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ChapterTen
ARES
My heart is still poundingfrom Ophelia firing her gun inches from my head. Maybe if she’s lucky, I’ll forgive her for that.
It’s the least I owe her.
We weren’t expecting her to rush to the house the second the news about her father hit the media. Everyone in Beacon Bay is talking about the whereabouts of Belen Drakos. Pretty soon, the police will be here, asking tons of questions.
And we need her to stay.
“Go after her,” my mother says. “Ophelia is essential to the last part of our plan. Make her see this is the only way.”
Ophelia thinks we screwed her over, but she doesn’t know the whole story. She only knows whatever her shady-ass uncle told her. We’re not the bad guys. Once we get our girl to see reason, she’ll understand we did this for her, too.
“I’ll go,” I offer.
Since she likes me the most—at least she did—I leave the sitting room searching for her. My brothers don’t complain. Apollo would be better at handling her foul mood. He excels at diffusing complicated situations but not good at dealing with his own shit. And Atlas would probably draw her a picture of his feelings and say something poetic.
But she’s getting me.
I’m terrible at communicating with people, but I understand her feelings. I know what it’s like to think you’re not good enough, especially when I’m standing beside my brothers.
I race down the hallway and head outside. From a distance, I hear her sneakers on the pavers.
She’s still here.
I dart outside, whirling past her to reach the car door before her.
“Get out of my way, Ares!” Ophelia raises the gun and points it at my chest. “I will shoot you this time, you fucking bastard piece of shit.”
I deserve that.
I lean back against the driver’s side door, arms outstretched. “Then go ahead and shoot because I’m not moving.”
The engine is still running in the black Mercedes. She must have borrowed it from her uncle. Her fender presses against Apollo’s bumper, the headlamps shining on the damage to the Audi A8. Apollo will stroke when he sees what she did to his car.
Ophelia aims the weapon at me. “Ares, stop playing games. Get out of my way and let me go.”
She doesn’t want to hurt me anymore than I already crushed her. It didn’t have to go down like this. I would have done things differently if there were any other way to get what we both wanted.
So would my brothers.
“Put the gun down, little dragon.” I hold up my hands in surrender. “I just want to talk. No one has to get hurt.”
“Too fucking late,” she snaps, the tears streaming down her cheeks. “I trusted you and your brothers. And you took everything from me.”
She’s screaming now, nearly hysterical and ready to lose it. I’m afraid she will accidentally shoot me if I don’t get her to lower the Glock.
“Baby, c’mon.” I push off from the car, one hand extended. “Give me the gun. I know you don’t want to kill me.”
“You don’t know shit,” she fires back, her entire body trembling from the emotions sweeping over her. “You pretended to like me. I knew a man like you would never like a woman like me. And I was right.”
She’s so fucking wrong.
And I think Apollo is right about me. I love Ophelia, or at the very least, have strong feelings for her that could be love. I wouldn’t know since I’ve never been in love before.
I can’t tell her this.
