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I snickered as did Val and Chris. The tension I felt loosened. “Sure thing, little man.”
I hopped up, and we ventured to the kitchen for some home baked goodness that I guaranteed Val had floating about somewhere.
She shook her head at me with a playful eye roll. “Kids… honestly snacks are life for them.”
Chapter40
Texas
This room was my favourite, and all the ones similar that ran underground at our headquarters. Hidden from plain sight, where people walked in alive and left only once the light had been eradicated savagely from their eyes. Different rules applied here, you were now invited to my playground.
“This is the big boys’ league.” I smirked at Adam. The adrenaline in my veins pounded to a hard beat. I gestured to the floor where he was laid out and I looked down at him, below me as he should be. He was choosing not to make a move. Not that he’d get far with us all surrounding him, waiting to deliver our pound of flesh. “Seems you can’t keep up.”
He laughed, and it was the type of laugh that I’d never heard from him before. It reminded me how little we really knew him, the real him. The part he’d kept hidden, so no one would ever be suspicious.
“You all think you’re so clever, it’s fucking laughable.” His voice grated on my last nerve.
The anger radiating from those positioned around the room was like a living live wire zapping through the space. Those of us with personal vested interest in Milla, and others who regardless of not knowing her personally, still stood with us to end him.
Adam hadn’t been revealed as the key player on the board, merely a puppet for his daddy made in his image, but he’d been the one whose hands touched what wasn’t his. The men surrounding me bristled with the violence that ran through all our veins. All of us in the team were fiercely lethal in our own distinctive ways.
The chaos in me wanted to be unleashed, but I held it back with a firm grip, even when it rattled so prominently. I clenched my fists to physically restrain myself from launching at him, and just waited.
Milla entered the room escorted by Miles. Adam’s focus turned to her and a mixture of emotions played across his face. His lips lifted into a sneer. I knew that he was going to play head games with us now she’d walked in. Out of everybody though, she needed to be here, she deserved to be. It’d been what she wanted, to see him get what he deserved after everything he subjected her to.
“You filthy slut, couldn’t keep your legs shut. Could you?” Adam’s face contorted in anger.
Milla took a seat casually like he didn’t just insult her. Every person in the room snapped to attention. She looked at him with no hint of the softness she’d shown me beforehand.
She tilted her head and told him, “I was never truly yours.”
“Yes, you were.” He smirked cruelly. “I’ve had you in every imaginable way possible. You are mine, always will be.” He licked his lips, probably picturing the times he’d had her at his mercy. A red haze coated my vision. Drew stepped forward and held my shoulder before I made a pre-emptive move.
“You good?” he asked a few moments later.
“Yeah.” I stepped away once I’d gotten hold of myself.
“I was always theirs.” Milla gestured to me, Hollis and Preston. “Even when they rejected the notion.”
My heart seized; she was right.So fucking right. I screwed my eyes up tightly. What she said made me want to crawl on my knees and rip out my heart to lay it in her possession, begging for forgiveness.
Over the years, we’d been massive assholes, especially me. I flaunted others in front of her, making her believe she was never good enough to be with me,with us. It couldn’t have been further from the truth, but at the time we didn’t know better. We didn’t see past the latest blow, past the illusion Adam weaved before us, to the real truth. We should have seen. Stupid mistakes had changed everything between us.
Would she willingly be with the three of us though? That was if she ever wanted us in her life again after everything was wrapped up. Whatever decision she made, I’d step back and deal. This had to be about her, not me. For once in my life, I couldn’t dive in like a wrecking ball to get my own way. Milla needed choices, she deserved those. My heart rate calmed a fraction, knowing my decision was the right one.
“You’re right. You’ve marked my body from the inside out, and that’s something I’ll never be able to forget, unfortunately.” Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion. Adam continued to smile at what she admitted, but it dropped when her next words were spoken clear as day.
“You never got in here fully though.” She tapped her temple and stood, placing herself before Adam. “You tried. God, did you try. At times, my mind nearly caved, submittingeverythingto you. So many times, I wanted to give up, give in. But that part of me I tucked away to keep safe, fuckingrefusedto give you an inch more than you’d already taken.”
I was so proud of her, of the woman she’d grown to be, owning what had happened to her with no hint of vulnerability showing to him in his last moments. Inside it probably killed her. She was so strong, such a fighter. It floored me after everything she’d endured. But the enemy stood no chance when the victim decided to survive.
“You unknowingly handed me a shred of hope, something, someone.” She paused. “To hold onto throughout it all. How ironic that the person you used to subdue me, believing it would keep me in line was the same thing that gave me the courage not to bend.”
Kai. Her son.
They shared a child. My head still hadn’t fully comprehended it.
Adam swivelled and got to his knees, trying to launch at her but was held back by Drew and Ronnie. They moved quickly, dragging him backwards and locking his hands up securely on the hook in the middle of the room. His hands were already tied with a few ties from earlier, hands that would never touch Milla or another human being again.
