rolling behind his eyes, but it does nothing to calm me down.
Ezra doesn’t scare me.
Not anymore, at least.
Not when he’s already ripped my heart from my chest and crushed it beneath his foot.
What the hell else could he do to me that he hasn’t already done?
“Speaking of my father,” he mentions with a slight tilt of his head. “Would you like to give me the real reason you’ve been over there?”
No.
Because I can’t.
So I toss his words back at him.
With a flutter of my lashes, I smirk. “To fuck him just like you said. And by the way, yes, his cock is much bigger than yours.”
He takes a step toward me, but stops himself, his hand fisting by his side. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing,” I say, my gaze crashing against his. “Give me the name, and I’ll play the game, Ezra. So you might want to be careful about what you accuse me of doing.”
His brows shoot up his head. “You would actually fuck my father?”
No.
I’d rather stab the son of a bitch repeatedly than so much as touch him. I’d rather slide naked down a razor blade banister to land in a pool of lemon juice than ever let that man touch me.
But I don’t tell Ezra that.
Instead, I remind him of another barrier between us.
“In two years, I won’t have much say about what I do in life. Why should anything matter now?”
“But...you would fuck William?” His voice is incredulous.
Damn it. “No, I wouldn’t actually fuck your father. That’s disgusting.”
“Then what the hell are you doing over there?” he yells.
“I already told you,” I yell back.
Great. Now we’re screaming at each other out where Damon can hear us from the woods, and Ivy can hear us from inside. Not good.
“I don’t believe you,” he roars.
Tossing up my hands, I step away from him. “That’s not my problem.”
It just sucks he’s right not to believe me. I clench my eyes shut and face another direction because I can’t look at him and keep lying.
This entire thing was supposed to be over by now. I was promised it would be done. But complications have only dragged it out, and I’m stuck in this until it ends.
And I can’t say a word.
Not one word, or all of it will be for nothing.
“And this is exactly why I did what I did. You only have yourself to blame.”
God, he is such a dick.
I spin to face him again, not giving a damn when he steps close and ducks his head. He wants to be everything I see? Fine! Because I have no problem narrowing my stare on him and saying what needs to be said.
“Is this your way of apologizing, Ezra? Because you might as well not bother. You suck at it. Just like you suck at being an even remotely decent fucking person. The last five weeks, all you’ve done is abuse me. Maybe not physically, but mentally and emotionally? Yeah, you’ve done that. Over and over and over, you’ve taken every stab you can while giving me mixed signals about how you feel. So you know what I think?”
Ezra weaves in place. It’s the weirdest thing, and I can’t believe I’m just now noticing it.
It’s like he can’t stay still, the energy inside him too much to hold onto, a fight constantly in his head that he can’t help but step up to.
His behavior is aggravating as hell because he mocks you while staring you down, challenges you while laughing at you. This son of a bitch thinks he has me cornered when the truth is I’m a hell of lot stronger than him.
And I’m about to tell him why.
Leaning in, he whispers. “What do you think, killer? Try being honest for once.”
Tears well at the backs of my eyes, and I hate it. Hate crying in front of him. Hate feeling this way. But I’m not crying for myself, I’m crying for him.
You’re so pretty when you cry...
I wonder if he would still think that if he knew those tears were for every time he was dragged off for one of those weekends, for every time he was forced to watch something that hurt him, for every punch he suffered, for every single time he was made to suffer the abuse of a father who never loved him.
I wonder how fucking pretty he’d find my tears then.
They brim at my eyes, hot and salty, the sting of them forcing me to blink.
How pretty am I now, Ezra?
Do you