Page 20 of Violent Little Thing
Less Than Friends
ADONIS
O ne cut into my baked potato is all I make before Delilah starts firing her questions my way.
“Why don’t you have a wife?” She sprinkles pepper on her steak fries with an expectant tilt of her head.
Every time I think about how dry her food is, I want to grimace. Pancakes with no syrup. Fries with no ketchup. She’d probably eat cake with no icing too if she could.
But beneath my judgment, a thread of relief runs through me every time I see her eat more than a bite of something.
“Eat your food.”
“I am,” she murmurs, her lips set in the faintest pout. “Are you having someone track Indigo?”
“No.”
“I didn’t tell you who Indigo is…”
“You forget I have access to your phone.”
Her skeptical orbs slide over me, narrowing at the reminder .
“Then why is someone showing up at our door with cryptic messages for me?”
“Don’t know.”
“Are they going to hurt her?”
“I just told you I don’t know who it is or what they want.”
“And I think you’re lying.”
My vacant stare prompts her to drop her fork.
“If it’s not you then I want someone like Victor watching the apartment.”
“I don’t take demands from you, Delilah. I’m not wasting my resources on someone who isn’t my responsibility.”
“Am I your responsibility?”
There’s no hesitation. “Yes.”
“Then it’s not a waste if it means someone I love is safe.”
Silence crowds the space between us.
“I don’t want anything to happen to her because of me.” That confession hitches on a note of vulnerability and I know I’m about to waste my resources on a woman who means everything to Delilah but nothing to me.
The quiet lapses into her staring at me with newfound interest. “How do you know Silas?”
Every time she utters another man’s name with even the slightest hint of reverence, I lose a year off my life.
My hard gaze clashes with her innocent one, only for a split second before she darts her eyes away. “We went to boarding school together.”
“He’s nice.” Her knife scrapes across the porcelain plate. “Nicer than you.”
A dry huff escapes me, but I don’t give her more than that .
“He’s not a part of The Society?”
“I didn’t say that.” I pierce my New York strip, bringing it to my lips.
“So, he is ?” Delilah lifts both of her brows instead of one and the somersault happening in my chest is a vile thing. “When did you join?”
Telling her I was born into it makes her brows slash downward.
“I thought you had to sacrifice something.”
Chiara and our pending wedding flits across my mind, and I deflect because this woman makes me a coward.
“You’re full of questions tonight.”
“You wanted me here.” Those slender shoulders lift before she picks up a steak fry.
“What did Silas say about your headaches?”
“He didn’t tell you already?”
“Why would he?”
“I…don’t know. I thought...” She falters, looking at me with confusion.
“Your headaches, Ms. Rose. What did he say about them?”
Her right cheek twitches and she corrects me in a patient whisper. “Delilah.”
“You don’t like being referred to as a Rose?”
“Would you ?” she asks point blank.
It’s the first time she’s left me speechless, so I study her hands as she cuts into her dinner.
They’re steady and sure, the tremor from the night before missing.
That’s a good thing, yet the baser part of me misses the version of her who needed me. The version of her that wrapped her arms around my neck and let me hold her all night .
Tonight, I’m not fixated on the gaps in her memory. Tonight, I want to hear her speak after being gifted with so much of her silence.
Even if the sound of her voice comes at the expense of my ego. Because there are worse things than Delilah Rose calling me boring and mean.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why did you shoot my brother if you wanted him to pay you back?” She sizes me up with that curious gleam in her eyes I’m starting to adore. “Wouldn’t he be able to pay you easier if he wasn’t laid up in a hospital getting better?”
She doesn’t even know he’s not in the hospital anymore. And she looks like she couldn’t care less about it.
“Maybe.”
“So, why’d you do it?”
A lot of things would make perfect sense if I never laid eyes on her. Or never saw what her bitch ass brother was about to do to her.
I don’t have an answer because nothing I did that night was premeditated. But how do I explain to a woman I’d only met once that seeing anyone raise a hand to harm her had activated my trigger finger?
“The same reason I took you. Because I wanted to.”
Her hand freezes and the chandelier highlights the fluttering pulse dancing in her neck as she stares at me.
It’s the first time she’s stopped talking since she came down here and a sense of triumph rushes me at the bewildered look in her eyes.
“Any more questions, Ms. Delilah?”
“Fuck you, Adonis.”
There it is .
Pride swarms my veins at the disgust clinging to those three words.
To be hated by this woman . My satisfaction is sick. Misplaced. All-consuming.
And I almost smile into my glass of tequila before letting the clear liquor coat my tongue. I can’t explain the thrill I get from her contempt, but it’s the most addicting thing I’ve ever experienced.
Love is a strong word. One I use sparingly, but I love the way Delilah hates me.
Tonight, like most nights, I find myself in my office. This time instead of tying up loose ends at work, I click on the folder full of footage I didn’t get to yesterday.
Alonzo categorized the footage from the Rose home in folders corresponding to the last twelve months Delilah was in the house. For every month, there are four more folders inside, breaking the videos down into weeks and then seven more folders inside those for each day of the week.
It’s meticulous and nothing less than the perfection I expect from Alonzo Kendrick.
Alonzo is my favorite shadow. Invisible until I need something and only around long enough to deliver.
He’s killed men based on a single look from me.
Got me into rooms I didn’t know existed.
And the only thing he ever asks for in return is the respect he gives me without thinking.
Aside from Silas and Victor, he’s one of the few people I trust unconditionally. More than my parents. Damn near more than myself .
Before I get started, I pull up the security cameras planted around the house.
One by one, I go through the grid and expand each frame to full screen, letting my eyes sweep every corner of my property.
When Victor left, he secured all exits and did a final walk through, but double checking is a ritual at this point. And after last night, I don’t see myself shaking the habit anytime soon.
As always, I pause longer than necessary on Delilah’s room.
She’s changed out of her dress and is modeling a bright pink bikini for Titus.
I click the audio feed to catch a glimpse of her voice because it’s always honeyed when she’s talking to Titus. But I can’t hear anything over the R&B filtering through her speakers.
We never got to talk about her doctor’s appointment, but Silas must have given her something for the pain if she’s hosting a solo concert instead of wincing at every noise.
Hands on her waist, she angles her torso before popping out her hip.
I don’t need to hear her ask Titus how she looks to know she says it.
“Lucky fucking dog,” I grumble before cutting away from her feed to focus on the task in front of me.
Clicking the folder labeled “June 2024,” I recline in my chair and start from the beginning.