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I was planning on dealing with it swiftly – dismissing him from my service and getting him the fuck out of my life. I’d done enough for him and he hadn’t repaid his debts. But when I returned, the first thing I did was check on Harlow. And what I saw chilled the blood in my veins.
He was going to hurt her. He was choking her, fucking ready to end my girl’s life. And I did the only thing I could have done. I disposed of the fucking problem.
Ellis had been like a kid brother to me, but I didn’t let that influence me. All that mattered was Harlow, sweet, innocent Harlow who’d done nothing wrong but still had been thrown into a web of lies and deceit I’d never be able to fully explain to her. I’d let her down, and now it was time to take matters into my own hands. First, I would have to break her.
I stared at her on my bed, her sobs dying down and her face growing pale as she went silent. There wasn’t a single sound in the room. Not a sob, not a whimper. My Harlow had retreated into her shell, built her walls back up.
“I’ll make it up to you,” I said, placing a blanket over her unmoving body. “I promise.”
She didn’t say a word. I spent the night in an armchair across from her. I didn’t catch a wink of sleep, instead staring at her perfectly imperfect face and hoping that one day, she would want to be mine.
But even if she didn’t, I wasn’t letting her go. She would just need to accept it.
5 days later
She wasn’t eating.
I’d been trying to spend as much time as possible with her, though my business kept me away more often than I would have liked. But when I got the news that she was sending her plates back full, I knew I had to step in. I walked into her room with feigned confidence, all of it fucking fake. Part of me believed I’d broken her permanently. That she would never come back from the dark corner of her head and that I’d lost her forever. But another part of me stubbornly believed that I would get my girl back.
So, five days after I killed Ellis, I walked into her room and brought her lunch myself. Grilled cheese sandwiches. I watched for her reaction when I lifted the cloche off the plate, but there was none. She just stared out of the window with a vacant expression on her painfully pretty face.
I sat down next to her on the bed and cut up the grilled cheese. I lifted a piece of it to her lips, the fork unsteady in my hands. I was nervous. Fucking nervous around this girl.
“Eat,” I said softly, but still, no response.
I remembered something from my childhood. The tabby cat my sister and I had when we were little. She was an old lady when I was a little kid, and she’d been a lazy thing for years, mainly lying in front of the fireplace and only stretching her paws out every once in a while. And then I remembered her getting sick.
My sister, only a couple of years older than me, had understood. But my mind couldn’t wrap around the idea that we were going to say goodbye to a family member. I couldn’t understand that she was dying, and I wouldn’t accept the fact. Long after my sister had accepted it, I followed the cat, petting her, offering her treats, until she scratched me so savagely I finally retreated. I realized now what the cat had wanted because I knew every animal, even a fucking human, wanted to go in peace, away from prying eyes.
But I wasn’t going to let Harlow go. She may have decided it was best to keep her consciousness locked away behind closed doors, but I wasn’t going to let it happen. I would fight until her last fucking breath to get her back. I wouldn’t be happy with her shell of a body, as gorgeous as it was. I wanted a willing victim. A girl who would offer me her life on a silver platter, a girl who would beg to wear my collar. And the only person I wanted fulfilling that role was Harlow fucking Granger.
“Open,” I told her, and she moved her head, staring straight at me.
Her eyes were filled with hatred and pain I didn’t understand.
She’d hated Ellis. He’d tried to fucking hurt her. And he would have if I hadn’t stepped in.
“Please, Harlow,” I said, and her shoulders sagged at the mention of her name.
There it was. Her weakness, plain and visible for me to see.
I leaned closer and she recoiled from my touch, but I didn’t let it deter me. I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and she hissed when I did it.
