Chapter Forty-One
Flynn
Agroan works its way up my throat in frustration as I watch Annie dart around the corner as soon as she spots me.
I’m hyper aware of her presence in my house, and it’s driving me mad.
Of course all this shit has to happen a mere week before I have to leave for training camp.
My luck would allow for nothing else than to be trapped in a house with the one girl who has me flipped around but wont give me a second look.
It was three years ago, and yet she acts like I set a damn puppy on fire.
I follow her down the hall to see if she’ll talk to me but quickly realize that Calvin is here to see her.
Seeing them seemingly arguing by the back door sets my blood on fire.
Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me that he was here? He shouldn’t be.
I’m about to turn away when I notice him grab her wrist and yank her into him. She winces and he sneers in her face. His face is red with anger and I have to force my feet to stay in place. The second his hand pulls back, I’m charging ahead.
“Annie, your Da is looking for you.” Her head jerks over to me in surprise, her brows furrow for just a second before realization dawns on her, and she nods.
“Okay, yeah. I was just showing Calvin out.” She pops up on her toes and presses a fast kiss to his cheek. “I’ll see you in a few days. Love you.” She calls over her shoulder as she scurries up the stairs.
Calvin nods as he tries to move past me, but I easily slam him against the glass door with my forearm pressing into his throat.
I stand about four inches taller than him, so he has to tilt his head up to look at me.
Good, that’s exactly how I want him. Let him go toe to toe with someone bigger than him for once.
“If I ever see your hands on her again, I will slit your throat and scatter your body parts all over the city.” I seethe.
His smirk makes me even more murderous. “I know all about you, Flynn. Don’t think we’ve never talked about you. And it’s because we’ve talked that I know that she’d sooner eat her own hand than give you the time of day.”
He’s shooting for my ego, but he misses. He won’t tell me anything I don’t already know, and I won’t allow him the satisfaction of seeing anything other than the anger I feel towards him. Regardless, he needs to get out of my house before I skin him alive.
Okay, so maybe I won’t. But Kieran will without hesitation.
“Get the fuck out of my house. I don’t need her to want me to intervene when a man is trying to hurt her.” My forearm presses into his throat just a little more before using it to push my body off of his. Little prick rubs at his throat.
“This isn’t the end of this.” He glowers.
My eyes track him as he storms out of my house, slamming the front door. “For your sake, you better hope it is.” I say to myself before setting off to find Annie.
It doesn’t take long to find her in the spare room across from my bedroom.
She’s been staying in here for a few days now.
Opting to rarely leave the confines of the room unless it’s to sit outside and study.
She hasn’t even started medical school yet, and still she keeps her nose buried in textbooks.
As predicted, when I push open the door to the room, she looks up from a medical book.
My breath stutters deep in my chest; damn, she’s breathtaking.
Her dark brown hair is pulled up in a simple ponytail, pieces having fallen out to frame her face from having it in all day.
Bright green eyes are hidden behind a pair of oversized glasses with thick translucent frames that take up most of her face in the most adorable way.
While her oversized Princeton hoodie and black leggings dwarf her frame.
She offers me a sad smile, which is honestly more than I expected or deserve.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. He’s just frustrated with the distance right now with us staying here.”
I don’t say anything, just analyze her body language as she talks.
“I mean, we aren’t distant. We’re fine. He’s the most amazing man and he loves me a lot, he’s just stressed.
I shouldn’t have aggravated him like that.
He’s under a lot of pressure with his parents and the upcoming semester.
I mean, we’re moving in a week, and I’m locked up in a tall tower right now.
I can’t imagine how frustrating that is for him. ”
I’ve let her ramble for long enough, and my sanity cannot take another second of her defending what we both know I saw. “Enough.” My voice comes out rough and gravelly with my barely contained composure.
Annie watches me with wide eyes and a slight tremble, like she’s scared she’s pissed me off. Where the hell is the little spitfire who’s been torturing me for years? It’s like her spirit is broken, and I hate that more than I care to admit.
I fell in love with her when we were just freshmen in college, but one bad night ruined us.
It was completely idiotic, and I’ve apologized more times than I can count since then, but it’s not enough.
I ruined us. So I love her from afar and try my best to protect her from the assholes.
Turns out she found a way to fall for one despite my best efforts.
Washington acquired my rights after I was drafted to Jersey, a trade I didn’t say a word about because it would bring me closer to her.
She’s always known she wanted to go to Johns Hopkins for medical school, then settle down in the DMV area.
She told me once that she felt trapped here with the ties her family has to the mafia.
I’ve got to admit that I get it, the mafia pull in Corey Heights and Jersey City is strong.
Especially when your family is involved but you aren’t.
“I’m sorry.” She whispers while looking down at the bedspread. Which does nothing to calm the anger I feel over her shattered spirit.
“Don’t. Why are you apologizing? Why are you letting some punk ass dude change the way you see yourself? You’re Anneliese Ruth Fischer. You don’t let anyone alter the way you see yourself. You definitely don’t let some man walk all over you. If I ever…” I let my voice trail off.
“If you ever spoke to me like that, I’d castrate you then feed you your own nut sack.” She finishes nonchalantly.
“Exactly, so why are you letting him talk to you like he does and grab you like he did today? We both know all you have to do is blink twice and I’ll have him in the ground.” I’m practically pleading for a reason, unable to wrap my head around her thought process.
She shrugs as a mask of the cold and calculated woman that she seems to reserve just for me slides into place. “Maybe I love him more than I ever did you. Now if you’re done lecturing me, I’d like to study as much as I can before tomorrow.”
She might as well have roundhouse kicked me in the solar plexus with how badly her words sliced into me. I nod and, without another word, leave her to her own devices. She’s lying. She doesn’t love Calvin. Even in the off chance she does, she definitely doesn’t love him as much as she loves me.
Our bond is like the law of the conservation of energy; it can neither be created nor destroyed.
It just is. It always has been and always will be.
She can act like it isn’t there all she wants, but the gravitational pull we have to each other defies all laws and logic.
At the end of all of this, it will be her and me in our rocking chairs, watching the sunset, with our grand kids running around the yard.
If it’s not that, then it isn’t a life worth living.