Page 145 of Unravel Me

"But what’s the problem? We’re decent guys, we just wanted to talk…"

"But I don’t want to. Do you understand that?"

I try to slide the key into the door lock again, cursing Storm in the back of my mind because his set of keys doesn’t have a battery for remote unlocking.

But then the other alpha grabs my hand, and the keys fall to the ground.

Growling angrily, I crouch down to pick them up, and at that moment I hear some kind of loud thud behind them.

One of the alphas crashes to the ground, and a second later, the other one does too…

I spring to my feet and turn around, only to find myself standing face-to-face with…

Mauro.

Oh, wow!

My first instinct is to throw myself into his arms. But I fight it down.

I have to remember Tommy!

"No!" I blurt out, feeling an unexpected wave of anger, in some ways even stronger than what I feel toward the two idiots groaning now on the gravel parking lot.

"Are you following me?" I throw at him, my voice full of hurt. "How dare you? What do you want?!" I snap stupidly, then start backing away, circling around the car.

Mauro follows me step for step, his eyes dark as he watches me from beneath narrowed lids.

"Leave me alone. You’ve been lying to me from the very beginning! One secret after another, and I don’t even know how many there were anymore. You should have started with the truth back there, in the forest! You should have told me who you really are, who your fucking brother is, that rapist—" My voice is breaking. "How could you, how could you toy with me like that, pretending to be someone else…!" I’m sobbing now, feeling a searing pain in my heart because I know I’m not being entirely fair, but the hurt and bitterness are too strong.

Mauro says nothing, of course, staring at me so intensely that it’s as if I’m the only object in existence in the entire universe. There’s something tragic, pleading, obsessive, and pained in his gaze…

He’s wearing a black jacket over a black T-shirt and black leather pants, and he looks fucking amazing. My eyes randomly drop toward his flat stomach, and lower, but I quickly lift my gaze again, mentally slapping myself for it.

"I can’t think about all of this! Just leave me alone! As long as you’re around me, Tommy and I will never be safe, do you understand?" I throw straight at his face, and I see that my words have an effect on him.

His full lips twitch slightly, and he takes another step toward me, but I jump backward.

"Leave me alone, don’t you understand?!"

But he isn’t going to. He takes another step, reaching out to grab me, but I turn around and… completely idiotically, start running.

It’s not that I believe I can outrun him.

But I’m being pulled apart by such powerful emotions that I simply can’t deal with them right now, and I think I need to release them in some kind of violent burst of physical effort.

The motel is right next to the forest, so I plunge between the trees, wanting to get as far away from him as possible in the hope that he’ll finally leave me alone and let me think things through in peace. Or maybe hoping he will follow? You never know with me…

And Mauro clearly has no intention of keeping away. I hear his footsteps behind me on the forest floor.

"Leave me alone, leave me alone!" I shout in a wave of anger. "You liar!" I scream, still running and running. I know I’m throwing this word at him unfairly. Mauro has never lied to me outright, he also said he will explain everything after my recovery, but it just comes pouring out of me. Mostly because I'm devastated. I know he isn't the only one at fault here. The one to blame is fucking Fate, for creating this impossible obstacle:

Mauro’s past… and my past.

Making whimpering sounds, I push forward, but… I’m not entirely sure I want to run very far. It’ll be getting dark very soon, and venturing deeper into the dark forest isn’t exactly appealing to me. Also I’m not going to escape a young alpha anyway, duh.

I stop beside a tree and press my back against the trunk, looking at Mauro as he follows me at an unhurried, effortless jog…

He stops directly in front of me.