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I can’t stop moving; every muscle is coiled and ready to fight. She doesn’t know what she does to me. She has no fucking idea what she’s done. What kind of danger she’s put herself in.
“How could you?” I say. The question is menacing and it stops me in my tracks. It holds a vicious tone I can’t contain. I take a single glance up and regret it. With her beautiful blue eyes widened, Jules looks as though I’ve slapped her, flinching and her mouth dropping open, but she doesn’t answer.
“I—” she tries to speak, but can’t finish her sentence. It’s fucking infuriating. I don’t know what’s worse, how she’s impulsively made everything worse for us, or the fact that she left to turn me in. My jaw clenches so hard I nearly crack my teeth. I have to stare past her at the blanket of snow as she squirms on the sofa. “Mason, I?—”
“You what?” My voice booms from my chest as my heart pounds. She would be dead if my father hadn’t called me. He could have killed her. Or have had her killed rather, so he wouldn’t have blood on his own hands. He’d have done it too, if he hadn’t wanted to toy with me. If he hadn’t wanted something to hold over my head. If he hadn’t wanted me to know that I owe him now. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
I can only imagine my father is under the impression that she knows about his involvement with Avery’s death. That I told her. That she was there to rathimout and not me.
“Fuck.” The curse lays under my breath as my pacing continues. It takes every ounce of self-control not to destroy this place.
He doesn’t know a damn thing about Jace’s murder. No one does but the anonymous stranger who sent Jules that note.
My father won’t let Jules live. I take in a ragged breath, but it doesn’t calm me.
There’s no fucking way I’ll let him touch her. She’s mine, and she’ll be my wife and mother to my children. If he dares try any of that shit with her again, I’ll destroy him. I’ll end his life so fucking miserably that he’ll be thankful when I finally slide the edge of a knife across his throat.
“Mason,” she says and fear clings to the single whispered word.
“They would have killed you, Jules.” I swallow the ball of spikes in my throat and finally look down at her glassed-over eyes. Her baby blues are full of so much emotion. “They would have killed you,” I repeat in a whisper and it’s that sickening thought that breaks the rage. It shatters into something else. Something that feels like weakness.
Jules holds my gaze, but she doesn’t answer me. Tears leak from the corner of her eyes, but Jules doesn’t acknowledge them. Her face displays an expression of sincerity. “I’m scared,” she says. She gently shakes her head and looks past me, down the hallway and avoiding eye contact. My heart clenches in my chest.
“I didn’t want any of this,” she says and her voice is raw with emotion.
I swallow thickly and tell her the simple truth, “You never should have left.”
She looks up at me with daggers in her eyes as she hisses at me without a second passing between us, “You never should have killed my husband.”
It catches me off guard for a moment, but the pure venom and hate she had only hours ago is dimmed, the stark reality of the situation taking its toll on her. I keep my eyes on hers as I tell her, “Your husband deserved to die for what he did.”
Jules’s lips part as she takes in a heavy breath, looking as if she’s going to respond, but no words come out. After a moment she looks away, finally wiping the tears from her reddened cheeks with the sleeve of her ruined sweater and sniffling.
“I don’t want to die, Mason,” she says weakly. Her chest rises and falls with her steady breathing. “I just want to go home and I’ll never say a word.”
“You can’t go home.” My voice is hard and leaves no room for negotiation. I won’t risk putting her in danger. I don’t know what my father’s told the commissioner. I need to make it clear to him that she knows nothing about what happened. I’ll lie. I’ll tell him I hit her.
He’s always seen through my lies, though. He’s a damn good liar, and the challenge of outsmarting him has never seemed so daunting.
I could tell him the truth. I’ll tell him anything I need to in order to make him believe she’s not a threat.
“If you leave me, you’re putting yourself at risk—” I can’t finish because it’s at that moment that Jules finally breaks down. Her always composed demeanor cracks and her shoulders hunch forward as a sob wracks her body.
Any explanation dies at the back of my throat. All of my anger dissipates. She’s broken because of me. This happened because of me. I fucking hate myself.
“I’ll protect you,” I tell her. I only hesitate for a moment before taking the seat next to her. My weight causes her smallbody to lean into mine, and I’m surprised when she doesn’t resist. She lets me hold her for a moment as her cries get softer and she wipes the tears from beneath her eyes. I’ve craved this warmth since she found out the truth. “I promise.”
I lean forward and kiss her hair, taking in her sweet scent but it makes her withdraw. She doesn’t look at me, and the moment she has her composure back she pulls away from me.
“Is it really that bad to stay with me?”
Her body stiffens at the question, and she doesn’t answer.
“You have no other options but to stay where I tell you and do what I say. You need to convince everyone in this city that you’re mine, that everything between us is better than it’s ever been.”
“I just want to go home.” She’ll never know how much that desire damages me in the worst way. How empty and hollow her confession leaves me. “I won’t tell anyone,” she adds, peeking up through her thick lashes.
“You don’t have a choice,” I tell her as I cup her cheek in my hand. I run the rough pad of my thumb along her lush lips, and they beg me to kiss her. Her pale skin is flushed a beautiful shade of pink and everything in me wants to hold her close. I want to take her pain away; I want to remind her who she belongs to.