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The past few weeks haven’t helped me interface with reality any better. Aidan swept me up in his Beauty and the Beast montage, seducing me away from my common sense and self-preservation instincts.
But now I can see it. Death may very well be his closest friend and ally. They are at the very least poker buddies.
I’m struck in this moment by just how much of his darkness he’s chosen not to aim at me. How much of it he’s actively hidden from me. And I can’t decide if it’s been a mercy or cruelty.
Finally I listen to my instincts, turn, and run. I hear Aidan’s roar behind me. “Bring her back here!”
Yes, the polite mask of civility is definitely gone.
I run out the back door and flee into the gardens. The grass is cool under my bare feet as I run. I know I can’t get off this sprawling gated estate, not now. I always have to have an escort when I leave the property, guards and a driver, and I know that won’t be allowed today, maybe not ever again.
I’ve seen too much.
Is he going to keep me locked in the house? Is he going to kill me now that I’m a witness? Now that I’ve seen something directly and have more than just hints of his darkness with some well-placed tattoos?
The guards behind me are communicating with walking talkies. The garden maze has a separate entrance and exit and is a great place to get lost and hide in, but before I can reach it, a large guard steps out from behind a tall hedge, blocking my path. He drags me, kicking and screaming, back to the house. I bite him. He releases me from the shock of it, and I break out in a run again, but another two guards are waiting for me.
When they get me back to the dining room, one of them pushes me into the chair at the end of the table. I’m now only inches from the man Aidan has pinned down. I have Aidan’s full attention now, and I have never wanted it less.
“Maddie, don’t you know the story about what killed the cat?”
I swallow hard.
I actually don’t know what killed the cat. The saying is that it was curiosity, but curiosity about what?
Maybe I am the living version of this story since I’m still asking that question when that’s the entire lesson.
“Why are you here?” he asks, his gaze still locked on mine.
There is this very stupid part of me that wants to be a smartass right now and say something like Because you kidnapped me. But I don’t. Something in his energy is far different than the smooth charming facade he’s shown me these past few weeks—the facade I was foolishly starting to buy into.
“I… I heard a noise. S-something broke.” It’s me. I’m the thing that broke. Or maybe I’m the thing that’s breaking now. My gaze drifts to the shattered breakfast china on the floor.
He looks back down at the man on the table.
“Please…” the man says, struggling. “It was just a misunderstanding. I swear I’ll never cross you again. Vito got it all wrong. I swear to you, on my mother’s grave, I’m loyal. I would never break the omerta. You know that. I worked for your uncle Martin, you know me. Nobody that wasn’t supposed to got hurt.”
The words come out of him in a rush as soon as Aidan removes his hand from the man’s throat. Aidan is more fixated on me than his captive’s words, but I can’t stop thinking about Aidan’s words.
I control the air you breathe.
Aidan’s eyes are still locked on mine. And we’re in that alley all over again, before I knew who he was, when I thought he was just another dangerous stranger. Maybe I was right the first time. Who is this man I married? He’s still a complete and utter stranger.
“Kid! Please! You know me!” the man gasps out from beneath him.
Aidan’s hand is once again on the man’s throat as he takes his gaze from me and glares down at him.
His voice is so cold I could swear icicles are forming on the fireplace mantle behind him. “Kid? You dare disrespect me when I hold your life in my hands? I am Mr. Stryker to you.”
Aidan pulls a knife from his pocket and unsheathes the blade. The man’s eyes widen. Im sure mine do too because I know this knife. It’s the knife I tried to bring myself to kill Aidan with on our wedding night. It’s the knife whose handle brought me to my first orgasm at his hand. Pleasure and pain. Life and death. Two sides of the same coin.
“Mr. Stryker! Mr. Stryker! Please, we can work something out!”
It happens so fast. Aidan pulls his hand away from the man’s throat and slits his carotid artery right in front of me. I would run again except that the bodyguard who pushed me into the chair is still standing behind me. His hands press down on my shoulders, reminding me of his presence and his orders.
I flinch and look away when the man’s blood splatters on my face.
“Don’t look away, Maddie. This is what I am! This is the beast you’re allowing yourself to start to love. Do you like what you see?”