Chapter 54
54
M y insides are a churning sea of rage. Not because of the beautiful girl at my side, never because of her, but at the fucking insanity of what she’s been forced to feel like she needed to agree to.
If there was ever going to be a living nightmare, that might just be the deal Poe’s been offered and unknowingly leapt into at the first opportunity. My girl agreed to Andreas’ bargain without a second thought, and I wasn’t sure we’d make it out of there without me strangling him, slicing his balls off, and stuffing them down his throat.
He used the weapon he knew would have Poe saying yes within a heartbeat.
And it’s all my fucking fault.
All my fault for bringing her into this world, and for being a weakness to be exploited.
I don’t deserve a single drop of her goodness and kindness, nor should I ever be given the loyalty my girl just showed in there.
The entire drive back was a blur. We could have plowed through every red light, and I wouldn’t have noticed. All I kept seeing was his smug fucking face when he dropped the guillotine, and by doing so, he made sure that we would be ensnared in his schemes to take ownership of our girl.
Our fucking girl.
As we walk into the house, Grey hits us like a whirlwind. His hazel eyes burn with the frenzied energy of a man going out of his mind. The worst part in all of it, sickeningly so, is that he doesn’t even know what is about to be revealed. This is the state he’s in and he has no idea how it’s about to get exponentially worse for all of us.
Grey is on her straight away, fisting one hand in her hair, and the other grabs her waist. “Did that asshole touch you?” Every inch of him looks like the man thrumming with desperation and fury that I know he’ll be right now. Because he’s the mirror image of everything I’m only just holding onto while fighting inside.
I don’t have words to express any of this, and it swirls hot and thick through my veins with a need to grind every goddamn thing relating to Andreas Noire, this estate, the Anguis, into dust.
“Don’t fucking dare lie to me.” His voice is pained. I know he’s not angry with Poe, but he’s already walking a fine line of how far either Hawke or I will allow him to go with her.
“No.” She cups his face in return. “No, he didn’t.” Her eyes search his, seeking out the place that Grey has locked himself within inside his mind, and reaching out to drag him back to all of us. Beseeching him in the way she so effortlessly does, encouraging him to take her hand and step away from that bleak place where his instinct is to be the butcher . A shell of a man who has no purpose other than ending lives in the most painful and bloodstained way possible.
Meanwhile, I’m locked inside my own head, trying to hold it together. Bracing my weight over the back of the armchair, my eyes flick to Hawke, who studies me carefully. With every second his attention blazes my way, I shake my head ever so slightly.
Of course, this is all my goddamn fault; how could I do anything but blame myself for all of this? And I can’t even be the one to explain it to them.
“Whatever it is, just tell us, princess.” Hawke rests his back against the kitchen island, with arms folded, surveying the scene. “It’s already written all over Angel’s face that he’s crucifying himself for something, so you’re gonna have to spell it out nice and clearly. Don’t leave any details out.”
Poe presses a kiss to Grey’s mouth before carefully extracting herself from his grasp so that she can look at all of us. However, she keeps hold of Grey’s hand with their fingers laced together—his tattooed knuckles linked with her slender fingers painted in a deep shade of crimson that seems set to foretell exactly how much blood might end up on our hands after all of this is through—and tells them what she just agreed to.
With every second she explains Andreas’ bargain, the air in this room thickens and churns. Tension billows like smoke set to smother us all and leave us gasping for oxygen.
“No fucking way. You can’t.” Grey seethes through clenched teeth.
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do. It doesn’t matter. I’m in love with Angel and would go to the ends of the earth to protect him.” As she says those words, my girl hits me with her soulful brown eyes and damn near melts me on the spot. It’s a gift I don’t deserve a single second of—hearing her say that out loud, proclaiming her feelings without hesitation—and I’ve never wished more for a voice than in this moment to be able to say it back.
Hawke curses, and jabs one hand into his hair.
Except our girl quickly rounds on both of them. “And I’d do the same thing for the both of you. Don’t you see how fucking in love with you I am? That my heart belongs to all of you? So they can do whatever they want. Andreas Noire can send me to whoever he wants, can offer me up, and none of it matters. I’m yours, and no one else can have that part of me. At least this way, I can stay here and be with you all.”
“He’s going to exploit you.” Grey grabs her face, tilting it toward him, and bites down on her bottom lip before pulling back slightly. “That piece of shit will treat you like nothing more than a whore, to snap his fingers and beckon you to do his bidding whenever he damn well wants. He could give you to anyone. Any sick fuck he chooses.”
Poe takes everything, each one of those painful fears of Grey’s own life and what he’s been through, and eases the mess of emotions currently racing through his mind with her next words.
“I was yours first. I’ll always be yours.” She kisses him back.
As our girl hooks her arms around his neck, she looks first to me, and then to Hawke, then brings her gaze back to the man clinging to her like she’ll disappear on the faintest hint of a breeze.
“I’m your whore, your slut, your every damn thing you want from me. So you’d better show me exactly what it means to be yours.”