Chapter Thirty-Three #2
“Talk to me.” His voice softened, the command wrapped in velvet. “What’s wrong?”
The lie stuck in my throat. I wanted to say I saw the video, and that I don’t know who you are. I gestured weakly to the door.
“Why is it locked?”
“Safety precaution.”
His fingers massaged the tense set of my jaw, a gesture that seemed to soothe me against all odds .
“After what happened with Jerry, I’m not taking chances. You’re safest here.”
Safest. The word soured in my stomach. “I need to go to my apartment. Just for an hour. To grab my?—”
“No.” The refusal came instantly, his grip tightening fractionally. “It’s not secure. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I need some time,” I pleaded, even as part of me recognized the absurdity of the plea. If the man in that video wanted to stop me, there was little I could do about it.
I was conscious of his light grip on the nape of my neck.
“Why? Whatever's going on, Sierra, we can talk about it. But you're not leaving this penthouse alone.”
He crowded me backward until my back hit the door, his body caging mine. “Every choice I make is to protect you. To keep you here, where I know nothing can touch you.”
“By locking me in?” My voice rose, trembling. “By deciding what I can or can’t do?”
He stilled. For a heartbeat, I saw it, the shadow of the man from the video, the ruthless edge he’d buried under layers of control. Then it vanished, smoothed into something dangerously gentle.
“You’re upset,” he murmured as if diagnosing a fever. “Come here.”
He pulled me against his chest, his arms iron bands around my ribs. I struggled instinctively, but he only tightened his hold, his lips brushing my temple. “Shh. I’ve got you, always.”
“Let me go?—”
“I can’t.”
The raw honesty in his voice froze me.
“You don’t understand what’s out there, Sierra. What I would do to keep you safe.”
His hand slid into my hair, tilting my face back to look up at his.
“You’re mine. And I don’t share what’s mine.”
The kiss he pressed to my lips was tender and reverent, a scary contrast to the possessiveness of his words. When he pulled back, his thumb traced my lips, his eyes dark with something that bordered on desperation.
“Stay, please.”
The plea ate at me. Because this was the Connor I knew. The one who’d pieced me back together and fought to earn my trust. But the video… the locks… the way his hands trembled ever so slightly as they framed my face…
I couldn’t reconcile it all. My mind was a mess, a tornado of emotions crashing into each other—love, fear, confusion, anger. And beneath it all, a simmering determination I hadn’t felt before. I wasn’t going to shrink away from this. Not anymore.
My throat tightened, the words clawing their way up like shards of glass.
“I saw it.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed sharply, his thumb freezing mid-caress against my cheek. “Saw what?”
For years, I’d swallowed truths to keep the peace—with Jerry, with adults, with anyone who’d ever made me feel small. But this time, my bravery burned hotter than the fear.
“The video,” I said, raising my voice. Toffee skittered back to the window.
“Of you. In that… that place.”
Connor stilled completely, his chest rising and falling in slow, measured breaths as he processed what I’d said. His face darkened, but not with anger, with something deeper, heavier.
“What video?” He asked carefully, though his voice carried the weight of knowing exactly what I was talking about.
“Don’t.”
My voice cracked, but I held his gaze. “Jerry sent it. I saw you—the fighting, the blood. You looked… You looked like a monster.”
My words were sharp and final in a way that had never come out of my mouth before.
Connor’s jaw flexed, his hands dropping from my face to curl into fists at his sides .
I braced for anger, for the cold fury of the man in that footage. But my own anger rose to meet it for the first time, unflinching even as I glared at the hulking beast of a man in front of me.
“You weren’t supposed to see that.”
The admission pulled the air from my lungs.
He knew .
He’d been hiding this from me intentionally.
“Why?” The question came out sharp, raw, and jagged. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He turned away from me, his shoulders rigid as he paced to the windows. The city sprawled below, oblivious to the tension on the penthouse floor.
“That life is dead, Sierra. It has nothing to do with who I am now.”
“It has everything to do with who you are!”
My shout surprised us both. My hands shook, but I didn’t back down, balling them into fists.
“You lied to me. You hid this, just like Jerry hid things. Just like?—”
“Don’t compare me to him.”
The low growl in his voice rattled the walls, dark and dangerous. But for the first time, I didn’t flinch.
“Then explain , Connor!”
His expression was stripped bare when he finally faced me, no masks, no practiced calm. Just a rawness I’d never seen.
Then he blinked, his expression shifting subtly, surprise flickering across his face before it settled into something deeper, almost like pride. Pride that confused me.
“I fought because I had to. Because the world doesn’t care about you when you suffer quietly.”
He stepped closer, his gaze searing mine with pure pride .
“I’m not proud of it, Sierra. I never wanted you to see that version of me.”
I shook my head, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes as frustration bubbled up inside me .
“You don’t get to decide what parts of you I see or don’t see!” The words burst out of me, loud with a force that startled us both.
“You’re yelling at me,” he said softly. “You’re trembling, but you’re yelling at me.”
His eyes held a deep affection I couldn’t deny.
I realized the truth of his words and what they meant for me.
For years, I’d been too afraid to raise my voice against anyone. Jerry had taught me that yelling led to punishment; silence was safer.
But now… now I was standing here in front of Connor, a man who could rip me in half with one hand, and yelling at him without fear.
His thumb brushed my cheekbone, his eyes narrowing with reverence. “Look at you,” he murmured. “My sweet girl, standing her ground.”
“I-I’m not scared of you,” I whispered, the lump in my throat growing from his stupidly perfect words.
His lips twitched slightly as if fighting back a smile, not mocking or condescending, but proud and tender.
“You shouldn’t be,” he said gently.
Those words made the dam break. My tears spilled over, hot and silent, and he pulled me against his chest, his heartbeat a steady drum beneath my ear.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into my hair. “For all of it.
The sincerity in his tone made me cry further, not because it erased the anger or confusion swirling inside me, but because it reminded me why I loved him despite everything.