“You would tower over me,” she answers.
“That’s not how it works, songbird. And it’s not what I want. You’ve only ever had broken wings, but I can show you what true freedom is.”
“You’re still going to kill my family?” she asks me as if that answer is the end all, be all.
“I’m going to do a number of things you’re going to disapprove of. You need to accept that.” My answer is hard, leaving no room for any intolerance. “I’m not a good man.”
“Is this what it would be like to stand by your side? To have no control and to simply accept what you do?” I’m surprised by her answer but eager to discuss terms.
“On some matters, you’ll never have control, and you’ll have to accept what I choose. Whether or not you want to know about them is your decision.” I know part of her despair is because she knows everything, yet she’s a casualty with little recourse.
“I’m sorry you know as much as you do,” I tell her and then almost take it back, thinking she’ll take it offensively and that’s not what I intended.
She doesn’t though. Instead, she cracks, showing me the side of her I love. The raw vulnerability.
“I don’t want this life,” she whispers, slowly pushing the art away so she can rest her head against the rug. The light from the fire licks along her skin.
“We don’t get to choose,” I remind her. I’ve told myself so many times that I wish things were different, but you live the life you’re given.
“You’re wrong,” she tells me as if she has another option.
“Do you love what I do to you? How I fuck that pretty little cunt and force you to scream out my name?” I’m crude and harsh with my question.
She doesn’t answer me, but she doesn’t have to.
“Then no, you don’t have a choice. I had a choice once. I chose wrong.”
“You’ll get tired of me,” she whispers, her eyes seemingly vacant but the depths of them harboring pain. “One day I won’t be a shiny new toy. One day, you’ll want someone to fight you and I’ll have none left in me.” Tears pool in her eyes. “One day, the idea of shoving your dick inside of me won’t interest you in the least.”
She has no idea how wrong she is. I’m only growing more obsessed with her. Breaking every rule to satisfy her.
Risking everything to heal the broken pieces of her she refuses to acknowledge.
I’ll never let her go because she isn’t a toy. She isn’t a challenge. She isn’t the fuckdoll she thinks she is and secretly loves being.
“Will you let me go then?”
“Never.”
She turns to face the fire and I whisper to her, “You’re so wrong, Aria. If you weren’t so set on hating me, you’d see.”
“You give me every reason to hate you,” she tells me. In the reflection from the mirror above the mantel, I see the fire dancing in her eyes.
She’ll never know how much her words hurt me. Or maybe she does, and that’s what she was after.
“Why are you doing this to me? Why me?” she asks me in a single breath and I offer her a singular truth in return.
“Your father set a series of events in motion,” I reply, remembering the night his men took me from the street.
I remember how the pills spilled into the gutter even as they slammed their fists against my jaw and I fell to the cold cement. With her, I only see what lies ahead. But she’s caught in the past. And that’s what will destroy us.
“So, it’s my father’s fault?” she asks me with a sadness in her eyes, as if I’ve robbed her of some fantasy.
“No, it’s mine.” My confession confuses her for a moment, but before she can say anything else, I continue.
“I thought I loved you,” I tell her with a bitter hardness that forces the words to sound violent on my tongue. Her eyes widen as she turns back and stares at me. Her stance changes to one of prey, realizing it’s stumbled into its worst enemy. The shock in her eyes fuels me to push her farther. For her to realize the man I truly am.
“For a long time after I left your home, when they kicked me back out onto the street after brutalizing me, I thought I loved whoever belonged to the sweet voice that stopped them from killing me.” Aria’s expression changes to one of fear and knowing.
I tell her to break whatever thoughts she has of love. And whatever thoughts I have of it. Weakness crushes down on me as I tell her what I used to think. What I expected this to be when I stabbed the knife into her picture and told Romano to bring her to me.