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I didn’t even want to think about that outcome. The idea of losing all the people I loved destroyed me. My family was everything to me, and without them, I wouldn’t even know what it meant to be a Barsetti.
“But I didn’t think about any of those things. Your family meant everything to you, even more than I did. If you lost them, you would never be the same. You would never recover from the despair. It would consume you, diminish your light forever, and turn you into a different person. That was all I cared about, not whether they lived or died. Your family had never been anything but cruel to me, but that was irrelevant at the time. I stepped in for you—and for no other reason.”
I felt the distant ache in my chest, the warning of impending tears.
“The past three months are a blur to me. I spent most of it drunk or working. I’d always been a depressed man, but I took it to a whole new level.”
I was relieved he didn’t talk about the women he brought here, the meaningless fucks that made him feel even more empty.
“My bitterness rose as my intoxication increased. I hated your family in a whole new way, the way they judged me for the same sins they committed. I understood they were trying to protect the one innocent person in their family, but I thought it was bullshit all the same. But when I knew they were all going to die…I had to do something. Because no matter how much time had passed, it didn’t change my feelings for you. The alcohol and the depression couldn’t wipe away the holy memory I had of you. You were the one good thing in my life, the one thing that turned me from a monster into a man. I took a bullet for your father—but I really took it for you.”
Tears leaked from my eyes and fell directly onto the pillow. All that time apart had been torture for both of us, and also needless. We should have been together in the first place. We should always have been together.
“The pain you felt…I felt it too.” He spoke of a horrible past but with no emotional response. He said it simply, not with the bitterness he previously described. “My life had been empty before, but it never felt hollow. Once you were gone, I didn’t know how to go back to that way of living. I only killed for money, but that didn’t give me any enjoyment anymore. Everything became meaningless.” His thumb wiped away a tear, letting it soak into his callused skin. The day he left, he’d battled his own tears. And when I was back in his arms, he showed the same emotion I’d probably never see again. This emotional behemoth had been moved to tears only twice—and probably never before that. “Your father said he would do anything for me, give me anything I asked for. There was only one thing I wanted.” He wiped away the other tear. “You know exactly what that was. But what you don’t understand is how I meant it.”
“Then how did you mean it?” I whispered.
His fingers moved under my chin, keeping my eyes directed on him. “That you’re mine.”
“I am yours… I’ve always wanted to be yours.”
“No. You aren’t my baby, my woman. You’re my personal property. You’re a gift given to me from my enemy. That means I’ll never let you go. You have no voice or choice in the matter. If you ever want to leave me, you can’t. If you ever fall in love with someone else, I’ll kill him. You’re my property, baby. That’s the price you’ll pay for the sacrifice I made.” Like the monster he used to be, he claimed me as a prize and vowed he would never let me go. I was his prisoner all over his again, just as I was when we tried futilely not to fall in love. “My words aren’t romantic. They’re barbaric. But I don’t care. That’s the price your family has to pay for what they’ve done to me, for how much they’ve made me suffer. And baby, if that disappoints you, I really don’t care.” His hand moved to my neck, his fingers gently squeezing me.
If a man had said something like that to me a year ago, I would have slapped him across the face. But with Bones, I loved him for exactly who he was, even when he was being brutal. “I don’t want to go anywhere, Griffin. So I’ll gladly be your prisoner…this time.”
His fingers gently squeezed me again. “I’m glad we have an understanding. You’re sexy when you fight, but you’re sexier when you give in to me.”
“I’m not giving in to you,” I said. “Not when it’s exactly what I want.”
