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“You’re about to learn how this works, Rose. Tonight, you’re going to listen, and you’re going toobey. Wave goodbye to your smart mouth and attitude. I want you meek and pliable, or Lik will have a wonderful time teaching you discipline.” She still struggles with her collar.
“Listen,” I say softly in her ear and watch with fascination as goosebumps rise on her neck. “That’s the only way I’ll let go.” She nods, incapable of talking with the leather digging into her skin.
Once I’m sure she’s eager enough to listen, I straighten behind her and give my order calmly. “Hands on the table.”
She lets go of her collar, her trembling hands flat on the table.
“Good girl,” I praise her. I give her the tiniest bit of slack, ensuring she can breathe but still feel me holding the chain behind her. “Now, write ‘don’t come for me’.”
Once she has the pen in her left hand, I give her more slack, rewarding her for listening. She shifts on her seat, rubbing herself against it slightly and I smile. The blood rushing back to her brain after I let go is filling her with endorphins. She doesn’t even realize it yet, but she’s already subconsciously associating listening to me with a sensation of pleasure.
That’s when I see it.
Everything the powerful men who wanted her for themselves saw.
Rose is a force of nature.
Rose will light you up in every sense of the term.
Her beauty will consume you.
Her lips will start a fire in you.
And if you get on her wrong side? She will light you up…literally.
So when you find a way to control that, and when she bows down to you and follows your orders, you become the most powerful being in this universe. The supremacy goes to your head, and the need to control her becomes addictive.
She’s a ruler of kingdoms.
And, oh, the triumph there is to watch a king fall.
I let go of her chain as soon as she’s done writing. Her handwriting hasn’t changed one bit. It’s messy; long letters bent to the left in cursive chaos. I recognize it all too well.
She used to leave notes in my pockets whenever I went to Bianco’s compound. Every single one of them is tattooed on my body. My favorite is on my ribs, barely visible among all the other tattoos.
Would you choose death or suffering? I’d choose suffering…if only I could suffer with you.
I found it in my pocket the day after Bianco explicitly told her he would marry her when she turned eighteen. She was thirteen and had asked me to take her home with me. I refused because my dad was a killer, an abuser, and he had already gotten rid of my mother. I didn’t want that to happen to Rose. But she wanted to come with me, because if she was going to suffer…then she wanted to do it with me.
I shake my head, feeling my throat tighten. Rose’s suicidal thoughts started from an early age. She was desperate to leave the life Bianco was forcing on her. She chose to suffer through it because she was holding on to the fact that we could one day love each other peacefully.
A few months after writing that note, she shot her own brother to escape the foster dad who tortured her.
Well, she’ll suffer with me, that’s for sure. In fact, she’ll suffer because of me.
Lik gets my attention by bringing a necklace to me. The exact one that will lead us right to the Wolves’ den. I put it on the paper, right in front of her. The way her breath hitches makes me clench my jaw. It affects her so much.Heaffects her so much. I am dying to understand why, and yet I know I might never. I will probably kill the Volkov brothers before I get my answer.
“Recognize it?” I accuse.
“Where did you find that?” she whispers as she grabs it. I lean against the kitchen island, the need to see her eyes forcing me to move.
They’re shining with nostalgia. Bright tears of melancholy that will never drop.
“I thought I had lost it in the accident,” she admits with a tight throat, running her fingers along the golden chain. The sapphire pendant is in the shape of a Faberge egg, the blue matching her eyes and the intricate gold designs resembling the colour of her skin.
My skin burns from the inside, and I’m afraid I might combust at any moment. Rose hides any feelings behind a tough and dangerous façade. For her to not be able to control her emotions right now truly tells me there is something she is hiding from her time with the Wolves. I want to discover what that is while also perfectly knowing she will never tell me.
“I stole it at the hospital,” I tell her shamelessly. “Did you know they were tracking you? In case you escaped?”
