wallet."
Silence. The air turned thick with anticipation.
"No ID, no flight." He shrugged, feigning nonchalance even as his pulse hammered thunderously. "So I came back."
Another pause. This time longer.
"And imagine how surprised I was…." His voice dropped to a whisper, "when I found my best friend balls deep in my wife."
Jade knew for the fact that nobody liked him at the Whitman mansion—not his wife, his mother in law, not his two brother in laws who had stood by the door way with their hands tucked deep in their trouser pockets, looking at the proceedings quietly with an amused look on their faces.
The silence that followed was deafening
But he didn't expect what happened next—
"And?" Morana arched a brow with her voice dripping with disdain. "Is that why you are throwing a tantrum? Because your wife has standards?"
Jace stared at her in disbelief and his voice shook as he said, "Mother you don't mean that, I just told you—"
"Jacey…." Ethan said with a chuckle, "just give it a rest and stop waisting our time."
Mike staggered as he looked around at the mocking faces looking back at him and realized—
This wasn't the first time.
"For how long has this been going on?" he asked weakly— not that he really cared to know, but a tiny part of him is curious…for how much of a fool he had been.
Ethan drew Stella against his chest, with his fingers spread out possessively over her hip and slurred, "Poor Jace. Stella has always been mine." He placed a kiss to her temple. "You were just…entertainment."
Stella lovingly traced Ethan's jaw with her red nails like fresh blood. "Six years of marriage…" she mused. "….and you never suspected?"
Silence. Then—
"God. You are so dull."