I continue to massage her scalp. “Tell me what happened? You said you saw me? I know you didn’t leave this penthouse, so how did you see me?”
When she pulls away, I almost want to drag her back, but I want answers right now more. “I got a text.”
She retrieves her phone and brings it over to show me. The number isn’t one I recognize, nor is it one programmed into her phone. I scan the images and see how she could think I was getting cozy with my ex. At the same time, it hurts. She’s the only woman I’ve been able to see since the moment I laid my eyes on her. No one else compares to her, and she thinks I’d go off and spend time with my ex because I felt like it.
I close her phone and toss it on the bed. “First, I’m going to find out who sent those pictures and make them pay for causing you distress. Second, I have a knife with her name on it, and when those pictures were taken, I was telling her in minute detail how I want to carve her up for the pain she caused you. But what I really want to know is why you’re so upset? How could you think I’d want anyone else but you?”
Now she refuses to meet my eyes, my demure angel back in place. “I just…I mean…I know I don’t have any claim on you or anything. It just upsets me to see you with her, is all. If that’s what you want to do, then I understand.”
I grab her chin and force her eyes to mine. “As I said, all I want to put inside her is a six-inch stiletto blade so I can watch the life leave her eyes.”
She blinks at me a few times, saying nothing.
“Does that scare you?” I ask, stepping closer to close the distance she keeps putting between us.
When she licks her lips, I focus on the path her tongue takes over them. “No. It should, right? I should be terrified of you, but you’re the only man who has ever taken care of me and stood up for me. I told myself if you needed to have your ex, that it was a price I’m willing to pay to remain safe.”
I tighten my grip, but she doesn’t flinch. “And what about the other way around? What do you think I’d do if I ever found another man touching you?”
“Umm…”
“Use your imagination, Angel, because I promise you, if anyone so much as looks at you, I will definitely use mine. No one better so much as breathe in your direction.”
“Yes, but it’s different for you. This is just a de—”
I cut her off with my mouth, slamming my lips into hers hard enough our teeth scrape together. When I lift my face again, she’s dazed and heavy-lidded. “You keep saying this is some kind of deal, but it’s not for me. I didn’t need to marry you if that were the case. Let me tell you for the final time, you belong to me, and if anyone tries to take you away from me, they will pay with their life.”
She shakes her head, some of the lust clearing from her eyes. “I don’t want anyone to die because of me. Not again…”
“Again?”
This time, she squeezes her eyes shut and rushes forward into my arms. I hold her and wait for her to get her courage up.
“When I was a little girl, a woman died right in front of me. My father, as you can guess, killed her. I was the one who handed him the gun, but I was too young to understand what he was about to do with it. Most of the details are hazy, but I remember the road was wet, and there was a puddle of blood leaching into a puddle of rainwater, and the moon reflected off it so brightly. All I could do was focus on the moon’s reflection until my father led me away. That woman died because of me. Rose died because of me. I can’t be the cause of any more deaths, please.”
I hug her tight and then lead her to sit on the bed. She still won’t look at me, as if she’s ashamed. “Angel, you were a child. No matter how you might have assisted in that woman’s death, you weren’t at fault. I don’t care if you stood over her and pulled the trigger. Your father was responsible, and I find it reprehensible he’d let a child feel responsible for that her entire life.”
She gives me a watery smile, and I continue, sharing only what Kai knows about me. “My father wasn’t the same as yours. Just as ruthless, to be sure, but he did his own killing, and he forced me to watch every single one so I could one day become the head of our family. When I refused, he’d force me, tie me down and pry my eyelids open.”