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All I wanted to do was protect her.
But how could I protect her and kill her family at the same time?
I had to choose.
Vanessa or my vendetta.
I couldn’t have both.
9
Vanessa
When Bones left without saying goodbye, it hurt.
He’d never done that before.
Most of the time, I couldn’t get rid of him. He made my sheets smell like him, left his coffee mug in the sink, and used my toothbrush like it was his. He invaded my space like a bad roommate and left his clothes on my bedroom floor. He made his mark everywhere, from my things to my actual skin.
But when he left, I felt empty.
I didn’t like it when he wasn’t there.
When I went to bed for the next two nights, I tried not to be scared of whatever lingered outside my apartment. But my longing got the best of me, and I peeked out the window in the hopes I would see his truck at the curb.
But it wasn’t.
I reminded myself that he wouldn’t leave me if he thought I was actually in danger.
He would always protect me.
But I still hated the fact that he was gone, hated sleeping in a million layers while the bed still remained cold. I missed his smell. I missed his powerful arms wrapped around me. I missed the sex before we went to sleep.
God, this was bad.
I’d left Milan to clear my head, and once I returned, I was all over him again. Now that he was gone, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. As if I was losing my mind until I could get my next fix, I was anxious and desperate.
I was so damn attached to him.
How could I be attached to a man who wanted to hurt my family?
I hated myself. I hated myself so much. I judged myself for getting into this situation. I judged myself for not letting him die like I should have. I judged myself for feeling so many emotions for this man.
What was wrong with me?
The painting pushed him away. He saw the emotion I infused into the paintbrush. He took it as a confession, that I was pinned under his thumb so well that he could do anything he wanted to me. I was attached to him, desperate for him. He kept me as a prisoner at the time, but that painting showed I never felt like a prisoner.
I wanted him so bad.
He didn’t know what to do with that information, so he left.
I couldn’t blame him.
I should I could leave too.
Maybe I would get lucky, and he would decide to break things off between us. Maybe he would find a different woman, and the pain of his betrayal would be enough to make me return to my family and tell them we needed to kill Bones.
But he promised he would never leave me, that he would always come back to me. I was consoled by those words when I wished I weren’t, but I hung on to that confession like a lifeline. It reassured me that we still belonged to one another, that we couldn’t live without each other.
A part of me wished he would break that promise.
A bigger part of me never wanted him to.
Three days came and went, and I didn’t hear from him. I spent my time working on my paintings and cleaning the apartment. The painting I made of him was hung on my bedroom wall, so I could see it at night when I went to sleep. It made me feel safe, even though Bones couldn’t jump out of the painting and protect me.
Sleeping without him got easier, but it was never the same as it was when I had him by my side. I missed the way his weight sank into the mattress and forced me to roll toward him. I missed the way he put his stuff on his nightstand, making himself at home. But I pushed through it, telling myself I was being pathetic for letting his absence bother me this much
I didn’t want to be that kind of woman.
I’d always been strong, with or without a man.
But when it came to this one man…everything was different.
He made me so damn weak.
It was almost nine in the evening when I got a text message from him. I’m coming inside in five minutes. He never warned me when he was coming over, but I knew this was because I was a little timid at night. Just the slightest sound kept me up for an extra hour because I couldn’t figure out what caused it.
I didn’t text back, and I stayed on the couch, knowing I would hear his footsteps before he reached the door. I turned off the TV and let the fire crackle in the fireplace. My eyes moved to the window, waiting for his shadow to appear.
