THIRTY-NINE
Two Years Later
I knew her before the walls came up. and I know her with them. She’s always been my enemy; a woman I have grown up hating, loathing. And yet, here I am, standing on the front steps of her mother’s mansion in New York City.
Here I am, making a stupid decision when I’m supposed to be level-headed. I’m not soft like Damon, but I’m not a raging lunatic like Soren, either. I fit in the middle. Between them, where chaos and reason come together as wisdom.
Why would she mean a sliver of a thing? She was made to be a pawn in my game.
Mine to fuck with, mine to play games with, but mine, nonetheless. So why does it feel like I just got a knife to the gut when my fist pounded on the wooden door of her childhood home.
Everything lately has felt that way, ever since she left all the crumbs of what we are back in Princeton. Ever since she decided the thing between us wasn’t a fun game to play anymore.
I gave her two months, and now I’m here, standing outside her mother’s home like a pussy whipped idiot. But I never claimed to know what I was doing, and I never do when it comes to her.
Two things come first in my life. Nyx and the Famiglia. And I’ve been failing the latter since I started pursuing this nerdy little spitfire of a pixie. Since I chose someone I should never have laid eyes on in the first place.
I gave my brother shit for his entire relationship with Hanna. Crushed his fingers in my fist when she got pregnant. And here I am, a year and half later, trying to claim what was always mine.
The door finally cracks open and her head pops out. Dark hair, cinnamon eyes, and those red-painted lips that have driven me nuts since I first tasted them.
“Pixie,” I drawl, keeping my eyes on hers. Her frame looks delightful and her curves are my downfall. I put her through more than anyone I have ever played games with, yet none of them ever became a queen.
None of the women I played with were ever anything more than a pawn in my sick games. My pixie is different; she wasn’t born to be my pawn.
She was born to be my queen, and she’d better fix her crown because I plan on her being my queen, and my wife. She is mine. And my bleeding heart has been hers since the moment I looked at her.
Forbidden and beautiful. My fucking girl.