“Where have you been? What do you fucking care? Your life hasn’t been screwed up by this. Do you like keeping me trapped like a baby bird in a cage?”
It hits me then that he does. That he’s always kept me trapped. All Ari does is steal from me without offering anything in return. And it hurts. It fucking hurts to realize it.
Stepping away, I glare at him.
“And I still know nothing about you. Not one goddamned thing. So, until you’re ready to fess the fuck up and answer my questions, you can go back to wherever the hell you came from. Leave me the fuck alone, and forget about me. Not that you haven’t been doing that already. I’m not here to be your amusement. And I’m sick of your damn games.”
I’m a pot boiling over at this point, all the questions and frustrations I’ve been stuffing down over the weeks I’ve been with him finally bubbling to the top. Maybe it took being alone for me to finally look at the full picture. But now that it’s there in front of me, I can’t let it go.
Silence falls, the seconds ticking by as tension builds between us. Ari’s voice is a bare whisper as he takes a step toward me, but stops.
“Is that what you think?”
Tears well in my eyes. “Yes. That’s what I think. You’ve done nothing but screw with my life without permission. And the entire time, you can’t even be bothered with giving something back. Yes, you protected me when I was younger, but if you really gave the first fuck about me, you’d tell me why. Who the hell am I to you, Ari?”
I’m shouting now, my hands shaking. He only grins to see it. Not the friendly expression I used to get from him, but something harder, sharp like Rebecca called him.
They’re fierce in their possession of you...
Her words drift back to me and I scream again.
“I’m not a fucking possession! You don’t own me, and you never will!”
He moves quicker than my mind can process, his hand fisting in my hair as he pins me against the wall. Ari’s grey eyes have a lethal edge, his cruel lips pulled into a thin line.
“Ask your question, then,” he says, his tone devoid of anything comforting. It almost sounds like a dare.
My gaze pins his because I refuse to look away. I won’t let him scare me. Not now. Not after everything.
“How the fuck do you know me?”
Here it is. The moment of truth. The last chance he has to either make this right, or tear the illusion apart that I’ve ever mattered to him.
“I killed your father. I first saw you when you ran to his body. And I’ve been watching you ever since.”
Ice runs down my spine, my heart lurching with a painful thump at him daring to make a joke of my life.
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing,” he answers, his voice matter of fact. “You wanted the truth, so I’m giving it to you. I’m the man who pulled the trigger when your father died. Are you happier to know that? Does it make you feel closer to me somehow?”
I’m going to throw up, my entire body shaking now as he continues staring down at me with no guilt for what he claims to have done.
Leaning down, he levels his stare with mine. “I’ve told you from the beginning that I’m no hero. I’m the villain in your story, Adeline, but you refused to believe me.”
Pausing, he searches my eyes, his hand gripping my hair tighter when I try to pull away.
“Do you have any more questions? Or does that satisfy your curiosity?”
I can’t process this, can’t do anything but fight the bile that crawls up my throat to coat my tongue. My blood is a toxic mix of emotion. Rage, sorrow, fear.
How dare he lead me on to believe that he gives a damn? How dare he pursue me and touch me like he has any right to my body when he’s the asshole who destroyed me?
“Get the fuck out of my house, Ari.”
He doesn’t answer, just stares at me as if my pain doesn’t affect him. His eyes are so cold, they freeze my skin, so utterly absent of concern that my hands clench into fists.
“Get the fuck out!”
He lets me go and steps back, but that stare is still on my face, that arrogant fucking grin.