Tired of this life and everything that comes with it, I kick and scratch at him. I call him horrible names and grunt like a wild animal. He’s holding my body hostage to the mattress with his hips, but otherwise Asher accepts my assault without further retaliation. He somewhat encourages it.
“Yell at me, Zariah. Kick me and bite me, because at least then you won’t portray the coward you just did!” He thrusts his hips forward, sinking us deeper into the mattress. “As far as anyone is aware, you are the soon-to-be wife of Asher Yury, most feared man in Russia, yet you let a low-ranked goon rough-handleyou like a worthless whore.” He brings his face to within an inch of mine. “Zimiyi was gripping your wrist so hard, he was seconds from snapping it, and what did you do? Nothing! Not a single fucking thing! Why?! Why didn’t you fight him as you are me now? Why didn’t you take him down as I did Ruslan? You can kick and scratch me, but you let a pathetic man like Zimiyi scare you! Why, Zariah?!”
“Because I’m not afraid of you!” I’ve kicked and screamed so hard, my words are barely whispers. “That’s why I can fight you, because I know you won’t hurt me. You promised when we were kids that you’d never let anyone hurt me. That includes you, Asher, so I’m not afraid of you! I hate you, and the man you have become, but I’m not afraid of you!”
My words fuel the fire roaring in his gut. He digs his thumb and index finger into my cheeks so profoundly, my legs immediately still. I’m not scared, more fascinated by the fervor in his wintry gaze. He’s staring down at me with his nostrils flaring and his heart raging. I can feel it pounding into me by the parts of our bodies that are intimately joined. It’s beating as erratically as mine, with an equal amount of confusion and anger, but there’s no threat in his eyes.
Not until he growls, “You’re not afraid of me?”
His grip on my face makes it impossible for me to shake my head, but I don’t need to. He can see the truth in my eyes, smell it on my skin. I should be feeling terror having this large, brutal mass murderer staring at me like he wants to gut my insides as viciously as he ended Ruslan’s life only minutes ago, but for some reason, I’m not. I see the boy he once was hiding in his dark, tormented eyes. He often joked that he was born without a heart, but I know that isn’t true. I’ve seen it, heard it beating under my ear. He’s not the monster he wants me to believe he is.
“You should be afraid. Very much so. Because I know you’re keeping secrets from me, and when I find out what they are, and who they involve, you won’t just be scared, you’ll be grieving.”
“The only person I’m grieving is you. The boy you once were, the teen who put family before anyone. That’s the only person I’llevergrieve. To think I was once obsessed with you. . .god!I was an idiot. You never cared about anyone but yourself, so why did I waste so much of my time worrying about you?”
I fight him for a few more minutes before exhaustion renders me still. I’m so tired of this life—so goddamn tired. You have no idea how exhausting it is doing nothing until you’re forced to do it somewhere else.
Realizing I’ve given up, Asher lowers his lips to my ear. I expect my near tear-filled admission to make him say something more profound than this: “Get cleaned up and ready for bed. You have an early start tomorrow.”
The arrogance in his tone makes me want to start up my fight all over again, but I’m too busy holding in a moan. His breath is heavy on my ear, as hot and as mind-hazing as the girth I feel digging into my thigh. He’s thick and hard, as if his hips weren’t pinning me to the bed in anger.
When he climbs off me, I repress my body’s inane reaction to his closeness. We’re fighting, not making love, and he didn’t just threaten me, he threatened my entire existence. That’s not something I can take lightly.
Furthermore, he has the blood of a now dead man on his face, yet all I am doing is dreaming while I’m awake.
I must be insane.
Chapter 12
Asher
Iwait for Zariah to slide up my bed before holding out my hand palm side up. She’s still clutching my letter opener as she did when I followed her into our room, but she’s missing the fury her eyes held when she used it to slice my arm open.
I understand her anger. The rage I faced when I entered the dining room to discover Zimiyi clutching her wrist was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It was a foreign feeling, one that had me torn between wanting to beat him senseless for touching something I own and stepping back to see how Zariah handled it.
If she were half the woman my mother claims she is, she would have fought.
She didn’t. She backed away like a coward, her fight nothing like I anticipated. She acted so weak and meek, she would have let Zimiyi snap her wrist without a word seeping from her lips. That’s not a woman I need at my side. I need someone strong and impenetrable. Someone who’s been through the worst and came out the other end stronger. I need someone who’ll fight even when the odds are against her.
That person is not Zariah.
After dumping the letter opener onto my rumpled bed, Zariah makes her way to her room. Her feet stop pattering across the floorboards when I say, “Shower in my bathroom. I don’t want you leaving this room tonight.” When her throat works hard to swallow, like she’s preparing to bite back, I add a warning to the threat in my tone. “Argue with me and see where it gets you.”
When she rolls her eyes, I pad closer to her, my steps slow and calculated. They hold more threat than any my tongue could issue. She’s fraying my control. She has me kicking down doors and chasing her when she flees me. This isn’t me. I don’t react in anger. I also don’t play games. But I will for her. I want her to fight me, to snap at me with the cheek she held when she was a girl. If she gives as good as she’s getting, then maybe she’ll survive here longer than either of us are predicting, and then maybe, just maybe, she’ll let who she’s covering for slip.
What I said earlier was true. I know she’s keeping secrets from me, and I’m not solely referring to Dominique’s death. She’s covering for someone. I just need to stop letting her fuck with my head so I can find out who.
I convinced myself last night that I could extract the truth from her without a single problem arising. I’m a cold and calculated man who’d never let a woman weaken me, but she is. She’s weakening me, and I don’t fucking like it.
I’m pummeled with a new type of anger when a tear slips down Zariah’s cheek. I’m not a good man. I’ve amassed more deaths than I have friends the past decade. I’m aloof, merciless, and my heart is made out of stone, but this, I can’t handle this. I’d rather have her dissect my nuts with a blunt knife than watch her cry. I don’t do tears, especially when they’re coming from a girl I swore I’d never make cry. I was only a child when I made my pledge, but I had every intention of keeping it.
“Who are your tears for, Zariah? You? Me? Or are you angry Ruslan is lying lifeless on the floor instead of Zimiyi? If it’s the latter, tell me how you want Zimiyi punished, and I’ll do it. Do you want me to grip his wrist until it snaps in two? Gut him at your feet so no man will dare touch you again?”
When I raise my hand to clear the little blob gliding down her cheek, she pulls away from me. It angers me more than it pleases me.
“They’re for nobody. They’re stupid.” It could be my pulse raging in my ears, but I swear she murmurs, “I’m stupid.”
Testing a theory, I mutter, “Stupid for not fighting back? Or stupid because you got turned on from fighting me—instead of angry?”
