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“Shut up.” His jaw clenched. A vein stuck out.
I kept on, shaking my head. “I could’ve gotten free. Told you where they were, who they were. You should’ve used me all over again when you had the shot. Now you don’t know what I could’ve done for you. You already used me for my dad. You’re getting what you wanted. He’s shaking the tree. He’s the dog that goes out to scare the birds up. That’s happening, and whoever killed Justin and Kelly, what? They’re coming after me to stop my dad? We’re so far down this rabbit hole that I don’t know what’s happening anymore.”
I wanted him to come out, so bad. I wanted to play with him, not this cool and calm Ashton. I wanted to see the monster that I knew lived inside of him.
I was almost smirking, feeling my chest pinching, pain slicing through me. “But you asked why not you? Because of who you are. Because of who I am. I’m the girl who gets left behind. I’m the girl who survives everyone walking away. That’s me. That’s my story. I’m not a Jess Montell. I’m not the girl who gets the hot, wealthy, and powerful guy. I’m a disaster. I’m fucking chaos. You could have anyone, so why me? Why me? I’m Shorty Easter’s daughter. Even he didn’t want me. I’m the girl no one wants, so I blackmail my dad into selling me a dying business and I hole up, making that my world. That’s my everything. And you come in, saying it was never mine. That’s who I am.”
I looked away. “I’m the joke.”
“Is that what you want?”
I froze. “What?”
That simmering look was still on me, and I felt knocked back. “You ran tonight. Now you’re saying this. Is this because you want to be free? Should I have let you keep running?”
I was staggered. A pit opened up inside of me, and the thought—no. No! I couldn’t speak because my god. To think it. To be scared of it. To run from it, but to hear him say it? I felt emptied out, all of me. He had reached in and taken everything that made my blood pump and pulled it out. He let it drop at his feet with just the question.
I was so far in that I couldn’t think straight. I was that far in.
I could only shake my head. Not that. I didn’t want to run. I didn’t want to keep running.
I wanted him. “No. That’s not what I want.”
I felt his gaze on me, long and hard. And intense. So intense. “And if I wasn’t Mafia?”
I bit out a hard laugh. “It doesn’t matter, because it’s you. It’s you. When I heard your manager say that about you, that you were probably already fucking Remmi West, it hurt. Really hurt. It was pain that I could get over, but that was after you and me being together for what? A full day? Two? Imagine how much worse it would be for a month? Even a week? I’m more scared of what you could do to me than what a gun aiming at me could do. I cut my losses and ran. It’s an old habit, and it rose up tonight. You, what you could do to me, is what I have fought against every day being Shorty’s daughter. I never let him beat me. I never let anyone beat me down, but you could do it just by making me fall in love with you.”
Jesus.
I just said that. “And now this? You asking me if I want to run? If I want you to let me run?” I was shaking my head. I was mixed up, all mixed up. I wanted him. That’s what I kept coming back around to. Him. I wanted him, no matter who he was, what he did. It was him. Every part of him.
I needed all of him, not parts of him, not slices. All of him. His darkness included.
My insides were on the outside of my body. I’d never felt as exposed as I did now.
I hated it.
It almost made me hate him, almost, but I knew better.
Ashton’s eyes were still narrowed on me. He took a sip, another fucking sip. “Are you in love with me?”
My heart squeezed. I didn’t blink an eye, lifting my head back up. “I could, yes.”
He finished his drink, gritting his teeth as he swallowed it, and then came toward me.
I began backing up. “What are you doing?”
He moved past me, taking his things into his bedroom.
I followed, at a sedate pace, but I was following him. I stood in his doorway, watching as he disappeared into his closet. “You’ve had a long night, Molly. Shower and change.”
I . . . we weren’t going to finish this conversation? Or was this a one-sided thing? Only I told him how I felt. But I guess, in a way, it was just me that fucked things up tonight.
