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“Weare not going to do anything. You will carry on as per usual, take care of your club and whatever else you do. If you need any help with that inherabsence, you let me know.”
“No offense. Morri might be desperate enough to make a pact with you, but… I would rather not.” Her chin raises and her gaze is a far cry from only a minute ago when she was sobbing into my chest. Like a switch, she flipped it and whoever she was a minute ago is buried deep. If it’s even buried at all… it might just be gone.
Funny, her sweet voice doesn’t quite match that stern look in her eyes.
“I’m not making a pact with you. I’m offering support.” I take a step forward. Not toward her, but to the door.
“Yeah. You seem to be a very… supportive man. I didn’t peg you as the type to hold a crying woman as you did.”
I turn my head to her, the muscles of my face slowly relaxing in that usual state that makes people around me uncomfortable, fearful.
“I’ve never claimed to be heartless, Miss Dietrich.” I move away, toward the exit, and stop before I’m out. “But I would still appreciate it if you kept that information to yourself.”
“Sure. We wouldn’t want people to know that The Serpent has a soft side.” I can hear that hint of amusement in her tone.
“Not when his enemies could rip away the reason why he does.” And on that slight hitch in her breath… I walk away.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
MORRIGAN
That veil of hate has fallen thick over me… over us, over everything we were, are, and never will be.
Who imagines a relationship ending in a forced beginning? No one… not even me, even knowing I live in this world where the barrier between good and evil is drawn with chalk.
“You brought this on yourself!” he rasps.
I’ve never seen him this angry, never felt the sting of his palm on my face until today, and I think that shocked me most of all. That fury in his eyes rendered me close to catatonic when we were out on the street, because that type of emotion has never lived in him. I’ve never witnessed it anyway. It’s excessive, it’s new, and most importantly, due to the madness that has been dominating him for months now, it’s unpredictable. Dangerously so.
“I didn’t do anything!” My pitch heightens as my voice splits the atmosphere, clutching the sides of my face, fear and anger mixing in a concoction that makes me erratic in an unmoving kind of way, where my brain can’t fucking decide on the next move.
“Oh, of course you did! You made me go out on the fucking streets looking for your trampy ass! Then you made a fucking show out of it all!” He moves toward me, and that fickle bitch called fear makes me shuffle backwards on the bed in an instant.
Then I see it in his eyes, creeping to the corners of his lips, a victorious smirk that brings back those threads of what makes me…me.And that fear that confuses me so much, slowly starts to dissipate.
If only it would go away completely.
I take one slow, deep breath that fills my chest with an uncomfortable pressure, hanging on to that marvelous feeling that grin gives me.
You will pay for this. You will pay for it all, and when you do, I will make sure you feel the agony before you receive the kiss of death.
“My trampy ass?!Mytrampy ass?! You fucked a woman in front of me to prove some sort of point that only made sense to you! You’ve gone mad! You lost yourself in this dark world, in the money it can bring and the power you will never, ever obtain! You delusional motherfucker!” With every statement, my tone catches a bit of strength. And that only triggers him more.
“I found myself! I fucking found myself, and it took me too long to get here! So many fucking hands I rubbed and asses I kissed, including yours! You always thought you were so much goddamn better than me, up there on your high horse, with your rich, clueless family that bailed you out of all the fucking bullshit you’ve caused. And they don’t even know the full extents of it yet; you killed a fucking man before you even left for university!” His arms are all over the place, waving in the air to match his tone and the wild look in his eyes, which engages my fight-or-flight instinct. The former much more. “And even without that knowledge, they still fucking hate you! Enough to sell you to me without a second thought!”
His maniacal laugh echoes off the walls, the creases in his skin bizarre in the dim light of the only lit lamp in the room.
“For so long I waited behind you,” he continues. “Waited for you to notice me so I can get my in with you… even in those teenage years when you had eyes for anyone but me. Then I waited for you through fucking university! And I finally got you, fucked and ruined you, and I want more! I want everything you are and everything you have! I want to destroy every fucking piece of you until all you’ll be is a shadow under my control!” The veins in his temple and the ones in his throat are bulging, the pulse raging high as his eyes grow so wide they look feral. A cold shiver runs through me, and I don’t know where to go from here. So many words, so many thoughts. I’m shocked, confused, weirded out. I can’t make sense of it. Of him.
“Why…?” It comes out barely louder than a whisper.
“Because you were my first love, and you said no. I loved you… and you said no. I worshiped you, and you said no! I always knew that we were perfect for each other, and you still fucking said no!!! You only noticed me when the time came for me to help you bury a goddamn body, and it was awful timing for you. Why?! Because betrayal tastes fucking bitter and you filled me with it, eyes only for the snake you had, only for the snake… and that night you gave me exactly what I needed to make sure you will have no escape from me.”
“We were goddamn teenagers! Are you being serious right now? You’re doing this because of something that happened all those years ago?! Some sort of sick vendetta, even though we did end up together?!” He’s insane, Jesus Christ, he’s insane! I… I don’t know how to deal with this. “This makes no sense, Ryan, we ended up together… who are you taking revenge on?! You keep blaming this on me, butyouruined us!”
“We may have been young, but were we not human?! We were! And I loved you and you went to someone else! Either way… after that night, I knew I needed to wait for all the pieces to fall into place, until the time came when my love turned into destruction—yours. And the world shifted, my goals aligned, and I wanted more. I needed more! I watched my father take too little risks, make too many mistakes over the years, and I knew I could do so much better than him. I could bring this business to a greatness that would control this whole fucking city and everything around it!” He raises his arms to the sides, palms up, like he’s presenting his victory to me. A megalomaniac in action… “And you fit perfectly in my shift in views, only this time around, you serve a different kind of purpose, my love.” I suppress the retching at the endearment. He walks around the bed and I stiffen as he leans over, swiping the backs of his fingers against my cheek. One by one each muscle in my body twitches as it prepares it to flee.
“What’s my purpose, then?” After hearing all of that, I wonder what else he could say to surprise me.
