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We’re already almost back at the Den.
I’ve never seen Sabrina so angry. Part of me knows I should de-escalate, but the other part of me is feeding off her rage, building and building like a firestorm in high wind.
Maybe it’s time we had this out once and for all.
* * *
35
SABRINA
Adrik pulls into the driveway. I leap out of the car, storming toward the house.
A moment later I hear Jasper pulling in behind us, the tires of Adrik’s bike crunching over the loose gravel.
I spin around and march right back again, shouting, “Back me up, Jasper! Tell Adrik we need that product, you know I’m right!”
Jasper stops, still straddling the bike.
He gives me a look—half guilt and half apology—before saying, “What Adrik says goes.”
I could fucking kill him. After I just saved his ass! After he agreed with me this morning that we should get the deal done!
“This is what you want?” I sneer at Adrik. “A lapdog who agrees with everything you say? Even when he KNOWS it’s the wrong choice! But no one will call you out because they also know you’re a stubborn fucking DICTATOR who won’t listen to anyone but himself!”
“I should string you up by the ankles for what you did,” Adrik snarls, his voice low and vicious.
“You HUMILIATED me!” I scream back at him. “I made a deal, I gave my word, and you carried me out like a toddler! You think Kovalenko’s gonna keep that to himself? He’ll tell the whole fucking city! No one will respect me, because my own partner doesn’t!”
The memory of Adrik throwing me over his shoulder makes my whole body burn with a heat that’s painful, that feels like it’ll swallow me whole. I wish it fucking would. I’ve never been so embarrassed, or so hurt.
I see the tiniest flicker of shame on Adrik’s face—acknowledgment that what he did was wrong. But he won’t fucking say it, he won’t admit it or apologize.
I’m so tired of the lies. Tired of the bullshit.
I want the truth, once and for all.
Pointing my figure at Adrik I say, “Are you going to treat me as an equal or not?”
Adrik looks at me, his jaw flexing.
“I’m always going to do what I think is right. For all of us.”
“So that’s a no?”
“I’m not going to go against what I know is best for me and my men.”
“THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT IN DUBROVNIK!” I scream at him. “I was honest from you with you from the beginning! I told you exactly who I was and what I wanted! And you deceived me! You let me think things were going to be one way when I came out here and they’re not, they never have been!”
Adrik pauses. His jaw works, his narrow blue eyes little more than slits against the cold winter sun. In a quieter voice he says, “I had to have you—can you blame me?”
I wanted him to admit it, but now that he has, it only makes me angrier.
“I knew it! You fucking lied to me! You NEVER planned to make me your partner! You just said what you had to say to get me out here!”
“You wouldn’t come any other way. And it’s good—we’re doing great together!”
Adrik spreads his arms as if to indicate all we’ve achieved. It’s meaningless to me when I own none of it, when it all belongs to him.
