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She narrows her gaze at him and stands up without taking his hand. She moves past him without a touch.
I grin at him and follow after her. “Did you really think she would take your hand?” I taunt as I nudge him back.
“Was worth a shot,” he grumbles.
Knox stands in front of the wall plastered with all the different pictures of Hope, and she slowly stands beside him.
I watch as her lips part, her eyes widen. She edges back and shakes her head as she covers her mouth with her hand, a shaky exhale breaking from her lips.
She hits the bed and slumps down. “No,” she breathes. “This can’t be.”
Seeing her in such a devastated state makes my skin crawl with unease. I want to fix her, but I don’t know how. All I know how to do is get rid of the problem and make sure that it never happens again. That it never hurts her again.
“We found the cameras,” I say and point at the bag. “Dimitri is still working on Jared’s computer.”
“This does explain why he tried to… yesterday,” Dimitri says, but Knox shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t,” he says.
“What do you mean?” Hope asks.
“He was clearly obsessed with you, but what changed that he made his move yesterday?” Knox says.
Hope shifts. “He said that he was doing what I wanted,” she says softly.
“Wanted?” I ask as I take a step closer to her, needing to understand her.
“He saw me with you and assumed that I was into being… taken, grabbed, fucked.” She jumps up and starts ripping the pictures off the wall.
None of us stop her as she destroys every picture, every bit of proof of what he did.
She’s panting as she goes through the pictures on the floor, the pictures of her naked, exposed, vulnerable. She rips them into pieces, tears sparkling in her eyes as she tears through all of them. She winces through the cuts on her fingertips, refusing to stop until shreds of paper litter the floor around her feet.
“Hope…” I say as I try to reach for her to get her to stop and take a damn breath.
“This isn’t your problem. It’s mine,” she says and rummages through the bag of cameras.
Knox chuckles, breaking the tension in the room.
“You’re ours,” he says so simply, and she scoffs.
“I’m not!” she sneers.
That’s where she’s so wrong.
I tilt my head. “Ours to hurt.”
“Ours to destroy,” Dimitri adds.
Knox crouches down, his fingers hooking under her chin, and forces her to stare back at him. “And we protect what is ours,” Knox says.
She tears her face from his touch. “No!”
Knox grabs her arms and lifts her to her feet. He pulls her with him as she tries to break free.
My hands itch to take over, to touch her, to go back to that moment we had all those years ago. I know it was wrong, but fuck, did it feel good. She hates us for controlling her body, but we also controlled her pleasure. Her pain.
We made herfeel.
“Look at this,” Knox snaps and opens up her buttons of her work shirt, pulling it down to expose her chest.