Silencing the Ex

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I'm not letting a deaf guy drag me down. Let's make this a clean break.

That was the year Knox lost his hearing.

I dumped him.

Years later, Knox returned to the States as a genius esports champion.

At his massive fan convention, a reporter shoved a microphone forward, asking if he would ever consider getting back together with his ex.

His dark eyes cut through the crowd and locked dead onto me. A cold, mocking smirk curved his lips. "I don't sell myself that cheap."

He leaned closer to the mic, his gaze never leaving mine. "But if she doesn't know what's good for her, she's going to find out exactly how ruthless I can be."

That very night, the air left my lungs as my back hit the mattress.

I gasped, my voice completely shattering as I tried to beg.

He roughly ripped his hearing aid from his ear with one hand and smashed it against the headboard.

His tall, scorching body trapped me, pinning me down with an absolute, suffocating weight.

A dark, possessive chuckle vibrated against my skin. "What did you say? I can't hear you, but I can definitely feel you trembling for me."

Chapter 1

This was the year Knox took the world championship. His face plastered every billboard and subway station across the city. The deaf, forgotten boy nobody gave a damn about had blown up overnight.

It had been years since I broke his heart.

Late September. The fan convention was a suffocating sea of bodies. Screams and declarations of love hit the stage in deafening waves.

Knox stood under the blinding spotlight, a baseball cap pulled low and a black mask covering half his face. Even buried in a stealthy black windbreaker and cargo pants, he had this undeniable, gravitational pull.

After all these years apart, his English was flawless. The low, gravelly timber of his voice was mesmerizing. All traces of his old, hesitant stutter were completely erased.

Gavins voice echoed in my head from his frantic phone call earlier. "Sadie, you have to intercept Knox. Tonights event is make-or-break, you hear me?"

I hung back at the edge of the barricades, my fingernails digging into my sweaty palms. This was the absolute closest Id been to him since the day I walked out. Standing here, forced to witness the blinding reality of his success.

And it hit me like a freight trainbecause I only found out right before I pulled up to the airport that the VIP my professor sent me to escort was Knox.

With my bright red VIP STAFF lanyard acting like a target on my chest, a mob of rabid fans shoved me toward the front row.

My eyes inevitably collided with Knoxs sweeping gaze.

It was a dead, arctic stare. Zero warmth.

Within seconds, Knox closed the distance. Through the deafening chaos of the crowd, his low, icy voice sliced cleanly into my ear.

"Long time no see."

The fans absolutely lost their minds. Neon signs surged forward like a riot.

Knox flashed a dangerous smirk and deliberately tapped his sleek hearing aid. His dark eyes drilled into mine as a low chuckle vibrated through the speakers.

"I used to avoid these meet-and-greets because I couldn't speak very well," he drawled, the mic picking up every velvety syllable. "But I've gotten pretty good at it lately. Who wants to come up here and chat?"

The air punched right out of my lungs. My boots instinctively stepped back.

But Knoxs predatory gaze tracked my every move. With a lazy, commanding flick of his wrist, the blinding stage cameras whipped around, projecting my bloodless face onto the massive jumbotron.

Almost every single head in the arena snapped in my direction.

"The staff girl" Knoxs lips curled. "Yeah, she'll do."

Shoved up the steel stairs by a dozen manic hands, I stumbled onto the stage.

The host shoved a mic in my face. "So, when did you first fall for Knox?"

The crowd roared, a boiling pit of adrenaline.

Up here, under the interrogating glare of the stage lights, Knox just stared at me, waiting for the lie.

"Five years ago." The microphone picked up the pathetic, violent tremor in my voice.

The arena instantly flatlined into a dead silence. Half of Knoxs face was swallowed by the shadows of his cap. His tone was perfectly, terrifyingly flat.

"I wasn't in the league five years ago. Are you absolutely sure you liked me back then?"

Bile rose in my throat. Five years ago wasn't when I became a fan. Five years ago was the exact moment I abandoned him.

He didn't blow up in the public eye until three years ago. The raw, gut-wrenching fallout of our breakup must have scrambled my brain to the point where I genuinely forgot his rookie debut. It just felt like a lifetime of suffocating distance.

My clammy fingers gripped the plastic mic, my tongue stumbling over the correction. "Right sorry. Three years ago."

Not a single muscle twitched on Knox's flawless face.

Sensing the blood in the water, the host swooped in. "Speaking of five years ago, isn't that when you split with your ex, Knox? Any thoughts on getting back together?"

A massive wave of boos erupted from the crowd.

I stared a hole into the scuffed stage floor, absolutely terrified to lift my chin.

But even looking down, I could feel the blistering, sub-zero weight of his stare drilling straight into the side of my face.

Chapter 2

"I don't sell myself that cheap."

"But"

Knox pulled the microphone away, a low, mocking chuckle rumbling in his chest. "If she doesn't know what's good for her, she's going to find out exactly how ruthless I can be."

The fan convention dragged on for another two grueling hours. I waited by the side exit, staring blankly at the dead leaves violently scraping across the concrete.

Groups of fans trickled out, their loud gossip drifting straight into my ears.

"What was all that talk about his toxic ex?"

"Word is she was a total academic clout-chaser. She only got close to Knox to use him as a guinea pig for her research paper on the deaf community. The second she locked down her scholarship, she dumped him."

"Serena literally cried in the fan discord back then. The ex is lucky Serena didn't dox her and ruin her life."

Serena. Just hearing her name made my stomach violently twist. That gorgeous, venomous face flashed behind my eyelids.

Back in college, her vicious sabotage forced me to drop out completely. It took me years of grinding, scraping together enough tuition money, just to claw my way back into grad school.

During countless agonizing, sleepless nights, my classmates would force me to watch Knoxs championship highlights. And every single time, I spotted Serena hovering in the background.

"Serena really bet on the right horse as his top fan," they would sigh. "She's a million times better than that blind idiot of an ex-girlfriend."

They didn't know Serena was the one who burned my entire life to the ground.

The fading chatter dragged me back to reality. The alley fell dead silent. I stood shivering by the studio's VIP exit, waiting for Knox.

I stepped around the corner and slammed directly into a solid wall of pure muscle.

A sharp, aggressively masculine cologne instantly swallowed me whole.

A powerful, steel-trap arm clamped down hard on the small of my back, jerking me flush against a scorching hot chest.

I looked up and crashed into Knox's cold, dominant stare.

Every muscle in my body locked up tight, but it was impossible to break free from his dangerously possessive grip.

"I"

"Get in the car." Knox's tone was dead flat. He didn't want to waste a single extra syllable on me.

His manager stepped up, a polite professional smile plastered on his face. "Could you text Professor Alden's address to the driver? We'll all head over together."

Alden was my grad school mentor. He was also the speech therapist who taught Knox how to speak. They had dinner plans tonight, and Alden had specifically sent me to do the pickup.

I slid into the backseat of Knox's tinted SUV. The sun had already dipped below the skyline, plunging the city into creeping shadows.

Sitting inches away from Knox, my heart hammered violently against my ribs, aching with every beat. He kept his face turned toward the window, the passing streetlights washing over his sharp jawline in chaotic flashes.

The lethal, razor-sharp aggression he radiated on stage was completely gone. He just looked impossibly distant.

My phone suddenly buzzed loudly in my lap. I answered it, and Gavins voice crackled through the speaker. He had been relentlessly hitting on me for months.

Knoxs head snapped toward me instantly.

He propped his chin on his knuckles, his long fingers lazily tapping the sleek shell of his hearing aid.

The second I hit end call, his low voice sliced through the heavy silence. "Boyfriend?"

"Yeah." I violently tore my eyes away, staring a hole into my lap.

It was a pathetic lie, but it was the only shield I had left to hide the messy, humiliating truth of how much he still affected me.

But in my frantic rush to pocket my phone, something metallic slipped. A pin clattered onto the floor mats, rolling right to the tip of Knox's combat boot.

By the time I noticed, it was too late.

Knox narrowed his dark eyes. He stared at the tarnished silver pin, letting out a low, unrecognizable scoff.

It was a commemorative pin from three years ago, the night Knox won his very first regional tournament. I had stood outside that freezing arena for hours, shivering in sub-zero winds, just to get one.

Nobody gave a damn about him back then, so the merch was incredibly limited. Today, it was practically a relic.

I carried it with me everywhere. Every single day.

But right now, sitting exposed under his crushing stare, the tiny silver pin felt like a massive, unforgivable mistake.

Chapter 3

I reached down for it, but Knoxs heavy combat boot smoothly pinned the silver badge to the floor mat. His voice was absolute ice.

"You threw the whole person away. Why give a damn about a piece of trash?"

I froze, the blood draining from my face.

Knox lunged forward, ruthlessly backing me flush against the car door.

His rough thumb violently clamped down on my jaw, forcing my head up to meet his dark, obsessively possessive stare.

"Sadie, don't tell me you're still hung up on me."

"Craving me when you've got a man waiting at home how pathetic."

Staring at that familiar face, the vicious mockery in his words felt like a physical blow to my ribs. It was the first time he had ever spoken to me like that.

He pulled out his phone, a mocking smirk playing on his lips. "Tell you what. Dump him right now, and I'll go public with you. Deal?"

I couldn't tell if he was playing a cruel game or if he was dead serious. His eyes were pitch black, completely devoid of any real amusement.

Hot tears spilled over my lashes before I could stop them.

"No"

The second my eyes went red, Knox abruptly dropped his hand. He snatched the tarnished badge from the floor mat and pitched it straight into the console trash bin.

He leaned back into the heavy leather seat, shutting his eyes.

"Sadie, stop playing with fire. Stay away from me."

By the time I escorted Knox into the VIP dining room, Professor Alden and Gavin were already seated.

And right beside them sat a very familiar face.

Serena.

Years hadn't changed a thing; she still looked like a million bucks, polished and lethal. When her eyes landed on me, a theatrically shocked expression crossed her perfectly contoured face.

"Professor Alden, The new speech therapist you found for Knox is that her?"

"Yes," Alden nodded. "Knox has made massive progress, he barely needs my guidance anymore. Sadie is my top student. I trust her completely."

Serena blinked at me, her red lips curving into a viciously sweet smile. "Is Knox still going to drag you down now?"

My fingernails dug so hard into my palms the skin nearly broke. The absolute cruelty of the words I had thrown at Knox the day I left him violently echoed in my skull.

Knox sat there, his thick eyelashes lowered, not uttering a single syllable.

Under the suffocating weight of everyone's stares, I forced my voice out. "Professor, my coursework is too heavy right now, I"

"Sadie," Gavin cut in smoothly. "Fieldwork is part of the curriculum. Listen to the professor."

I swallowed the rest of my rejection and sank into the chair next to Gavin.

Knoxs lazy gaze instantly snapped upward, locking onto Gavin.

"My junior is gentle and incredibly kind," Gavin said, offering Knox a polite smile. "I'm sure you two will get along perfectly."

Knox stared dead at Gavins hand resting on the back of my chair.

His lazy, indifferent gaze instantly dropped to absolute sub-zero.

He flashed a dangerously dominant smirk, his long, scarred knuckles flipping a silver lighter open and shut with a sharp clack. "Having her teach me it's a real honor. But a piece of advicedon't touch what doesn't belong to you."

The rest of the dinner was a suffocating blur.

After half a year of surviving grad school networking, I was no stranger to downing drinks. But as the empty glasses piled up next to my plate, the temperature radiating off Knox seemed to drop lower and lower.

When the night finally ended, Gavin offered to drive the professor home.

He looked at me, a worried frown on his face. "Sadie, are you okay getting back?"

I fought down a wave of dizzy nausea, standing right in the biting wind. "I'm fine. I've got it."

Gavins car pulled away. The street went dead silent.

The freezing autumn wind ripped through my thin coat. My knees buckled.

I slumped heavily against the rough brick wall of a planter box, trying to catch my breath.

I was just pulling out my phone to hail an Uber when the restaurant's heavy glass doors slid open behind me.

The wind whipped his dark hair. His eyes were absolute voids in the streetlights.

He stalked straight toward me and clamped a brutal, inescapable grip around my wrist.

"Your boyfriend actually lets you take an Uber home alone?"

Chapter 4

The moment our eyes locked, his sharp, clean scent completely overpowered the cheap alcohol lingering on my skin.

Knoxs jaw ticked. "Your taste in men is absolute garbage, Sadie."

I yanked my arm, but his steel grip only locked tighter, nearly bruising my wrist.

Years of suffocating suppression violently snapped. My throat burned. "My life is none of your damn business! We broke up years ago!"

"Is that so?" Knox let out a dark, breathless scoff. A lethal, obsessive fire flared in his pitch-black eyes. "Then let's talk about something else, Professor. How about we start our first lesson tonight?"

He dragged me straight into his luxury hotel.

The freezing wind vanished, replaced by the suffocating heat of the lobby as I stumbled blindly behind his massive strides.

"I'll teach you tomorrow"

"No." He cut me off dead, his grip terrifyingly absolute.

I gave up fighting, dropping my head and letting him drag me into the private elevator and down the violently quiet hallway to his penthouse.

The door slammed shut behind us. Pitch black. He didn't turn on a single light.

The alcohol burned in my gut, sending a chaotic, feverish heat rushing through my veins.

The exact second his suffocating presence shifted away, absolute panic spiked in my chest.

My fingers shot out, desperately twisting into the crisp fabric of his shirt.

Knox froze. Every muscle in his towering frame locked up. A low, dangerous chuckle vibrated in the darkness. "Are you doing this on purpose, Sadie?"

I snatched my hand back like Id touched a live wire, shrinking into the dark. "I have night blindness"

"Right. Night blindness"

His large hands clamped around both of my wrists, pinning them against the freezing plaster wall.

"Then teach me in the dark." His incredibly hot, gravelly voice scraped right against the shell of my ear. "I want you."

My heart violently seized, practically crushed by an invisible fist.

"What?"

Knoxs massive, burning hand violently locked around my waist, crushing me completely against his rock-hard chest.

His tone dripped with lethal, intoxicating danger. "I don't think my pronunciation on that line is quite right. Why don't you personally teach me how to say it?"

I swallowed hard, my throat sandpaper-dry. "It's it's perfect."

"Is it? Then" A terrifying, heavy silence stretched between us before his voice dropped into the dark. "I love you. Is that how you say it?"

God, it was going to kill me. I dragged in a fractured breath and desperately turned my face away.

Knox instantly caught my chin, forcing me to hold his gaze. "It's your turn to correct me. I love you. How do I say it?"

Those three words had been locked in my throat for years. It felt like swallowing glass just trying to force them out.

The antique clock in the corner ticked loudly, perfectly syncing with the chaotic hammering against my ribs.

After an agonizing eternity, my voice shattered in the darkness. "I love you"

Both of his large hands violently caged my face. "Say it again," he commanded.

The thick clouds outside parted, and silver moonlight sliced through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating his sharp features. He looked exactly like the ghost that had haunted my dreams for years.

Hot tears broke free, sliding over his rough thumbs as my voice completely broke. "I love you."

Knox smashed his mouth over mine. It was a vicious, completely unhinged claiming.

He devoured my breath, plunging me into absolute, suffocating darkness.

My phone abruptly blasted a loud ringtone. The harsh noise ripped us apart.

We stayed pressed together, foreheads touching, chests heaving desperately for air.

Knox reached his large hand straight into my coat pocket and pulled out my phone.

The harsh glare of the screen lit up his aggressively handsome face, casting deep shadows over his sharp jawline. His pitch-black eyes were burning with raw, untamed hunger.

I saw the caller ID flashing. Gavin.

"Dump him," Knox ordered, his voice a jagged, guttural scrape. "Dump him right now, Sadie."

But I wasn't even with him. I wasn't with anyone.

That razor-thin slice of silence dragged a fraction of sanity back into my screaming brain.

I shoved hard against Knoxs chest, backing away. "I I need to get back to campus."

The terrifyingly raw hope burning in his eyes violently shattered.

The split-second of vulnerability was instantly swallowed by absolute, freezing dead space.

"You're not going anywhere, Sadie."

"What what does that mean?"

Chapter 5

A soft beep cut through the heavy air as Knox clicked off his hearing aid.

"I'm not letting you go. You're mine."

He crashed his mouth down on mine, a completely unhinged claiming.

Driven by pure instinct, he devoured every breath in my lungs. Right at the absolute breaking point, hed pull back just a fraction of an inch, granting me a single desperate gasp before swallowing my mouth all over again.

He was playing with me. A lethal predator torturing his prey. He was punishing me for hesitating downstairs.

"Knox" I gasped, my chest heaving against his. "Put the earpiece back in. I need to tell you"

He grabbed my wrist, violently shoving my hand up under his unbuttoned shirt. "Tell me like this."

My palm was forced flat against his sculpted abs and scorching chest. The explosive muscle coiled dangerously tight underneath my touch.

His dark eyes burned with undisguised, obsessive possession. He looked like a wild animal ready to swallow its prey whole, bone and all.

Panic spiked in my throat. "I don't have a boyfriend! I lied to you earlier, I swear, I'm sorryah!"

Knox flipped us in a blur of motion, slamming my back into the mattress as he ripped off his shirt completely.

"I can't read your lips when you're rambling," he rasped roughly. "Sadie, look straight ahead."

Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, our tangled silhouettes reflected against the chaotic blur of the city's neon lights.

His rough, damp thumb traced my jawline. His voice dropped to a lethally soft whisper. "All I know is that you want me. And this right here is the proof."

My body betrayed me, violently shivering the second his skin grazed mine.

His rough, scorching fingertips accurately pinned down every single one of my most vulnerable nerves. It was an aggressively ruthless claiming.

In just one second, he completely shoved me over the absolute edge of pleasure and sanity.

It was completely impossible to fight him. Driven by alcohol and years of suppressed obsession, Knox tore through my defenses like a man starved.

My voice shattered as I begged the ceiling. "Knox please slow down"

He narrowed his dark eyes, flashing the dark, lazy smirk of a fully satiated predator. "What did you say? I can't hear you."

His chest vibrated with a dark chuckle against my skin. "What a shame I'm not hearing a single word tonight."

That night, I dreamed of the past.

Back when Knox and I first met. His hearing was already failing him.

He always leaned against the back window of the classroom, completely isolated and cold. The other kids used to prank him mercilessly, sticking trash to his back and calling him the "deaf kid."

I liked talking behind his back, too. But during the chaotic rush of the bell ringing, I would press right up against his deaf ear and whisper.

"Knox is my favorite person in the entire world."

Because I knew he couldn't hear me, I got reckless. "One day, Sadie is going to marry Knox and take him home."

Then, one afternoon, Knox slowly turned his head. His voice was stiff and guarded. "You've been saying that for an entire semester. Aren't you tired yet?"

That was the exact moment I realized he was wearing a discreet hearing aid in his other ear.

Years later, pinned against the freezing glass of the penthouse windows, the roles reversed.

"Knox is Sadie's favorite person in the entire world. If she's lying, she's cursed forever." His kisses were shockingly gentle, breaking down into raw, shattered desperation by the end.

"Sadie I've got money now. I swear I won't drag you down. Please don't throw me away again. Okay?"

But if he knew the sick, twisted truth? If he knew that I sold him out to that esports corporation back then for a twenty-thousand-dollar payout would he still look at me like this?

I woke up the next morning to an empty bed. Knox was completely gone.

I grabbed my phone from the nightstand. His name was already sitting at the absolute top of the trending charts.

Knox was terminating his contract.

Chapter 6

[Why the hell is he terminating his contract right at his peak?]

[He probably got a girlfriend. Doesn't everyone know Apex Esports has a strict no-dating clause for all their pro players?]

[Yeah, management tore apart so many couples back in the day. Heard their methods were brutal.]

[But Knox literally just won Worlds! He's at the absolute top of his game. Why would he throw it all away?]

[Word on the street is his toxic ex came crawling back. Look at these leaked screenshots.]

In the leaked photos, Serena had completely doxxed my name.

[Serena: Sadie dumped Knox years ago because she couldn't handle his hearing loss. Now shes begging for him back, and he's too soft-hearted to say no. I'm begging the real fans to help save him from her.]

She had even attached a vicious poll right beneath it: "Kick the gold-digging ex out of Knox's life." Within seconds, tens of thousands of death threats and violent curses flooded the comment section, a coordinated cyberbullying campaign designed to completely destroy my life.

I didn't have a single second to care about the psychotic online mob. My hands shook as I frantically dialed Knox's number.

He couldn't just throw away his entire career in a moment of reckless insanity.

But the line just kept beeping. Busy.

I snatched my coat and bolted out the door, practically flying down the hotel stairs.

But the second the elevator doors slid open to the lobby, my blood ran ice cold.

A suffocating, rabid wall of fans and paparazzi had completely blockaded the exit.

The exact moment my boots hit the marble floor, the mob swarmed.

[That's her! I saw the leaked photos! Is that really the ex?]

[You're the bitch who made Serena cry! How do you even have the nerve to show your face?]

[Get the hell out of here! Stay away from Knox!]

Pure, concentrated malice crashed over me. Blinding camera flashes exploded in my eyes, disorienting my vision.

I threw my arm up to block the vicious glare.

Suddenly, a hand clamped hard around my wrist and violently yanked my arm down.

I blinked through the blinding white spots. Serena.

She wore this sickeningly sweet, concerned mask, playing the perfect saint in front of the cameras. "Sadie, look I know your record is stained, and locking Knox down is your only way out. But I've loved him for years. I am begging you please don't ruin his life."

Her voice cracked perfectly. The crowd went absolutely feral.

[Stained record? What is she talking about?]

Dozens of microphones were violently shoved into my face.

I desperately wrenched my head away from the suffocating lenses. My jaw locked tight. I absolutely refused to drag the past into this circus.

Back in college, there was only one fully funded grad fellowship. The night before the final announcement, someone anonymously reported me for academic fraud.

My fellowship was instantly stripped. A week later, Serena slid perfectly into the empty slot.

But barely two months into the program, she dropped out completely.

I still remember the venom in her gloating whisper: "Even if I have to throw this fellowship in the trash, I'll never let you have it. Everything you want, Sadie I'm going to take it all."

And now, years later, Serena was perfectly playing the bleeding-heart victim, publicly crucifying me in front of the press.

I pushed back against the suffocating mob. "I never committed academic fraud"

Serena viciously cut me off. She leaned in close, dropping her voice into a lethal whisper only I could hear. "Do you really want me to tell them about the massive payout you took from his management company right behind his back?"

Every single drop of blood violently drained from my face. My fingertips went entirely numb. "I'll I'll tell him myself."

"No need." Serena casually flipped over her phone screen.

The call timer was already flashing three minutes and eighteen seconds. The caller ID read: Knox.

Serena lifted the phone to her perfectly glossed lips, a vicious smirk ripping across her face. "Did you catch all of that, Knox?"

"Loud and clear." The freezing, sub-zero voice sliced through the chaos directly behind me.

My stomach violently plummeted into an endless abyss.

I whipped around. Knox stood just outside the rabid circle of cameras, buried under his black cap and mask.

His dead, silent stare was locked entirely on me.

He slowly lowered his phone and killed the call. His voice was terrifyingly, perfectly calm.

"Sadie. Come here and explain it to me yourself