Submitting to my Ex Uncle-Chapter 211

Elias felt the phone vibrate in his pocket like a pulse. He fished it out with one hand, thumbed the screen, and the name on the display tightened his shoulders before he even answered.

Carlos.

He stepped into the bathroom without thinking. He closed the door behind him so the sound of his voice wouldn’t wake Amara.

He listened to Amara’s even breathing through the thin wood and let it steady him for a breath.

He put the phone to his ear.

"They didn’t kill him," Carlos said right away, like throwing words into a room and waiting for them to light up. "I sent them to kill Dominic Cross, and Grigor let him live. They didn’t kill him."

Elias closed his eyes.

The bathroom tiles were cold under his bare feet. He could feel the motion of the world catching in its throat, the way everything flames when a plan goes sideways.

"You know Dominic would never be an easy man to kill," Elias said, trying to soften the edges. He did not want to stoke the heat of whatever fire Carlos was fanning right now. He heard the shrug in his voice. He placed a careful distance between them.

"He’s a man, not a god," Carlos snapped. "Dominic can be killed."

"You need Dominic’s signature to have access to all his properties. A sudden death would deny you that." Elias strategized. "Like I said, be patient. Be smart. He’s not a body you can toss into the river and forget."

There was a rough sound on the other end. A growl that might’ve been a laugh. "Patience is for the weak," Carlos said. "They had a job. They failed. Someone will pay."

Elias said nothing for a long moment.

He let the silence do some of his work for him. He had watched the whole ambush and the dinner from the CCTV footage given to him by one of Carlos’ men afterwards.

Carlos’s impatience pressed against the edges of the line. "You bring me Dominic, Elias. You bring me Dominic, you bring me his head on a plate, and I will let this thing go easy. I will give you access to the papers you need. Fifty percent would be yours as we agreed." The offer was simple. "Bring me Amara."

Elias’s breath stopped halfway in his chest. In the mirror he watched his fingers go white on the phone, and watched the tightness spread like ink through his face.

He immediately went pale for the first time ever. Nothing has ever taken breath from him this quickly.

He imagined Carlos’s men, with their shoes on gravel, as he delivered Amara to them. He imagined Amara dragged from her bed, blinking into a hallway that smelled like other men and diesel. He imagined the look in her eyes when she understood who he truly was.

He said the word before he had time to think. "We should—"

Then he didn’t finish. The phone burned his ear. Carlos waited. The silence on his side was like a ticking bomb.

"I... we should wait," Elias murmured finally, and the words felt thin in his own mouth. His heart pounded in his throat like a drum. "We should wait."

Carlos laughed, ugly and amused. "You think I will wait?" he asked. "You think time will be on our side?"

"I think we shouldn’t move Amara now," Elias said. "She’s... she’s weak. Vulnerable." His voice betrayed him. The taste of lies settled at the back of his teeth.

Carlos’s silence told Elias everything he needed to know. He could see the calculations moving across that other man’s face.

"Fine," Carlos said at last. "You delay. But you will do as I say when I say it. You will do it without hesitation. You understand me?"

"Yes," he said, flatly, feeling the weight of his words like a thumb on his chest.

"You can make this happen, Elias. You have the key." The tone slid colder, leaving no room for pity. "Bring me the woman closest to him. Bring me Amara."

Elias let out a breath he hadn’t meant to make. "I—"

"I can’t. At least, not now." he said, but Carlos was not a man to wait on the word "can’t."

"You can," Carlos said. "You will."

Elias’s fingers trembled on the sink edge. He let his forehead rest against the cool tile for a moment. He counted to ten without breathing, and thought of Amara’s face. He thought of what she would look like when waking to men who were not him. He thought of the way she trusted, and how trust lodged in people like small knives.

"Not now," he said, as if that were a middle ground the other could accept. "We wait. I’ll find a better time."

"You will find me a time. If you fail, you know what happens." Carlos warned.

"Yes," Elias whispered.

The line clicked, then cut. The room went quieter. He stood there for a long moment with the phone dark in his ear.

He walked back to the bedroom like someone pulled along on a string. The floor was cool under his feet. Amara was on her side of the bed, and one hand had gone limp under the pillow.

Her hair was messy in a way that made his chest fracture with a dull, impossible tenderness. In sleep she looked small and fine and entirely his to protect — and entirely not.

He watched her for a long time and the earlier certainty he’d carried, the belief that he could wedge himself between two worlds and not be crushed, thinned.

Elias sat on the edge of the bed. He reached out and touched Amara’s hair like a child. The contact felt like theft. It felt so illicit.

When she stirred in her sleep, eyelids fluttering, he eased back. He told himself softly that waiting was still a plan. Waiting was a thing he could do. Patience could still be a weapon if held right.

He had to be careful. He would be careful. He would wait. He would protect her from everyone, and even himself.

He would find the moment when doing what Carlos wanted would mean less than the price for failing him.

He would be the one who decided.

He closed his eyes and tried to breathe, but each time he heard her gentle breathing, it shattered his will to breathe properly.