Chapter thirty #2
“Because from where I’m standing, it looks like your loyalty is spread out on a Phantom’s couch!” I berate. Reprimanding her, humiliating her. Needing to put this into perspective, make her see reason, make her feel one half of the pain she’s inflicted.
“Abby-” Isla tried to placate.
“Stay out of it.” I snap.
“No.” Nadia steps forward now, eyes locked on mine.
“You don’t get to talk about something you don’t understand.”
“I understand enough.” I spit.
“No, you don’t.” She retorts.
“Then explain it!”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.”
She’s ice, pure fucking ice that won’t melt. That won’t break no matter how much of my fire I throw at her. But those words pierce me. Slap me. Hard. My chest tightens, anger flaring hotter.
“You owe us everything!”
“I’ve given you everything!” She contends, her facade finally starting to slip.
“Then why are you risking it?”
Silence. She doesn’t answer, refuses to. But that is answer enough. Pop steps forward then, his presence cutting through the chaos instantly.
“It ends.” He declares. Nadia shifts her gaze to him.
“Now.” Her expression doesn’t waver.
“No.”
The room goes static at her answer. At her blatant disregard for Pop’s order. A direct order from her leader. From the man who was her father. For a second, Pop doesn’t react. Like his brain hasn’t caught up yet. Then it does. And something in him snaps.
“The fuck did you just say?” His voice wasn’t calm anymore. It wasn’t controlled. It was subdued yet very. Fucking. Lethal.
“I’m not ending it.” A harsh laugh ripped out of him, jagged and disbelieving.
“You think this is a conversation?” He barks.
“You think you get to decide this?”
“Yes.” She lifts her chin haughtily.
“No.” He stalks closer, fast, stabbing a finger toward her chest.
“You don’t get a choice when you’re risking everything I built for some-” He cut himself off, shaking his head like the words can’t come out fast enough.
“-some Phantom low-life!”
“He’s not-”
“Don’t.” Pop snarls, louder this time.
“Don’t you dare stand there and defend him.” Nadia’s jaw tightens.
“You don’t know him.” She maintains.
“I know enough!” Pop roars.
“I know what they are. I know what they do. I know what happens when you let them get too close.” That line hung in the air for half a second too long, burying itself deep in my chest. It felt intense and personal. But it was gone just as fast, submerged under fury.
“He’s not the problem.” Nadia shot back.
“He is the problem!”
“No-”
“You are acting like a damn fool!” Pop shouts over her, voice echoing through the house.
“Sneaking around, lying, crossing sides like it’s nothing, like it won’t come back and bite us in the ass!”
“It won’t-”
“You don’t know that!”
“I do!”
“You don’t know a goddamn thing!”
It was so out of character for her to be this naive. So blinded by emotions and whatever promises this Phantom bastard was spewing in her ear. False promises he damn sure couldn’t keep. Silence cracked for half a second before I stepped forward again, unable to hold it in anymore.
“You’re embarrassing us.” Nadia’s head turns to me sharply.
“Come again?”
“You heard me.” My voice shook, but it wasn’t weakness; it was anger. Hurt. Betrayal.
“Running around with the enemy like you’re some lovesick idiot? That’s not you. That’s not who we are.”
“I’m not-”
“You are.” Deck cuts in, his voice harsher than I had ever heard it.
“You look weak.” That was a hit I saw land. Good. Let her feel it.
“You think he cares about you?” Deck continues, shaking his head.
“You think you’re special? You’re a distraction. That’s all you are.”
“That’s not true.” She grits her teeth, fighting to keep her composure. To keep her precious control.
“It is.” I glare.
“And when he’s done with you, when he’s bored or when this blows up in your face, don’t come crying back here expecting us to pick up the pieces.”
“I’m not asking you to-”
“No, you’re just expecting it.” I shot back. “Like always.” That got to her, and it stung. It stung me to say it. Still, I don’t stop.
“You’re throwing everything away for him,” I say, quieter now, but biting all the same.
“For what? Some guy who’d slit our throats if it came down to it?”
“He wouldn’t.” Her fists clench at her sides.
“You don’t know that!” I lose it all over again.
“I do!” She shouts.
“You’re choosing him over us!” She rolls her eyes, palming her forehead, like we’re idiots and she can’t take us anymore.
“I’m not choosing-”
“Yes, you are!” I yell, getting in her face now.
“Because you’re still standing there defending him instead of walking away!” Pop laughs again, but there was nothing amused about it. It was bitter.
“Look at you.” He mutters, shaking his head.
“I took you in. Fed you. Gave you a place in this family, and this is how you repay me?” Nadia’s expression fractures for the first time tonight.
“That’s not fair-”
“Fair?” Pop sneers, standing toe-to-toe with her.
“You wanna talk about fair? It wasn’t fair when I found you with nothing. It wasn’t fair when I chose you. When I put you in a position most people would kill for.”
“I never asked for-”
“No.” He bulldozes right past her.
“But you took it. You took everything I gave you. My trust. My name. My protection.” His voice drops as he looks her dead in the eye, becoming the menacing man everyone knows him to be. Revealing a
side to himself he never took out on us. But Nadia’s pushed him too far.
“And now you’re lying to my face.”
“I’m not lying.” Her nostrils flare.
“You are.”
“I’m. Not.” She argues stubbornly.
“You are.” He repeats, more slowly this time, because he needs her to understand it.
“Because if you were telling the truth, you’d be breaking this sham of a relationship off right now.”
More silence ensues, in which Nadia doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t budge. She doesn’t fucking back down. And there we had her final answer. Something in Pop’s face hardened completely. Cold and final. I think a piece of him died tonight.
Because none of us, especially not Pop, could ever imagine she’d do something so diabolical. Something so incredibly stupid.
“Then you’re not one of us.”
The words are like a gunshot. Isla gasps softly. Deck goes still. And I don’t breathe. Nadia blinks. once. Slow, like she hadn’t heard him right.
“What?” “You heard me,” Pop says flatly.
“You wanna be with a Phantom? You wanna switch sides and pretend it won’t matter?” He treads back, gesturing toward the door.
“Then go.” He shrugs, hands going into the pockets of his jeans. Static swallows the room whole.
“You don’t mean that,” Nadia says quietly, stunned with disbelief.
“I do.” A hollow laugh escapes her.
“You’re kicking me out?”
“I’m not kicking you out.” He corrects coldly.
“You’re walking out.”
“That’s not the same thing.” She scowls.
“It is to me.”
His words leave no room for argument. Pop was the judge, jury, and executioner. The verdict was in, and she was guilty. Nadia’s chest rose and fell once, sharply.
“You’re choosing this over me?” Pop’s expression doesn’t change.
“No.” He shot daggers at her.
“You made that choice already.”
Something in Nadia shatters irreversibly.
Something she’ll never get back. And for a split second, just one, I almost say something.
Almost intervene and take it back. Almost stop this from going too far.
But it was already too late. Nadia’s jaw set, eyes reverting back to the same icy coldness she was notorious for.
“Fine.” The word sounded deadly coming from her lips. She turned, grabbed her keys off the table without another word, and no one stopped her. Not me. Not Deck. Not Isla. And certainly not Pop. The door slams behind her hard enough to rattle the walls. And just like that,
Nadia Slade was gone.