Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Chris
KILL MY X - Chri$tian Gate$
T here’s a buzzing in my ears. That’s usually what happens when Megan talks to me, but this evening, I’m zoning her out because I’m still processing what I saw in that office.
A red mark on the left side of her chin. Like someone gripped her too harshly. Someone who wasn’t me.
“Chris…”
Ella’s pale skin reddens so beautifully. Bruises are gorgeous against her porcelain perfection.
But only if I’m the one who inflicts them.
“Chris!”
My eye twitches when her voice gets through to me, my grip tightening on the steering wheel of my car.
“The light,” Megan huffs. “It’s green.”
I press the accelerator, still unable to get the image of Reeves’s hands on Ella’s body out of my mind.
I take a deep breath through my nose, making sure I’m calm when I speak .
“Do you think it’s true?”
“What is?” Megan mutters, eyes on her phone.
“Reeves. Does he sleep with his students?”
From the corner of my eye, I see her putting her phone away and relaxing against her seat.
“Yes. We’ve been at this college for two weeks and I’ve already heard the rumors. I don’t know how you haven’t.” She pauses, leaving me hanging before she adds, “But what you really want to know is if he slept with Ella.”
I swallow my anger, clenching my jaw as she puts her hand on my thigh. She brings it higher until she’s close enough she could touch my dick through my pants.
She makes me feel sick. The only feelings she gets out of me anymore are anger and nausea.
“Isn’t it?” she insists.
I slow down, stopping at a red light. The second we’re not in danger of crashing the car, she brings her other hand to my cheek, pulling until I’m looking at her.
“I’m not about to tell you whether Reeves fucked your little Ella. Do you know why?” I could grind my teeth to dust trying to not snap her neck. “Because you shouldn’t care. You shouldn’t even think about her. The only girl on your mind should be me.”
Her cold hand wraps around my jaw. “Never forget I have you by the balls.” And with that, she cups my balls through my pants. “I can send the Circle to finish your dad at any time. So keep your eyes on me, your thoughts about me, and your entire fucking focus on me .”
I don’t move a single inch as I respond with practiced patience. “You can only blackmail someone into staying with you for so long.”
“Don’t worry, it seems if I change tactics every year or so, I get to keep you. Light is green.” She lets me go.
I press the gas pedal, crushing fury between gritted teeth and swallowing it. Everything will come in due time.
I drop her at the house we’re currently renting in Silver Falls, not far from campus, but when I don’t get out of the car, she refuses to close her door.
“Where are you going?” she asks, her ugly obsession showing its head again.
“I’m having dinner with my family. Can you close the door now?”
Her upper lip curls as her hand tightens on the door. “Without me? What, you don’t even invite me to dinners anymore?”
“We only invite people who don’t blackmail their way into our family.” My smirk doesn’t seem to make her happy.
Her face falls, eyes hardening, and here she is. The true harpy who comes out when she doesn’t get what she wants. “Invite me.”
“You can’t be serious,” I scoff. “I’m just having dinner with my mom and sister.”
She brings her phone out, typing quickly on it before she shows me. She wrote a message in the conversation with her dad but hasn’t sent it yet.
Chris and I are over.
“Megan,” I warn her in a low voice, stomach churning.
“Invite me, Chris. Or my dad will have no reason to protect yours anymore.”
My hand tightens on the steering wheel, and I can barely form the words in my mouth as I spit them at her. “Would you like to come to dinner with my family?”
She locks her phone, a bright smile lighting up her face like the crazy woman she is. “No, thank you. I have a lot of work to do. Give me a kiss before you leave. ”
How could I forget everything is just a mind game to her.
Since she doesn’t move, I step out of my car, walking over to her side. I slightly lean down to give her a brief kiss on the lips. She tries to grab the back of my head to make it last, but I pull away too quickly.
“Don’t wait up,” I growl before slamming the door she was holding open and walking over to my side again.
“Chris!” Juliette exclaims the second I walk into the kitchen of my family home. She jumps off the stool she was sitting on, running into my arms.
“Hey, trouble.” I sigh with relief as I lift her up and let her wrap her entire body around me. “Damn, you’re getting heavier.”
“Or are you getting weaker?” she giggles as she drops back on the floor, pressing my biceps. “Hm, definitely getting weaker.”
I chuckle, messing with her blonde hair. Juliette looks nothing like me because we’re not blood related. My parents adopted her after she was freed from a human trafficker. From a criminal organization, to be precise. She was nine then. She’s thirteen now.
She was held with the same people who stole two years of Rose’s life. When she brought Juliette to us, begging us not to send her back to the same broken system Rose had been through as a child, my parents adopted her. I think that’s when my dad started resenting the Circle. He used to protect the men who went to the parties Gerald Baker held, but the minute we started taking care of Juliette, he grew a conscience .
Becoming a better man almost cost him his life, and he now lies in a hospital bed, too sick to even breathe on his own. Sometimes, the Circle has ways to punish a traitor that are more painful than death.
“Mom’s making chili,” Juliette sing-songs as she dances her way back to the kitchen island where her homework is spread out.
Every time she’s happy about something, my chest warms. The mere fact that she now has a favorite dish is a huge change from when she first started living here. She was taken at such a young age that she knew nothing of her own taste. All she knew was survival.
My mom turns around from the stove to hug me tightly. In the last couple of weeks, she’s lost weight and gained eye bags, and her smile has been replaced by a constant frown of despair. She’s much smaller than me, and I can rest my head on top of hers as she buries herself in my chest.
“Chris.” I can barely hear her broken voice.
“Hey, Mom,” I murmur against her hair. “How are you feeling?”
Shaking her head against me, she refuses to answer. She doesn’t want to tell me she’s barely holding on, but she also doesn’t want to lie.
“I got a C in math!” Juliette calls from behind me as if announcing the best grade ever.
My mom laughs softly before turning back to the stove. We grew up with the kind of money that means we have staff around the house. But my mom always insisted that if my dad and her weren’t traveling, we would all eat her homemade food together as a family.
I grab some chips from the open bag on the kitchen counter and sit opposite Juliette. “I’m sorry, are we expected to celebrate that?” I say mockingly.
“Hey! It’s better than a C-minus. I’m getting better.”
I square my shoulders, tilting my chin up. “I was almost valedictorian. We’re not even competing in the same category.”
“ Almost being the key word.” She giggles to herself, and I throw a chip at her.
“Mom! Chris is acting like a child.”
When I stick out my tongue, she bursts into her weird, cackly laugh before throwing the chip back at me.
My mom isn’t very chatty while we eat, but as soon as Juliette goes upstairs to get ready for bed, she asks what she’s been dying to.
“How’s Megan?” Her eyes stay focused on the plates she’s rinsing and passing to me as I put them in the dishwasher.
I huff, running a hand behind my tense neck and messing the hair at the back of my head. “How’s Dad?” I counter, then grab the next plate.
Her voice thins when she tries to answer. “He’s still hooked to the breathing machine, but he’s stable.”
“Then Megan’s great. Lovely.”
“But she’s not lovely,” my mom whispers. “She’s horrible to you. I know she is.”
I put the last plate away and turn to her. Putting my hands on her cheeks, I force her to look up at me.
“As long as Dad is fine, I’m fine. I promise you.”
She looks down, and her eyes are full of tears when she looks back up. She’s so pale. A ghost stuck with us mortals. She’s suffering deep down in her soul.
“I saw what she did, Chris. Last week when you came for dinner. She slapped you when you were sitting in the car before coming in. What she did, it’s…it’s abusive.”
I roll my eyes, letting go of her so she doesn’t feel how cold my hands get when I talk about the woman I’m stuck with.
“Abusive? Mom, have you seen me? I’m twice her size. Do you really think I care about a little slap? I barely felt it.”
“It’s the principle.” Her voice raises, her eyebrows pinching above the eyes we share. Not quite brown, not quite hazel, a perfect amber.
Your whiskey eyes get me drunk on you. That’s what Ella used to say.
I turn around, finishing clearing up the table. “I didn’t come here for relationship advice. Please.”
“Two people who love each other shouldn’t hit each other. This is wrong, Chris.”
I snort, but keep my back to her. “We don’t love each other. She has a trophy, and my dad stays alive. I think I’m winning here, really.”
Her hand wraps around my biceps, forcing me to turn around. “Please. Leave her. I can’t live like this. I can barely hold together with your dad in that state. I can’t handle knowing my son is in an abusive relationship.”
Pausing, I take in her empty eyes and graying hair. I’m annoyed, but it won’t do any good to get mad at her.
“Listen,” I sigh. “I do what Megan says, and Dad doesn’t get worse. It’s not that bad of a deal. She can’t hurt me. She’s annoying as hell, and most of the time, I want to bash her head against a wall, but this is temporary. By tomorrow night, I’ll be a full member of the Circle, and her power over us will diminish.”
“And then you’re stuck with her for life. Don’t you think I know how the Circle works?”
I shake my head. “I won’t be with her for life. Just be patient and trust me.”
She nods, but she mentions it again when we watch a movie together. And then again when I put her to bed and tell her I’ll be watching another movie downstairs in case she needs me. Nothing will convince her that I’m fine, and that’s only natural. She’s a mother; she knows when her child is suffering.
I rub my hand over my face, letting my head fall on the back of the sofa. Every time I close my eyes, baby blues and blonde hair flash in front of me.
My biggest regret in life is leaving Ella, and I’m paying today for the coward I was in high school. One woman. That’s all it takes for my heart to lose itself in an uneven symphony of beats. One word from her lips, and I’m ready to get on my knees for her. She’s the only person who truly knows me. She knows the fa?ade of kind acts aren’t forced. I do have a side of me that is careful, caring, protective. But Ella has also met the other side. The side that comes out when I need to feel her close to me. That wants her all to myself. That would forgo reason just to keep her safe.
I have renowned patience for everything, but step out of line when it comes to Ella, and I’m not responsible for my actions.
I blink at the ceiling. I could spend hours thinking of her, on my own, with no other distraction. The only thing missing is her physically next to me.
Maybe if I’d had the balls to talk to Luke in high school and tell him Ella and I were dating, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have met Megan. Wouldn’t have fallen for her misunderstood-girl act.
But then I would have had no one to help me when the Circle went for my dad.
I huff for the hundredth time tonight, my thoughts going round and round. And in the end, there’s always one thing I come back to .
Ella Baker. My beautiful obsession. The one who still thinks I’ll allow her to move on from me. I might be stuck with a manipulative woman, but once I’m done with her, Ella will be mine. Even if it takes unconventional convincing.