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A spurt of energy surges through me, and I rush toward the door. It’s the perfect time to get food at The Ivy. It’s right between lunch and dinner, so they may not have everything that I want, but at this point I’ll eat anything—even those zero calorie rice cakes that Nya seems to subsist on.
I open the front door to find two glum faces staring back at me.
They belong to two tall, burly men dressed in matching khaki suits. One of them has dark hair graying at the temples, while the other is nearly bald save for a ring of hair around the sides of his head. They watch me with a bored expression.
What the fuck is this?
I go to squeeze past them, but they shove me back inside the apartment with their bodies. That’s when I notice the holsters at their sides—they’re armed. These are fucking guards.
“Let me through,” I say, standing up straighter despite the fact that my stomach is closing in on itself.
“We can’t do that, miss,” the bald one says. “We have orders not to let you leave.”
My mouth falls open.
“From who?” I ask, but I already know the answer.
“From Mr. Duke,” the other one says. “He was very clear.”
I look between them in disbelief. This isfuckingridiculous.
“He said I can’t leave?”
They nod. I slam the door in their faces and storm off angrily to my room.
Curse Alexander Duke and his fucking shenanigans. Where the fuck did those guards even come from? I’ve seen some a handful of times around Kingmaker House, and even on other parts of campus, but never any dressed like that.
Does he have his own personal detail or some shit? It makes no sense.
I blink back the tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. Crying won’t help me right now. I need to think of a way out of this situation. I pick up the phone and dial Alexander’s number. It goes to voicemail.
A text from him pops up a second later.
Alexander: Did you eat?
My angry fingers can’t type out the words fast enough.
Alize: No, motherfucker. How dare you do something like this??
Alexander: You can leave when you’ve eaten.
Alize: I’m not going to eat.
He takes much longer to respond.
Alexander: Oh.
With a groan, I toss my phone on the bed. It bounces off then clatters to the floor. My head is spinning—whether it’s from anger or not eating, I can’t be sure.
This.
Thisis what I hate about Alexander.
He will never back down from a fight. No matter what’s happening, no matter if he’s the one who caused it, healwayshas to be right in the end. Things always have to go the way he wants, or he can’t sleep at night. In his fucked up head, he’s justified in doing absolutely anything to get the result he wants.
To him, all of this is normal. But I’ve been on the receiving end of this long enough to know that it’snot. Taking away someone’s right to choose—even if you think they are making a bad choice—is overstepping so many boundaries. But I’m pretty sure Alexander doesn’t even understand the concept of boundaries. In his mind,heis the boundary.
The dagger lying on the nightstand catches my eye.
