Page 131 of Under Your Scars

“Briefly,” I say quietly, mimicking the exact thing Elliot said to me the first time he mentioned my dad. I shrug and take another sip of water, like I’m trying to play it off as nothing. I don’t want to lie to her, but I don’t want to admit the truth either. It’s quiet in the space between us. She’s expecting me to elaborate.

I blow out a long breath. “My dad knew Diana too.”

“Oh,” she says, laughing nervously. “That’s surprising. They weren’t really…you know…in the same social class.”

I scoff and shrug again. “It was really nothing.”

“Then why are you acting so weird?”

My fingers grip the leather steering wheel tighter. “What your dad said to you this morning…I almost snapped his neck.”

“Thank you for not doing that,” she says lightly, but there’s no sarcasm in her voice. She knows that if he was any other man, it would have been the last thing he ever said. “I love my dad, but I also know he’s a huge jerk. I’m sorry you two aren’t getting along.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“When I was up in that treehouse with my brother, he said something that really stuck out to me. He said that my dad is just afraid of losing another daughter.”

“I would never—”

“I know, buthedoesn’t.”

I feel Elena’s tiny hand wrap around my forearm, and I wish the fabric of my hoodie wasn’t blocking her skin from mine.

On the one hand, she’s got loyalty to her father, and on the other, she’s in love with me. That can’t be an easy place for her to be.

“Will you tell me what happened to your knuckles?”

I lift my hand slightly to look at them and chuckle. “A tree.”

“Why?” she asks, raising an inquisitive brow.

“It was either the tree or your dad’s nose.” I cock my head to the side and grin at the thought of punching that man in the face. “I made an educated guess on your preference.”

She seems satisfied with that answer, because she drops the subject. I subtly let out a breath of relief when she begins to ramble on about some case law she’s been studying in preparation for the bar exam. I listen intently.

I consider myself a very intelligent man, but law is one of those subjects that just goes straight over my head. I could talk engineering, technology, economics, and the minutiae of politics all day, but the second someone brings up the New Jersey Court Rules my brain checks out. That’s why I hire the best lawyers in the country to do the thinking for me.

I don’t regret killing Neil Hayden, but I can’t lie, he was fucking good at his job.

Give Elena some time, and I’m confident she’ll be better. There’s an associate position with her name on it waiting for her the second she passes her bar exam.

When we board the plane to head back to New Jersey, I get a glimpse at Elena’s sad eyes and before I can think twice about it, I cradle her cheeks in my hands and roughly kiss her like my life depends on it. We fall into the plush seats and she sits on my lap. We kiss until we’re breathless, but it’s not lustful. It’s frenzied and passionate, like we’re both afraid we’ll never get the chance to kiss each other again. My way of telling her all the things I can’t say out loud.

Something sinister and cold crawls down my spine. It’s fear. Fear that the Silencer will take his revenge on her father for what he did to me, and I’ll lose her.

I have to make sure that doesn’t happen, even if it means stripping away at her free will until she’s perfectly pliable clay in my hands.

I can give an angel her wings.

But I can clip them, too, if it means I get to spend forever with her.

“I love you.” I say through gritted teeth, her hair wrapped tight around my fist. “I love you so much it makes me insane. I love you so much it makes me dangerous. I love you so much that I would burn this world for you and all the people in it just to keep you all to myself. Do you understand me? If it comes down to a choice, youwillchoose me. I don’t give a fuck if it costs the remainder of your soul. You aremineand onlymine.”

She sucks in a sharp breath when I kiss the side of her neck. “What about the Silencer?”

“What about him?”

“I belonged to him first,” she whispers.