Chapter 10
I couldn’t believe that she stabbed me. Well, actually, I kind of could.
This was Solei Saint-Mercier. She got the shit honest. I should’ve known she was lying when she agreed to be good.
There was a dead body lying next to her.
There was no telling what she was capable of with her back to the wall.
I stood there in the center of my bathroom floor. Blood dripped from my arm as I doused it with alcohol. My teeth gritted from the pain.
This shit with Solei was gon’ be much harder than I thought it was gon’ be.
I wasn’t sure why I thought she was gon’ willingly come with me.
She didn’t know a damn thing about me aside from the fact that her family and I hated each other.
In her eyes, I was the enemy, but I was willing to do whatever it took to gain her trust.
“So, you’re really going through with this?” my mama said from behind me. Grabbing the bandages, I wrapped it around my arm.
“I’m doing what I gotta do.”
“You’re putting a fucking target on your back; that’s what you’re doing. If your daddy was still alive—”
“Well, he ain’t.” I cut her off before she began preaching.
“I’m just saying—”
“Kill it, Ma,” I told her and brushed past her out of the bathroom.
I didn’t want to hear anything that she had to say. Every time I turned around, she was trying to talk me out of doing something. That had been her goal ever since Pops got killed by the Saint-Merciers. I knew what I was doing. That was how we were able to manage for so long without him.
The security room stayed dark except for the glow of the monitors stretched across the wall. Every hallway, entrance, and blind spot. Nothing was gon’ slip past me.
I took a seat in front of the monitors, leaning back slowly in the chair. My fingers rested against the fresh bandage on my arm. The wound throbbed just enough to piss me off, but not enough to make me leave the room.
The first thing I did was go to the camera that was in Solei’s bedroom. My eyes tracked her every movement. Bare feet against the hardwood. Messy curls hung down her back. One of my T-shirts swallowed her frame.
The glass vase shattered when it hit the wall.
“Let me out of here!” she yelled, swiping everything off the dresser onto the floor.
She picked up one of the YSL perfume bottles and lunged it at the wall.
She was destroying everything in there that I worked hard to get to make her feel more at home while she was here.
I knew that it was gon’ be some form of a struggle at first, but with the way she was when we were in Vegas, I figured that it wouldn’t take much for her to warm up to me.
“This some bullshit!” Finally, she settled onto the bench at the foot of the bed and stared at the destruction she’d caused.
Even though she was acting a fool, that didn’t make me want her any less.
Once her family found out that I took her, I knew I was gon’ have to deal with the wolves. They were gon’ be even angrier when they find out that she was carrying my last name. It wasn’t shit they could do about it, though.
Solei sat there in that spot for a while. I thought about going in there and talking with her but figured that she needed some time to calm down. If I walked my ass in that room now, she was liable to kill me.
She got up and paced the bedroom again before suddenly stopping directly beneath the camera mounted in the corner.
My jaw tightened. Slowly, she lifted her head and looked directly into it.
It was like she knew I was sitting here.
Her eyes narrowed before she walked closer ’til her face filled the screen.
“Enjoying the show?” She folded her arms over her chest. “You gon’ stare all day, or you finally gon’ grow a pair and come in here?”
My thumb dragged slowly across my lower lip.
“What now, Savion? You kidnapped me. Con-fucking-gratulations. Want a fucking trophy? A cookie?”
Her voice echoed softly through the speakers mounted beneath the monitors. I watched every shift in her face. The fury and fear underneath it. The way she kept pretending she wasn’t nervous. Solei had no clue as to what I wanted with her.
She stepped closer to the camera. “You know what I think?” she asked quietly. “I think you like hiding behind them cameras because you know I’ll stab your ass again if you walked through that door. Pussy.”
I stood, and the room went still. Now she was really testing me. I adjusted the cufflinks on my wrists before reaching for the gun resting beside the keyboard. Not because I needed it. Shit was just a habit.
Solei was still talking shit when I left the room. “You ain’t nothing but a obsessed ass—”
The bedroom door clicked, and she grew silent. Her mouth parted slightly when she saw me leaning against the doorway, dressed in all black. My arm burned underneath the bandages, but I ignored it as I locked eyes with her.
“You talk too much,” I said quietly.
Solei lifted her chin, even though I saw the fear flash through her eyes. “And you kidnap women. Guess we both got flaws.”
A slow grin pulled at the corner of my mouth before I stepped inside and locked the door behind me.