CHAPTER 51: TELL ME

"My study," Axel replied, his voice carrying an edge I hadn’t heard in a while.

I glanced back at Erica, who was watching us with obvious concern. "I’ll be right back," I assured her, though I wasn’t sure if that was true.

Axel led the way down the hall. When we reached his study, he held the door open for me, then closed it firmly behind us. The click of the lock seemed to echo in the silence.

For a moment, he just stood there with his back to me, his shoulders tensed . Then he began to pace, running his hands through his hair in a gesture of frustration I’d rarely seen from him.

"Axel..."

"Don’t," he said sharply, holding up a hand to stop me. "Just... give me a minute."

I watched him pace back and forth across the Persian rug. The silence stretched between us, and I couldn’t help but wonder what his first words would be.

Finally, he stopped and turned to face me. His dark eyes were blazing with a mixture of fury and fear, maybe?

"Why?" he asked in a deceptively quiet voice. "Why did you hire a private investigator?"

I lifted my chin defiantly. "Because I needed answers."

"And what exactly were you doing meeting him in some abandoned warehouse at eleven o’clock at night?" His voice rose slightly. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?"

"I know it wasn’t the smartest..."

"Wasn’t the smartest?" He let out a harsh laugh. "Layla, you could have been killed. If whoever murdered Kendall had still been there..." He trailed off, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

"But I wasn’t alone," I said defensively. "I knew how potentially dangerous it could be so I had Roy come with me."

"Oh, so you involved Roy in your reckless plan too?" Axel’s eyes flashed with renewed anger. "That doesn’t make it better, Layla. The only remotely wise thing you did was not going alone, but it doesn’t even count because the entire idea was reckless from the start."

I felt something snap inside me. All the frustration, all the confusion, and all the fear from the past few months came rushing to the surface.

"Reckless?" I stepped closer to him, my own anger finally matching his. "You want to know what’s reckless? Being kept in the dark about everything while people around me are getting hurt. Being married to someone who won’t tell me the truth about anything."

"Layla..."

"No, don’t Layla me and let me finish." I was shaking now, but kept going. "I had to find things out for myself since everyone was being so secretive. It was the only way I could know when my mother had woken up, the best times to try seeing her without running into whatever drama you and my father have going on."

Axel’s face went pale. "You’ve been trying to see your mother?"

"Of course I have! She’s my mother, Axel. And even though I haven’t forgotten what she did, I just wanted to be sure she was fine. But I can’t even do that without running into Cass or my father. Plus the feud or whatever the hell you have with my father isn’t helping."

"It’s not a feud..."

"Then what is it?" I demanded. "Because from where I’m standing, it looks like I’m stuck in the middle of something I don’t understand, and I don’t know why. It’s completely one-sided, considering you seem to know everything about what they did to me.

"You know what Cassandra did to me. You know the truth about them. But when it comes to you?" I pointed at him, my finger trembling. "Nothing. Just silence, secrets and more silence."

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t respond.

"I’ve been suffocated, Axel. Completely suffocated. I’ve been desperate trying to stand on my own feet and prove myself, and maybe I haven’t been going about it the best way, but you are in no place to judge me."

"You’re not proving anything by making stupid decisions," he said coldly.

That did it. All my restraint vanished.

"Stupid decisions?" I laughed bitterly. "Fine. You want to call me stupid? Then tell me everything. Tell me why I’m really here with you in this marriage. Tell me about your plans, your reasons, everything you’ve been hiding from me."

The silence that followed was deafening. Axel stared at me with a stoic expression, but he didn’t say a word.

"See?" I threw my hands up in frustration. "You can’t even do that. You stand there calling my decisions stupid when you won’t give me the information I need to make better ones."

"It’s not that simple..."

"It is that simple!" I was practically shouting now. "Either trust me with the truth or stop acting like you have the right to control my choices."

He ran his hand through his hair again, looking more exhausted than angry now. "Layla, you don’t understand the forces at play here."

"Then make me understand! Simplify things for me to understand, Axel."

"I can’t."

"You mean you won’t."

"It’s the same thing in this case."

I stared at him, feeling tears of frustration prick at my eyes. "No, it’s not the same thing at all."

Axel moved closer, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. "It wasn’t an excuse," he said quietly. "What you went through tonight, what you’ve been going through, I’m trying to protect you from things you don’t need to know."

"But I do need to know them," I said, my voice breaking slightly. "Don’t you see? Not knowing is what’s putting me in danger. Not knowing is what got Kendall killed."

"We don’t know if his death was connected..."

"Of course it was connected!" I wiped angrily at my eyes. "He warned me I couldn’t trust anyone around me and that he had news for me about my father. Hours later, he’s dead, and I’m being framed for murder. You think that’s a coincidence?"

Axel’s face went even paler. "He said what?"

"See? There’s more you don’t know, either. We’re both stumbling around in the dark here, Axel, but at least I’m trying to turn on some lights."

He was quiet for a long moment, just looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read.

"I need you to stop," he finally said in a barely audible voice. "Please, Layla. I need you to stop digging into this."

"I won’t," I said, looking him straight in the eye. "You need to start being honest with me about what’s going on and what you’re planning. If you want to keep your secrets, that’s your choice, but I won’t just sit here like some pawn. If you won’t share the truth, I’ll find out myself, and next time, I’ll be much smarter about it."