Chapter 22: Corrupted Heart: Chapter 22

Music blares around me as the alcohol courses through my veins. The pounding pulse of the club beats in time with anarchy swirling in my heart as I close my eyes, toss my hair back, and throw my arms in the air, losing myself in the music.

Fuck. Him.

We’ve had one text exchange since I ran from the brownstone.

Ok?!?!

Rage explodes in my chest as I replay seeing that woman walking out of the brownstone—smudged lipstick, buttons undone on her blouse. “I just got fucked” sex hair.

The emotions that come surging out of me make me want to scream as loud as I can.

So I do.

Beside me, Naomi jolts, whirling as I throw my head back and shriek into the surging energy of the club. The music is loud enough that I doubt anyone else even hears it. But Naomi and Milena are close enough that both their heads snap to me.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Naomi yells into my ear.

“Peachy!” I scream back. “Just had to get out with my girls and daaance!”

My friends glance at each other, sharing a worried look.

“C’mon,” I grab them both. “We need more drinks!”

I drag them both back through the crowd. At the bar, we maneuver to an open space, and I flag down the bartender.

“Three more shots!” I yell with a totally fake grin on my face. “Tequila!”

“Bianca.” Milena puts her hand on my arm, a concerned look on her face. “What’s going on? Seriously, you’re⁠—”

“No one’s forcing you to hang out tonight.”

She gives me a probing look. “Let’s go somewhere where we can talk.”

“Fine,” I grumble. “But only if you do this shot with me.”

She turns to Naomi for support. But our other friend is turned away, grinning and chatting away with some hot blonde guy. Milena turns back to me. “Fine. But after that, I get five minutes with you someplace quiet.”

“Works for me,” I shrug casually.

We elbow Naomi for her attention, the three of us taking our shots with grimaces. Naomi instantly turns back to her new friend as Milena grabs my arm and yanks me through the crowd. We head to the second floor of the neon-lit club, the music still pounding through our bodies. Then she tugs me outside to a roof deck.

It’s warm out, but it’s a lot cooler out here than in the swirling heat of the club. I shiver from a light breeze on my sweaty skin as I turn to face her.

“Well?”

She rolls her eyes at me. “It’s me, B. You can drop the bullshit.”

I shrug. “There’s no bull⁠—”

“Will you stop talking to me as if I don’t know half a dozen girls who’ve had an arranged marriage? As if I don’t get it?”

My lips purse.

“What happened, Bianca.”

I shrug and glance away. “Nothing. It’s fine.”

“Did he hurt you?”

There’s an uncharacteristic iciness to her tone that pulls my gaze back to her. I shake my head. “No, nothing like that.”

“Because if he fucking did,” she hisses, “I’ll cut that fucking giant off at the knees.”

I smile wryly. “Thank you, psycho. But he didn’t…” My smile fades as I look away. The fury from earlier comes rushing back. “There was another girl,” I snap. “Some other woman.”

“Get the fuck out!” Milena breathes. “Seriously?”

I nod.

“How do you know?”

I bark out a cold laugh. “Because I saw her.”

“Ew!” she blurts. “Like, you walked in on them!?”

“No!” My face twists bitterly.

So does my heart, as a million horrible, stabbing images of Kratos and Amaya start swirling through my head.

“No, I just…” I exhale heavily. Then I tell Milena about the I-guess-you-could-call-it argument that I had with Kratos, and then coming back afterward to find Amaya walking out like she’d just screwed him.

When I’m done, her jaw is hanging open and her face is livid.

“Motherfucker!” she chokes, shaking her head. “I mean, the fucking gall!” She angrily shoves her hair back from her face, looking away and gritting her teeth. Then she turns back, her brows thoughtful. “Wait…did you two…” She frowns. “Did you have any sort of talk about this?”

“About…what? Him fucking other women?” I spit. “We did not.”

“No, I mean…” Her mouth twists. “Look, I do know a bunch of girls who’ve had arranged mafia marriages, okay? Some of them turned out great, and it ends up they’re head-over-heels for their arranged husband. Others, not so much. But most of them, regardless of how things are between them, have ‘the talk’ before they get hitched.”

I frown. “What the fuck is the talk?”

Milena shrugs elegantly. “The ‘are we exclusive’ talk.”

“What?”

“Think about it,” she says. “You’re forced to marry someone, usually someone you don’t really know. You’re supposed to spend your lives together so that one family can do business with another, or so that people don’t go to war. Maybe you get lucky and they’re hot, and you click with them. But maybe you don’t. And anyone who says sex isn’t a basic human need is lying. So…”

I stare at her. “You mean there are people who go into arranged marriages and then…”

“Give each other permission to fuck around because they’re not into each other? Um, yeah.”

I swallow the lump that’s formed in my throat.

“So you and Kratos….”

I shake my head. “There wasn’t ever a talk.”

She nods, clearly unsatisfied.

“What?”

Milena makes a face. “Well, then you also never had a talk specifying that you’re exclusive with each other, right?”

“We’re fucking married,” I hiss angrily, waving my ring finger in her face. “Call me old-fashioned, but I was pretty fucking sure that implied exclusivity.”

“Not so much in our world, B,” she says quietly, making a face. “I’m sorry, but…” she shrugs again. “That’s our world.”

I turn away, feeling sick as I shove my fingers through my hair. I suck in air, shaking with rage.

That asshole. That fucking ASSHOLE.

And I hate that it hurts this much. That it’s not just that I feel duped, or lied to.

It’s that I truly feel cheated on.

“But, I mean, given what you saw today…” Milena says gently. “I think it’s fair to say you’re free to do what you want too, right? I mean, he clearly is.”

I turn to her, my mouth set. She makes a face.

“Sorry, girl,” she mumbles. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

“It’s fine,” I grumble, looking away.

“Hey, we’re here, right?” she says brightly, trying to cheer me up. “Let’s go dance. I’ll even do another tequila shot with you.”

My lips twist as I half smile at her. “I might hang out here another minute or two.”

She nods and squeezes my arm. “You want company, or brooding solitude?”

“Brooding solitude sounds dandy right now.”

She smiles comfortingly. “I’ll be at the bar downstairs making sure Naomi doesn’t make bad decisions. Come find us when you’re ready, okay?”

When she’s gone, I move to the edge of the rooftop patio, away from the other laughing club-goers. At the railing, I glare out over the city, my heart twisting as anger stabs through me.

I hate that I’m this mad. Hate that I never saw this coming.

But mostly, I hate that I caught feelings for a man who warned me a thousand different ways himself that he wasn’t capable of reciprocating them.

Brutal fucking. Violence and sex. That’s what Kratos and I have. That’s what we share.

Nothing else.

Angrily, I yank out my phone out. I absently doom-scroll TikTok for a while, trying to clear my mind of lurid images involving Kratos and that woman fucking. When it doesn’t work, I switch to Instagram. When that also fails to take my mind off things, suddenly, another thought crosses my mind.

I think it’s fair to say you’re free to do what you want too, right?

In a heartbeat, I’m opening the Club Venom site and logging in to my fake account.

It’s not that I even want anyone else. And I hate that. I hate that even though he’s apparently fine screwing some other woman, I still only want him.

I glare at my profile screen: not a single new match. No new messages. Nothing.

Pouting and feeling the heady effect of that last shot, my eyes slide up to the top of the screen.

Wait, what?

My gaze lands on a tiny little hyperlink under my profile name, and the profile picture I uploaded of my butt in yoga pants.

Reset profile options.

I frown and tap the little question mark next to it. A popup window opens on my phone:

Resetting profile options clears any cached data on your account. Warning: clicking this will entirely reset your match parameters, potentially giving you more matches than you may be looking for.

Sane me says to close the window, put the phone away, and go find my friends.

Tequila-drunk angry me taps the link.

Your match parameters have been reset.

Big deal. As if I’ll get any new⁠—

My phone dings. When I look at it, I freeze. A message I’ve seen before pops up.

Dear BrokenBee,

A match has been made for you with another Member. You have both been notified. Please use this link to initiate a private chat with your potential partner. Like at the Club itself, we encourage the use of anonymity, as well as open and honest communication. Both parties should discuss hard limits and safe words before meeting. Please enjoy your experience.

Holy shit.

My pulse jackrabbits as I stare at the message. Something twists uncomfortably in my chest, too. But I shove that feeling aside as horrible, toxic images of Kratos and her slither through my head.

Fuck you.

I click on the link. Instantly, a chat opens.

I swallow. My heart clenches.

No.

I chew on my lip uneasily, remembering the first conversation I had with Kratos here. How dark, direct, and to the point he was. This person sounds similar, but there’s something completely clinical in his response that throws me a little.

I wrinkle my nose the second I hit send. Why did I tell him that? Probably guilt. Feeling that emotion only annoys me more.

Kratos doesn’t deserve my guilt. Not when he’s out cavalierly fucking other women. Not when he’s responding to me saying don’t wait up with “ok” and not checking in with a single text or call since then.

He’s probably busy with some girl.

Angrily, the tequila burning in my system, I glare back at my phone screen.

It takes a second before what he’s asked clicks: am I married with an open relationship? Or am I married and pissed at my husband?

I stare at the screen, pushing down the dull, twisting ache in my chest.

I swallow.

I close my eyes, my heart wrenching.

What the fuck am I doing?

I take a shaky breath and start to type “this was a mistake, sorry” to my new match. But then I switch to my texts, bring up the thread with Kratos, and text him.

Only a few seconds later, he responds.

I shiver as I re-read that a few times, feeling the pulse of something hot in my core. But I refuse to allow myself to get pulled under his dark waves that blind me to the obvious. Not anymore.

My mind flashes to Amaya walking out of the front door, probably still with the taste of his cum on her tongue. I swallow back bile as I focus on my phone.

There’s a long pause. So long that I almost switch back to the Club Venom chat.

I swallow as I type out a reply.

I wait. And I wait. Then I wait some more.

There’s no reply. Or maybe in his mind he did already answer it.

My heart twists, my chest tight and constricted and my stomach dropping as I switch back to the Club Venom chat. I erase what I was about to send.

I don’t want this. I don’t want anyone else touching me.

But I need to feel something other than this searing hurt. I need whatever this stranger is offering to bury the ache in my chest, knowing that the one I really want doesn’t give a shit, or simply can’t.

I thought I could do it. I thought I’d be able to have this fake marriage, and just the physical, and be fine with it.

But that was before I fell for the darkness. For his darkness.

He sends me an address not far away from the club.

I flinch.

It sounds different coming from someone else. It feels dirty, and not in the good way.

What the fuck am I doing? Shame and self-loathing wash over me as I head back inside and find my friends. I put on a happy face, telling Milena I appreciated her talk, and that I’m going to go home and curl up on the couch with Netflix. I smile brightly as I hug them both good night, then head outside to find a cab.

My heart knots as I slide into the back seat and drive off into the night.