Page 76 of Under Your Scars

I scoff. “You know, you always say that, but you’ve never actually told me what that fucking means!”

There’s a pause between us. In the split second of distraction, he lunges for the gun and twists my arm around my back, spinning me in a half circle with it. We stumble to the wall, and he presses my chest up to a large mirror hanging there, staring at me through the reflection. He wrestles the gun out of my grip and puts it back into its holster. In one smooth movement, he wraps his left hand around my body and holds me against his chest by my throat. His other hand laces our fingers together and trails our hands up my body agonizingly slowly.

“You’re not just some obsession I picked up out of boredom. You’re my life essence. The air in my lungs. The beating heart in my chest.” Goosebumps erupt over my skin as our hands trace over my stomach. “You are my everything. Mind. Body. Soul. I fucking love you, Elena, and youwilllove me back. I don’t care if I have to destroy you in the process.” He moves our hands even slower across my breasts, and I hate the way my nipples harden into tight peaks under the sensual touch. “You’ll be mine one day. Fully. I love it when you fight me, but if you would just shut up and stop, even for one second, you might see what’s right in front of you.”

Then he releases me. I stay pressed against the wall long after he leaves, shaking, exhausted, and scared.

Fear is such a strange emotion.

I think the Silencer knows that, and I think he’s very good at manipulating my fear. I don’t think I will ever be able to trust my own emotions for the rest of my life.

Taking a deep breath, I pull out my phone and call the police. I don’t get put on hold this time.

Instead, when I tell the dispatcher I’m being stalked by the Silencer, she laughs at me, and hangs up.

I spend four hours crying, lying down on my back against the hardwood floors of my apartment, staring up at the ceiling. I think for a long time about how I ended up in this situation and how I can get out of it.

I do the only logical thing I can think of. I call Christian.

As expected, he answers almost instantly, his voice sounding tired. “Hey, beautiful.” I don’t say anything back to him, and I can feel tension through the phone. “What’s wrong?”

I rub over my face with exasperation and sigh. A pathetic, humorless chuckle leaves my throat. “I don’t even know where to begin.” I sniffle, trying not to cry and doing a terrible job at it. “I got evicted. Or should I say, the fuckingSilencergot me evicted.”

God, no wonder the dispatcher laughed at me. I sound like a lunatic.

“I don’t know how, but he got me evicted and I don’t know what to do.”

“Stay with me,” Christian suggests immediately. “Move to the Reeves Estate.”

“I can’t ask you to do that for me.”

“You’re not asking, I’m offering.”

I take a deep breath and attempt to make a joke to cheer myself up. “You’d better clear out half of your closet. I have a lot of shoes.”

He laughs. “I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes. Pack an overnight bag, and I’ll have people come move your stuff in the morning.”

“Okay,” I say, hanging up the phone.

I should be excited, right? I’m moving into a billionaire’s mansion. That’s like, every normal person’s dream. Something feels…sinister about the whole situation though. It sits in my stomach like curdled milk. The Silencer probably did this to me with the expectation that I’d end up on the street so he can whisk me away to his secret lair like some kind of fucked up white knight.

Or red knight, if we’re staying true to his modus operandi.

At least once I’m living at the Reeves Estate, I’m safe. He knows he can’t get in or out without getting seen by the security cameras or getting his head blown off with a shotgun by one of the guards.

I pack my overnight bag and mess with the chipping paint on the wall next to me while I wait for Christian to pick me up. When he does, the first thing I notice about him is the way he looks at me. It’s…strange. Almost like I’ve said something to hurt him.

He’s still upset that I didn’t say I loved him in Mykonos.

He looks restless, and the skin under his eyes looks gray. He doesn’t make any effort to compliment me or flirt like he normally would.

As we drive towards his house, I start to fidget with my braid, and its only once Christian gently tugs my hands away from my hair that I realize I’ve got a handful of strands that I’ve absentmindedly pulled out.

“He came to my apartment,” I admit into the stale air of the car. “He told me that it was him that got me evicted and I tried to fight him off. He held me down and tied me up. When he finally let me go, I called the police and they just…laughed at me.”

Christian is stiff and completely silent for a long time. “You called the police?” he asks, almost sounding offended. “The MCPD is useless. You shouldn’t have got them involved.”

“Well what else was I supposed to do?” I ask, frustration rising up through my throat.