Page 48 of Violent Little Thing

What Now?

DELILAH

I thought finally getting my G.E.D meant I would wake up and know exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

That didn’t happen.

Turns out, my aspirations in life are to be left the fuck alone and to hang out with my boyfriend’s dog all day.

So, after a forty-eight-hour pity party last week, I sat down and registered for all four of my subject tests. I was tired of existing as the version of myself that people played with and getting that milestone out of the way felt right after putting it off for so long.

I don’t know why I thought there’d be more fanfare, but the day after I registered, I flew through my language arts test and passed. The day after that I did social studies. And the Monday following that weekend, I took the science test.

Math was my only vice, and I told myself that if I didn’t pass, I could just take it again. Nobody would know and even if they did, who gave a fuck ?

I was fresh out of those and didn’t see myself reupping anytime soon.

But I didn’t fail.

Today, I took the test, and I got the lowest possible score to pass. But I didn’t fail, dammit.

And now? Now I don’t know what to do.

Rest .

It’s what Adonis told me to do.

It’s what my body’s been yelling for months.

You never have to work again if that’s not what you want to do.

As tempting as it is as a concept, my mind won’t let go of the what ifs .

What if somebody drains my new bank account?

What if me passing my test was a mistake?

What if Adonis wakes up one morning and decides I’m not worth the trouble?

After a lifetime of everything being taken from me, whether by force or in secret, I don’t know how to trick my mind into believing it’ll all work out.

As I sit down in Adonis’ office chair, our conversation from the night before rings clear in my head as if he’s right here with me.

Using pillow talk as an excuse, I brought up what I’d found snooping in his office that day.

“Did you really give Chiara forty million dollars to break your engagement?”

“We weren’t engaged,” he reminds me, angling his body so that he’s as close to me as he can be without taking over my silk pillowcase. “But yeah, I gave her the money.”

“Adonis, that’s a lot of fucking money,” I whisper, mouth agape. It’s four times what I have in my bank account and I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around that. So, forty million simply isn’t computing.

“It’s one plane,” he tells me.

“What?”

“The average private jet I have on hand costs forty million. So…” He lifts one shoulder before reaching over me to rest his hand at my nape.

I blink, still stuck on the analogy. “What happens now that you’ve paid her? Does The Society just leave you alone?”

Adonis yawns. “Nah. That forty million wasn’t for The Society, it was for her. That’s a separate issue. And I’m working on it.”

“Adonis, I don’t want you to have problems with your family just because you want to be with me.” He’s the third generation of his bloodline to have rank within The Society. Throwing that away would be reckless. “I’m just saying I’d be okay if you couldn’t be with me.”

“ I wouldn’t be okay.” The moonlight highlights his pointed stare. “Now what?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, melting into his touch.

“Then let me worry about it.”

His minty exhale tickles my nose before I let the silence settle over us.

“I love you,” he says a while later, sleep thick in his voice. “That’s enough for me.” His fingertips dance along my nape before grazing my scalp, sending the best kind of goosebumps erupting all over my skin.

I’ve had to make peace with needing his hands on me to fall asleep. Night after night, I close my eyes touching him and wake up the same way. It’s a necessity sneakily stitched into the fiber of my being.

I went from despising Adonis to really, really needing him.

And every time he says he loves me, I get the people-pleasing urge to recite it back to him.

Except I don’t know if this is love.

I wasn’t lying when I told Indigo I could love him. But I’ve never been in love before. I don’t want those words to be hollow when I finally say them. I want them weighed down with the same surety and devotion they have when he says it to me.

“Does it bother you that I don’t say it back?” I ask him softly.

Adonis’ eyes are barely open, but his firm touch conveys his message. “No.”

He kisses me, sighing against my lips.

“I don’t say it because I want you to say it back. I say it because you need to hear it from somebody who means it.” His forehead is on mine. “Someone who will always mean it.”

“How do you know you’ll always love me?”

“What I feel for you isn’t something that can just go away, Delilah. Even if you walked out on me tomorrow, I’d love you ‘til the day I died.”

He fell asleep after that, but I stayed awake, replaying his words.

Even now, it’s on my mind as I shuffle through the papers on his desk. Adonis is usually meticulous about putting things away, but the past week has been proof that even the most controlled people slip up.

It’s working in my favor though because the file I’m looking for isn’t hard to find.

I’m about to jostle his mouse to wake up his computer when my phone rings.

I don’t remember turning the sound on and damn near jump out of the seat at the combination of the default ringer and rattling vibration.

Adonis .

“Hello?” I sound nonchalant enough to my own ears .

“What are you doing in my office, Delilah?”

“Victor snitched?” No wonder he hadn’t stopped me from walking in here.

“No.” My stomach flutters at how easily his laughter spills onto the line. “I have sensors all over the house. You should know that by now.”

I huff noncommittally.

“What are you looking for?”

My gaze jumps from the folder to the desktop I never got out of sleep mode. “Nothing, where are you?”

“You can’t lie for shit,” he tells me, sounding distracted. “I’m about to get on a plane.”

My face falls at the same time my heart takes a nosedive to the pit of my stomach. “What? Where are you going?”

“Quick trip.”

The cryptic answer draws my brows in tight. He didn’t tell me he was leaving and that sinking feeling steadily expanding in the pit of my stomach tells me I actually care.

I wasn’t expecting a parade just because I got my G.E.D, but I did want to tell him about it in person while we ate dinner together.

Muffled sounds from his end make my ears perk up, but I can’t make out a single word before his voice makes a return.

“I gotta go, baby.” More muffled voices and a car door closing punctuate his statement. “I love you. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way home.”