When she kissed me outside my apartment. She already knew I’d never been kissed by someone who meant it.
She’s always done the right thing. Even when it wrecked her.
And now?
Now I’m going to make her live with that.
“You’ll take the dog to a friend’s house for the week,” I continue, tone clinical. “Make sure no one sees it in your apartment. You’ll show up to class tired, emotional, and exactly the kind of bleeding heart they expect you to be. You’ll cry if you need to. Use it. Play it.”
Her eyes shine now. But not from tears.
From fury.
The same kind of rage I remember from when she stormed out of our debate scrimmage freshman year because someone said she was ‘too emotional’ for pre-law, and I didn’t speak up.
“You don’t get to script my life, Rowan,” she snaps.
I lean in, just enough to murmur, “You gave me the pen the second you picked up that brick.”
She breathes hard. I can feel it ripple between us. Static, thick with everything she wants to scream but knows better than to say.
I study her face. The lip she still bites when she’s holding something in. The way her fingers rub the inside edge of her sleeve.
It’s the same look she had standing in front of the university honor board, refusing to name the student who plagiarized from her brief because she was on academic probation and couldn’t afford another strike.
Guilt. Defiance. That stupid, reckless nobility that’s always been her greatest strength.
And her worst flaw.
I used to love that about her.
Now, I use it.
“I’m not doing this because I care,” I lie. “I’m doing this because you owe me.”
She flinches again.
But this time, she doesn’t look away.
And for one brief, flickering moment, I hate her for that.
I hate her for the nights I stayed up, wondering what I did wrong.
And I hate myself more for still feeling it.
“You’re going to walk out of this alley,” I say calmly, “and pretend we never spoke tonight. But you’ll wait for the call. And when it comes, you’ll answer.”
“And if I don’t?”
I smile, slow and merciless. “Then you’ll learn what happens to people who defy me.”
Chapter Three
Tessa
Imake it back to my apartment without bleeding out or getting arrested.
Waffles is a warm, trembling weight against my chest, his tiny heartbeat hammering through my hoodie. I fumble with my keycard three times before the lock clicks, my hands shaking so hard I can barely grip the plastic.
