Chapter Sixteen #3
“Like hell you don’t. You think a strong voice and a pretty face is what got you where you are? I could have made a thousand of you. It’s time to grow up and realize you’re nothing special. Everything you have is because of me!”
My uncle hits his chest, and I hate myself for flinching.
Khalil—my Neanderthal—must take it as a threat because he steps forward, pushing me behind the protective shelter of his body.
“What the hell are you doing?” Uncle Mars stumbles in retreat when Khalil keeps going, backing him down without a word. “Move out of the way. I’m speaking with my niece.”
“And if you want to keep speaking to her in my presence, I suggest you lower your voice with the motherfucking quickness.”
“You don’t have any authority here! This is between my niece and me!”
All Khalil said to that was “Lower.”
“You don’t—”
Khalil’s hand moved with lightning speed, wrapping around my uncle’s neck and lifting him off the ground. “Lower.”
It’s all I can do not to laugh when my uncle flails his dangling feet and claws at Khalil’s hand. “You don’t…have any authority…here,” my uncle chokes past lips that are already turning blue.
Satisfied, Khalil sets him on his feet and removes his hand. Nearly half a foot taller, he looks down at my uncle while the man who’s ruled me with an iron fist coughs and drags in air.
“Good. Keep it right there and not a decibel higher and I won’t have to fuck you up.
” Khalil pats my uncle on the cheek hard enough to look more like a slap and then he returns to my side like a dutiful boyfriend.
When our gazes meet, he shrugs. “I tried it your way, but then he threatened you. End of story.”
It was hardly a threat, but I know better than to argue.
Especially when I’m fighting a grin after seeing him make my uncle his bitch.
Khalil is already wound tight and a hair trigger away from exploding.
It reminds me of the day we met and how I could feel all the energy packed away inside of him just waiting for an outlet.
He hasn’t been this way since we first fucked, but that violent energy is quickly returning now.
My uncle glares at us both while rubbing his neck. I make a show of examining my nails like I didn’t see a thing and try not to cringe at how bad I need a manicure.
“You were saying, Uncle?”
Uncle Mars takes one last gasping breath and says, “I think you should leave.”
“Oh, now he wants us to leave,” I whisper to Khalil. My boyfriend’s only response is to smirk and run his knuckles down my arm. “Out of curiosity, whose money bought this house?” When my uncle simply glares back, I smile.
So mine then.
“I’m guessing my name is on the deed as well?”
More silence.
“I’m surprised you even bothered since your plan was to have me killed. It would have been one less asset to transfer once you proved my death and took everything.”
The bitter expression clears from my uncle’s face, and his next words come as no surprise. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Aurelia. You’re my niece. My blood. Of course I’d never harm you.”
“So you didn’t hire Finnegan and his men, who tried to kill me?”
“Of course I did. I thought you were dead. You can’t imagine how hard it’s been thinking you were out there alone and without a proper burial.
I promised your father I would take care of you, and that is exactly what I have always done.
” He waves away the obvious hole in his story.
“Obviously, Finnegan and his men got a little overzealous in getting the job done. I certainly didn’t permit him to take you against your will or harm you. ”
Yeah, and pigs fly.
“I’ve never known you to be overly sentimental or religious,” I say.
“What is your point, Aurelia?”
My gaze narrows. “I think you know, Uncle.”
“This is ridiculous. I don’t know what these men have been filling your head with, but I will not stand here and be vilified after all I’ve done for you.” Even after all of that, he was still careful not to raise his voice just as Khalil had warned him.
“They haven’t been filling my head with anything.” As for the rest of me… “I came to the conclusion that you were a monster all on my own.”
“Ungrateful as ever. I can see some things haven’t changed.”
“And some things never will,” I confirm. A little catty and a little bratty, but at least I’m free.
My uncle’s phone starts to ring and since he never misses a call if he can help it, it doesn’t surprise me when he snatches the phone from his pocket. “I have to take this call, and since you insist on staying, when I get back, I want to know the exact nature of your relationship with this man.”
“I look forward to enlightening you.”
Actually, I’m already wishing I’d listened to Khalil and had gone back to the cabin.
My uncle would have left in another day or two, and I wouldn’t be battling nausea from being in the same room with him again.
Now that Uncle Mars saw for himself that I am alive, I know he isn’t going anywhere.
My uncle isn’t the kind to be defeated so easily.
One way or another, he isn’t going to return to the States empty-handed.
The moment my uncle disappears inside a room across the hall, I blindly take Khalil’s hand, and he lets me lead him into the same hall. There’s another room next to the one my uncle disappeared in, and it’s empty, so we quickly duck inside.
The room turns out to be an office with a view of a pond. Inside of it, there are large geese swimming peacefully.
“Why are we in here?” he asks, breaking his silence once more.
I could feel his quiet fury during the entire exchange with my uncle, but more than that I feel grateful that he respected my wishes and trusted me to handle it on my own.
For the most part.
I will never ever forget the sight of Khalil yoking my uncle up for as long as I live.
I let go of Khalil’s hand and walk over to the weathered gray executive desk, wondering at its sturdiness as I trail a finger across the polished surface. Turning around, I lean against the desk to face Khalil with a smile.
It drops a moment later when I remember Tyler. “You lied to me.”
Khalil, who is busy looking around the small room with a disinterested eye, stops to regard me. “Yes.”
“How could you?”
“Is it truly the worst thing I’ve done to you, Goldilocks?”
I feel my hackles raise along with a little natural resentment at him for reminding me of our twisted beginning. “Are you saying that makes it okay?”
“No,” he answers calmly before eyeing me closely. “I’m just wondering how important it is to you that I didn’t tell you the man you may or may not have been fucking is still alive. Let me know what’s up.”
“Don’t you dare turn this around on me. Who I fucked before you is none of your goddamn business.
Tyler is the only reason I lived long enough to be standing here having this stupid argument.
I deserved to know he lived, and even if I didn’t care, the point is that you were purposely deceitful.
It doesn’t matter what you lied about. You still lied. ”
“Okay.” Khalil nods and then comes to stand in front of me before kissing my neck. “I won’t do it again.”
“You—” Not expecting Khalil to yield so quickly, my mind had already formulated an argument before my ears caught up. “Oh.” Still feeling the need to be combative and realizing he never actually apologized, I make the reckless decision to push further. “Now say you’re sorry for lying about Tyler.”
Khalil bites into my shoulder hard enough to make me gasp and dig my fingers into his shoulders. My panties become that much wetter. “I would, but I just promised I wouldn’t lie to you again.”
I hit his chest. “Stop provoking me.”
“Impossible, Goldilocks. You’re fine as fuck when you’re angry.”
I squirm against his hold, suddenly feeling like my clothes are too restrictive. “Sexy enough for you to finish what you started this morning?”
Khalil lifts his head to kiss me on the lips. “Let me guess,” he says between firm presses of his lips. “You mean right now.”
“You have something better to do?”
“Depends. Does this have to do with your uncle being in the next room and wanting to piss him off?”
“No, but we’ll call that a bonus.”
Khalil lifts me onto the desk, and I’m eager to spread my legs to give him access. “I suppose it would be fruitless to tell you that you shouldn’t antagonize him like this.” He works the button on my shorts free.
“He’s the one who should be worried. I’m going to destroy him, Khalil. He has to pay.”
“And he will,” Khalil promises as he wrestles my shorts over my hips and ass. “But it won’t be today. We need a plan that doesn’t land all of us dead or in prison.”
“Promise me,” I plead once my shirt is over my head and discarded on the desk. “Promise me we’ll end him.”
“He’s a dead man walking.”
“Good,” I growl, feeling my nipples harden. “Now fuck me. Make me scream.”
Khalil seizes my chin so that I can’t look away when he peers into my soul. “Is he the only reason why?”
“Other than the obvious, which is that I think you’re sexy, addicting, and irresistible? Not a minute goes by that I don’t want you inside me.” Khalil’s grip loosens as he chuckles. I ignore my own amusement and let my expression remain serious as I stare up at him. “I’m serious.”
“Oh, I know you are.”
“He doesn’t think you’re worthy of me,” I blurt, feeling my acrimony double at how my uncle treated Khalil.
Khalil has the opposite reaction, snorting like he doesn’t give a shit as he removes his gun from his waistband and sets it on the desk next to me. “So?”
“So I want to show him how you won me over. I want him to know just how worthy I think you are.”
“I’m at your service, Goldilocks.”