Chapter 198

Violet’s P.O.V.

The eyes I stared into were Elijah’s, the same man who had raised me these past ten years, but his face was no longer his own. Now that I had seen the mask fall, I’d never be able to go back to who I’d once been.

It tore my heart in two to know that the man who had written those terrible letters to my Mom was also the man who had bought me my first cookbook. Elijah—it had been Elijah all along. Behind those soft eyes and his kind smile was the darkest kind of monster.

No matter what I felt for him, I would not let him take me. If that meant playing into his sick fantasy, then so be it.

I inched my way across the carpet, as far away from my vomit as I could get. The stench alone would make it impossible to speak without gagging. Elijah hovered over me, still on his knees with his hands out in that placating gesture. The sight of it made me sick.

“I don’t understand how this is happening. You—You had us both. You had me at the cabin and my mother…” There was no need to f