Chapter 21 #2
“There will always be a room for you in my house, if you needed it,” I offer, trying to extend the olive branch and not come across as the psychopath stalker/kidnapper I am.
Things have gotten out of hand between us, and the last thing I need today is her attempting to run again.
It really would be best if it was her decision to stay with us from now on.
She blinks a couple of times, I think confused. “Why did you let me leave?”
I smile. “Because it’s what you wanted. The threat of the Southern Breakers was gone. I’m not into holding girls against their will, Dove.”
She snickers. “But you were happy to lock me up in your house when I first got here?” Her voice is filled with hate that I don’t deserve.
My jaw ticks and eyes narrow in on her. Enough is enough.
Her animosity is aimed at the wrong person.
I take a step closer to her, and she retreats until her back hits the brick wall, our bodies chest to chest. She’s cold, like ice, both physically and emotionally.
I reach out and take a handful of her hair in my fist, forcing her to glare up at me.
She needs to know who the fuck is in charge.
No more running and hiding from me. She’s mine, and she needs to start acting like it.
“You needed medical help and a safe place to sleep, and for whatever reason, your stubbornness was stopping you from seeing reason, so out of the kindness of my heart, I showed you.”
“Is that what you call it?” A cold hand settles on my bare chest. Her breathing is shallow, almost a pant.
Her eyes lock with mine, and we’re back to teenagers again.
She knows this shit between us isn’t over, she can feel it just like I can.
“K,” she whispers. And I know she’s about to push me away again.
“Don’t fucking K me. You put yourself in harm’s way today, and every fucking day you’re not with us. Because you won’t listen. Because you think you know better. We have been nothing but kind to you, and you have been nothing but a brat in return.”
Her eyes widen, the outrage clearly written all over her face. “That’s not fair. You locked me up.”
“Not fair. Not fair is all the fucking secrets you’re keeping from us. Another life you won’t even talk to us about when all we want to do is help you.”
“Because it’s none of your fucking business.
Stop being such a control freak, you don’t have to know everything about me.
I’m no one to you,” she cries, her words filled with frustration.
But she’s got nothing on me. She’s pushed me so far there is no coming back.
She needs to see reason or I’m going to lock her up and throw away the key just so I know she’s safe.
“You’re everything to me,” I roar, my voice booming off the walls of the stairwell. “I would have gone to the end of the fucking earth to find you, but you and your dad disappeared without a trace. And now you’re back and still hiding from me.”
She laughs, and it’s bitter and icy, almost wicked, as her long nails dig into my bare chest. She tries to shove me off with as much force as she can muster.
My grip on her hair tightens, my fingertips pressing into her hip a fresh warning for her.
No way I’m letting her go until she talks and we all know exactly how much danger she’s in.
“You expect me to believe that when all it took for you to kick me to the curb was a few racy images of me on my OnlyFans account?”
I crack my neck. She thinks we let her go because of what we saw on her phone.
That’s just sad. But as I stare back at her, I know it is.
She holds the shame in her eyes. She thinks we ditched her because of her OnlyFans account and the work she was doing for the Southern Breakers.
“I don’t understand how you let yourself get caught up in that world, Dove.
It fucking killed me to see those videos and know you didn’t come to me for help when you needed it.
But I would never discard you for making a bad choice like that. ”
She huffs out a laugh. “A bad choice.” Her eyes darken, anger radiating off her.
“You have no fucking clue what you’re on about,” she spits, shoving at me so hard I falter for a second.
She’s so angry. It gives her the space to take a step away from me.
“I have no idea why I came back here,” she mutters almost to herself as she scurries down the stairs.
Sickness washes over me. Her walking away feels way too much like her leaving again, and I can’t go through that.
I should ask her why she put herself in that dangerous situation.
I know she must have been desperate. She’s a smart girl, she wouldn’t have done it otherwise, but I’m too angry to have a reasonable conversation with her.
I follow her down the stairs and back into the main bar, but the faster I am, the faster she moves. Until her hand lands on the door.
“You leave, everything I know about you and the Southern Breakers will be sent to the cops.” The words shake out of my mouth.
In every other situation I can be the one in charge.
I know how to manipulate any fucker into giving me what I want, but Dove is different, and everything I have tried with her hasn’t worked.
I know what I’m doing, I know the damage I might be causing with a threat like this.
But I can’t have her just walking away from me.
Not now. And trying to get her to see it my way wasn’t working, so a threat it is.