“You and Addison are different. Don’t look at me like we’re in the same situation. And you fucking know that’s true.” He shakes his head but remains silent.
“I’ll put her back in the cell if I have to,” I tell him with finality, staring past him and at the closed door. She wanted me once and I’ll make it happen again. She’ll learn to forgive.
“What are you doing? I’ve never seen you like this.” Daniel’s expression is worried, but more than that, sympathetic.
“I loved her,” I say, and my answer is harsh; I can feel my control slipping again. It slips so easily with her.
“And?” he questions me as if he doesn’t understand. As if it isn’t obvious that the woman I love is the enemy. Even when all of them are dead and I’ve taken her back, I will always be the enemy to her and there’s nothing I can do about it. Not a damn thing.
“You still love her, so why would you do that to her?”
“I don’t know what love is.”
“You’re being fucking stupid and this ‘woe is me’ bullshit doesn’t look good on you, Carter.”
“Fuck you,” I seethe as I tell my brother off. “Addison will run, and you’ll follow like a little puppy dog, but she’ll come back to you because you didn’t do a damn thing to her. Aria…” My throat gets tighter as I speak, threatening to strangle me if I speak the words aloud. “I’m going to kill her family. I’ve locked her up, I’ve punished her.”
“What you have is different, but it’s obvious to her that you love her. You’ll see.”
“Love isn’t enough sometimes. I don’t know how you’ve gotten stuck on some fantasy, Daniel. I live in the real world, where I’m the villain. So, go ahead and tell me she’ll love me after this. Keep telling yourself that too. Whatever helps you sleep.”
Daniel doesn’t answer. A moment passes and then another before he stands up abruptly and leaves me alone.
The second the door slams shut, I turn back to the monitors, focusing on them as my blood simmers and my gut starts to churn.
My body is ringing with anger, contempt, and fear. I haven’t felt fear in so long. True fear threatens to consume me at the very real possibility of losing her.
Not if you treat her as a partner. Daniel’s words echo in my head, but how can he say that when he knows what that means in this world we inhabit?
Aria’s still staring at the phone and without hesitation, I pick up the phone on my desk and call her.
Only yesterday, she lay across my desk while I played with her cunt and her ass, knowing she loved it and thinking she loved me.
A day can change everything.
The line only rings once before she answers, cradling the phone close with both hands.
“Hello?” Just the sound of her voice is soothing. Everything about her is a balm for the burning rage inside of me.
“Do you hate me?” I ask her, needing to know.
“Have you killed them?”
A sad smirk kicks my lips up as I touch the tips of my fingers to the screen. I can see her swallow as the silence stretches, I can see her start to crumble when I don’t immediately respond. And I hate it. I hate that this is what will happen to her.
“No.” The moment I speak the word, her head falls forward and I hear her take in a deep breath. “But you know it has to happen,” I remind her as she sits up straighter, still cross-legged on the bed.
“I know,” she answers. I watch as she picks at the comforter and then readjusts but winces as she moves. No doubt the lashes from the belt are causing her pain. They barely left a mark on her. I held back, but even so, I know she’s still hurting from it.
I struggle to breathe as she asks me, “So, it’s inevitable that I’ll hate you then?”
“That’s your choice.”
“I know some of the men who have died already,” she confesses with pain etched in her voice. Her words are so strangled and unwilling to be spoken that I almost don’t hear her. It takes me a second and then another, the ticks of the clock marking each of them.
She covers her mouth with her hand, pulling the phone to one side as she gathers her composure, but keeps the other end pressed close to her ear.
“There is always loss in this business,” is all I can give her until I think to add, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” she tells me after a moment.
“This is no different than before when men standing in front of your father were shot, so to speak. They fight for him, and they die for him. It’s all happened before.”