5. Chapter Five #2
“Not docile enough,” Zach mutters. I guess he’s still hurt I insulted his appearance. That’s what he gets for commenting on mine.
“She’ll learn,” Finn says, purposefully pressing his feet harder onto my back. My arms are still sore from the other day when he made me hold those plates up. I really need to work on my upper body strength, I swear.
“I hate girls like her,” Zach continues. “They always think they’re so much better than you are. How do you stand it?”
“Unlike you Zach, I’m actually hot.” Finn’s answer makes all the men laugh. Except for Zach. “Women like me even if I’m being an asshole to them.”
“No they don’t,” I say.
“What was that?”
“Women don’t like men who are assholes to them,” I grit out. “We want respect. We deserve it.”
“Deserve it how?” Carl asks. “Respect is earned. Not just given.”
I glare up at the men surrounding me. “That is a horrible way of looking at it. Respect is something you just give to people and if they’re horrible people, then you can take your respect away.
But I shouldn’t have to work hard just for you to treat me like a human being.
I shouldn’t have to break myself to earn your respect.
So fuck all of you for thinking that way. You’ve all lost my respect.”
“It’s funny how she thinks she even has a say in this,” Silas says, sipping his beer. “Last I checked, women should be seen and not heard.”
I glance up at Finn to see if he’s laughing with the rest of them. He’s not laughing but he’s also not stopping any of this. His feet are getting heavier and heavier by the moment.
“Why don’t you shove a cock into her mouth to shut her up,” Jed says, standing up and pulling his penis out. “That will do the trick.” He waves his penis by my face. Never have I been this defiled and disgusted before.
And then Finn does something. He stands up and shoves Jed back. “Put your fucking dick away. No one wants to see that.”
“I thought you said Aria wasn’t yours,” Carl says.
“She’s not.”
“Then why can’t Jed stick his cock into her mouth?”
I sit on my knees to give my arms a break. I’m suddenly aware of how vulnerable a position I am in.
“Yeah,” Jed says. “Why can’t I if she’s not your girl?”
“You can try to stick your cock in her mouth. Let’s see how far you get.”
Hell no. Jed shrugs and tries grabbing my face and pulling me towards him but I grab onto his cock and I dig my fingernails into it. He screams and jerks away from me.
“That’s what you get, asshole,” I seethe. Finn laughs uncontrollably.
“Did you know she was going to do that?” Jed demands.
“I figured she would. That’s what you get for sticking your dick into some place it doesn’t belong. None of you will touch Aria. Is that clear?”
“But you said she’s not yours,” Zach mumbles.
“She’s not mine but that doesn’t mean any of you get to touch her. So back the fuck off.”
“I have blood on my hands,” I gasp. Jed’s penis is bleeding. He frantically wipes at it.
Finn laughs all over again. “Go clean your hands.”
I don’t waste another second to leave the room. I shut the bathroom door behind me and let out a deep breath. I was almost assaulted. Well, technically I was.
And Finn didn’t even do anything about it. Not that I should have expected him to. He’s not a good man. I know this. So why did I think he’d stop Jed himself?
I guess he knew I would stop Jed myself but I could have used the help.
I’m scrubbing my hands clean when the bathroom door opens.
It’s Zach.
Slowly, I turn the tap off. “What are you doing in here? Leave me alone.”
“I’m sure you thought it was funny to hurt Jed’s penis like that. All you girls get off on that shit.”
I stare Zach down. “I’m not going to be afraid of some overweight incel who thinks he’s better than me. Go home and cry to your mommy that I insulted you. I don’t give a damn. But you are not going to shame me into defending myself against a fucking rapist.”
The pure anger on Zach’s face is intimidating, I’ll admit. “Who do you think you are getting off on talking to me like this? You’re just a pathetic female.”
“Female what?”
“What?”
“Female what? Female dog? Female chicken? Female human? If you’re going to insult me, at least use proper grammar, you idiot.”
“You bitch.” He shoves me back into the small bathroom and wraps his hands around my throat before I even have time to defend myself.
I rake my hands down his face but still, Zach does not let go.
My hands flail around and hit the sink. I just need something to help me.
Anything. I can’t die by the hands of some pathetic incel.
The door is wrenched open and Finn is there. I’m expecting him to laugh at what Zach is doing to me. Tell me I deserve this.
But instead, Finn grabs Zach and drags him away from me. The moment Zach’s hands leave my throat, I can breathe again. I hear a thud and a scream from the other room. I quickly run out of the bathroom to see that Finn has Zach on the ground and he’s punching him over and over and over again.
The other men watch in fear. No one does anything to help save Zach.
“You.” Punch. “Will.” Punch. “Not.” Punch. “Touch her!”
The pure anger and possessiveness in Finn’s voice draws me up short. Finn said I wasn’t his but this proves he thinks otherwise. I am his prisoner, that is true but Finn is attacking Zach like he’s defending his lover, which I am definitely not.
“You said she wasn’t yours!” Silas cries out. “Stop this, Finn. You’ll kill him.”
Finn stops hitting Zach. The sudden silence is eerie. “I will kill all of you if you don’t all leave right this moment.”
No one moves.
“Leave!” Finn shouts. “And never come back here. Or I will kill every last one of you.”
The men quickly scramble out of the house, except for Zach, who remains on the floor, groaning and sputtering up blood.
Finn kicks Zach in the side. “I never said you could put your hands on her. Now leave. Leave before I fucking kill you.”
Zach forces himself onto his knees and he crawls from the house. Good riddance. Now maybe those men will know what real fear is like.
Finn has his back to me so I don’t know what his expression is but I’m a little afraid to find out. He almost killed Zach.
For me?
Slowly, Finn turns to face me, breathing heavy, with a look of pure disgust on his face. When his eyes meet mine, they shift into something else. Something… softer.
I don’t move a muscle as Finn approaches me. His fingers skim my throat. I can’t help but wince.
“That fucker could have killed you.”
“He was trying,” I whisper. My voice hurts from the constriction. It makes me sound weak which only makes me more angry. “Why did you stop him?”
“I can’t have you die on me yet, princess. I still need you to hurt Dante.”
“Is that all?”
He drops his hands back to his side. “There’s nothing else. I saved you for that reason alone. You’re not mine, princess. I’m not some possessive crazed man intent on making you mine.”
“But you did sound a little crazy. A little possessed too. If you only wanted to protect me because you want to use me, then your reaction was a little overkill. You could have just shoved Zach away. You didn’t need to punch him the way you did.”
“I thought you’d be happy.”
“Oh, I am happy. I loved seeing him get hurt after he hurt me. It was justice served. But still. Your reaction was a lot.”
Finn sniffs and turns away from me. “It was nothing. I just need you alive. That’s all.”
I stare at his back, noticing the rising tension there. So far, Finn has been Mr. Collected. Even when he killed those men at the boxing gym, he never acted like he did when he was punching Zach. There was an energy to him. It wasn’t just anger. It was anger mixed with something else.
I don’t think he’s telling me the full truth right now.
“Ok,” I say, still struggling to talk. “I’m your prisoner. I know that. I mean nothing to you. But.. thank you, I guess. For stopping Zach. I wasn’t sure if you would.”
“Don’t get used to it, princess. You don’t mean anything to me.”
“Well, it is your fault that I’m in this position in the first place. And you didn’t stop Jed from sticking his gross penis in my face.”
That makes him laugh and he finally looks at me again. “I knew you could handle it. I wanted to see what you would do.”
“He could have raped me, Finn. Something you promised wouldn’t happen.”
“I wouldn’t have let it happen. If you hadn’t done what you had done, I would have stopped Jed. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” I scoff. “That’s rich. You’re my kidnapper, Finn. I don’t trust you at all.”
“Then we’re on an even playing field because I don’t trust you either, princess.”
“We’re not the same and you know it. Do not bring those disgusting men around here ever again.”
His stance becomes predatory. I gulp as he approaches me. Do not show fear . “You don’t get to tell me what to do, princess.”
“I could have been raped and killed. Just remember that. You promised me neither of those things would happen.”
“I said I wouldn’t do that. I never promised that no one else would.”
“If you want to hurt Dante, then having me die is not going to achieve your goals. So keep me safe in the future. Don’t treat me like this.”
“Uh, last I checked, princess, I kidnapped you. Don’t reason with me like I’m a good man.”
“I know you’re not.” The image of Finn punching Zach will be seared into my brain. He was so animalistic and frightening.
Yet, I had never felt more safe with Finn than in that moment.
“Glad we cleared that up. Now, I need to go deal with those assholes. I need to make sure they don’t tell anyone about this.”
“What are you going to do?”
He gives me a pointed look. “I think you know what I’m going to do.”
“Kill them,” I whisper. “Why not just kill them here before they left?”
“Then I would have had a lot of blood to clean up and I actually want to get a good night’s sleep for once. I’ll be back in a few hours.” He leaves without looking back at me to go kill his friends.
If Finn is capable of killing men who he considered friends, then he’s more than capable of killing me. I need to be on my toes with him. I cannot let what I felt for just a moment happen again.
Finn is not on my side. He saved me from a purely practical standpoint.
There is no fucking way I am falling in love with my kidnapper. I would rather kill myself than let that happen.
Finn
I fucked up tonight. I never should have invited those fucking idiots over. Aria could have died. When I saw Zach choking her, it did something strange to me.
It made me… feel . Feel more than I have in a long time.
Most of the emotion inside of me is anger, and while I did feel that when I saw Zach choking Aria, I also felt something else.
I felt worried. I imagined Aria dying and I realized I didn’t want to lose her. I wanted to protect her. Fuck. What the ever living fuck is happening to me? I do not care for women on an emotional level. I fuck them and I leave them and call it a day.
But I never fall in love.
It’s why it hurt so much when Aiden betrayed me by falling in love with Elena. I think I was partly jealous that he was experiencing something I would never get to experience.
I wanted to protect Aria tonight. I don’t know what to make of it but I know it can’t be good.