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“Lila?” Nik asks, leaning against the counter while keeping his eyes on mine.
“Yes. She was worried.”
“As she should be.”
I wish I could say there were times that I saw sides to the Nik I once knew, but truthfully, since we both come clean about us playing each other to get information, I haven’t seen anything. He’s merely the shadow of the man I knew.
“How are you Ghost?” I ask, tilting my head to the side. “He’s an ancient tale, and unless you tell me you’re some weird fucking vampire, I don’t buy it.”
The sides of his jaw tense. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”
“What, you want me to ask you if you’ve kidnapped me?”
He shrugs his large shoulders. “Yeah.”
My eyes narrow. “Yeah, you want me to ask you if you’ve kidnapped me, or yeah, you have kidnapped me?”
“Yeah, I have kidnapped you.” He reaches for the pack of cigarettes near the espresso machine. “Next question.”
My throat closes around the words I want to say. “What do you mean?” The soles of my feet itch to run. To get out of this house. How could I be so stupid?
“Why are you acting surprised about who I am, Meraki? I was a monster then as I am now.”
I shake my head, willing the tears to stay down. “No. This is different.”
“Why?” He raises a dark brow. “Because I kill people for a living and sometimes for fun now? What do you want me to say, Mer?”
He closes the distance between us, and despite the fact that we just had a three-hour blood-fueled fuckfest in his office, I’ve always felt safe with him. That’s not the case anymore, though, because the longer I spend around him, the more I realize my fucking stupidity.
He’s not my safety. He never was.
Everything has been a lie or a manipulation to get me exactly where I am now and I fucking fed into it. I jumped from Luca to Niko blindly because I was desperate to not feel pain. I was so desperate to numb the pain of Luca that I allowed myself to be blinded by Niko’s toxicity.
“Hmm?” he asks, and darkness clouds his features as his mouth flattens. “You want me to say that you mean something to me, and that because I’ve known you all of my life I would never hurt you?” He chuckles, and it ripples all the way down the base of my spine. “Hate to break it to you, Ruckus, but I’m pretty sure you would have been safer bouncing on Luca’s dick than mine.”
His hand comes to my cheek, but I shove my face out of his touch, glaring at him. “What do you want from me?”
“Hmm.” His eyes travel down my throat, past the worn shirt and to my bare thighs. “Gotta admit. The tough act you’ve been throwing around is entertaining enough to fuck out of you.”
When I go to slap him away from me, his hand flies up and he catches mine with a firm grip. He squeezes so hard I’m sure I’ll feel the bruise for weeks to come as his other hand dives into the back of my hair to hold me still.
“You keep this act up and I’ll fuck you until you’re dead, and believe me, Meraki, even if you wanted it to begin with, by the time I’m done with you, the mere thought of me coming near you will make you want to vomit.”
The words punch me in the gut as the tears I struggled to keep away roll down the edges of my eyes. He follows the trail and all of the tension he hoarded slowly releases in the half smirk that spreads over his face. He steps backward, shoving me away.
“You are not to leave this fucking house unless I say so. You can keep your phone, because I know you, Mer, and you’re smart. You know that if you contact anyone about this, I’ll kill you and them, and anyone they ever talked to.” He holds my stare. “But I also know that I don’t have to threaten that with you because you wouldn’t anyway. You kept Luca’s abuse hidden away from the world for fucking years”—his eyes narrow—“years, right, Mer? Even before I left?”
I gulp past the swell in my throat, swiping the tears off my cheeks.
“You’re not stupid, and you’re strong. So you can keep the phone, but you’ve gotta tell Ma that I haven’t killed you before she gets worried.”
“Are you even a Knight?” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them. It’s ridiculous. He just said all of that, and the first thing I ask is about the fucking Knights.
His tongue rolls over his bottom lip. “The worst one you’ll ever meet.”
I still remember hearing Luca and his father talk about Ghost. The fear that was in Luca’s father’s voice was something that will stay with me until I die. It wasn’t Luca, no. Luca is fucking stupid and a narcissist—he isn’t afraid of anyone, much less a name that has been tossed around criminal families for generations.
