Page 179 of Ruthless Chaos

Love always brings death.

I can’t love her the way she wants.

Alize goes quiet for a few heartbeats. The tension in the room is so thick I can’t breathe. Almost imperceptibly, something shifts in her expression.

“Well, I want a relationship,” she says in a low voice. “So, I think I will find someone who can give me one, and you can find somebody who will be content with being your whore.”

“What?” The word leaves me in a whisper.

“You heard me.” She stares at me with those blank eyes again. “Whatever it is we have, I want it to stop.”

She can’t be serious.

“You never get to decide that,” I hiss, grabbing her neck. She doesn’t flinch. “This doesn’t end until I say it does.”IfI say it ever does.

She narrows her eyes at me, meeting my threat head-on. She’s nothing like the girl I remember, the one I saw at the lake all those nights ago.

“I will kill myself,” she says. Her eyes drift to my gun. “I would rather kill myself than stay with you.”

My grip on her neck slackens. She gives me a wicked smile that stuns me.

I never took Alize for the manipulative type, and that heats my blood. Had she just been waiting for the right time to pull this stunt on me? To use the one thing I care about—her safety—to back me into a corner? It’s the second time tonight that someone has tried to pull my strings.

I won’t stand for it this time.

“You need my protection,” I say. “You’re lying to everyone about who you are, Alize. The moment they find out, you’ll be as good as dead.” I bare my teeth. “You need me.”

She’s as cold as ice.

“It seems like I’ll die either way,” she says nonchalantly. “So, I will get what I want.”

I stare at her for a few more heartbeats, searching her face for something, anything, that proves she’s joking. That this is some sort of misunderstanding. For even a hint of the pliant, submissive girl who wanted nothing more than to please me.

Instead, Alize stares back at me like she knows she has outplayed me and is enjoying every second of my floundering. My whole body grows numb.

Love always brings death.

She’ll die if I love her, why doesn’t she see that?

I let her go and step aside.

She pushes past me into the bedroom without a second glance or word. I glance at the gun on the bathroom vanity, and anger surges within me.

I should force her to stay.

But it won’t work.

She clearly isn’t in the best frame of mind right now—if I push her, I have no idea what might happen. Maybe she just needs space.

There’s no escaping me.

She’s mine, forever. Whether she likes it or not.

As I watch her change and leave our hotel room, realization hits me.

This entire time, I’ve been so wrapped up in resisting her, keeping her safe and ensuring I didn’t lose her the way my father did my mother,that I didn’t realize what was happening to me.

Love always brings death.