box again, lift the stub and glance over at Ari.
“He ditched me that night. He wasn’t planning on taking me anywhere.”
Ari pushes away from the wall to walk over and crouch down behind me. His knees brush my arms, his chest touching the back of my head. Reaching around me, he doesn’t take the stub from me, but instead slides his hands over mine, holding the stub in place.
I lean back into him without really meaning to. I breathe him in because his scent is so familiar. I should hate him, but I can’t seem to conjure that feeling inside me. Even though I want to.
“Tyler Dixon and his friend had a home business you were almost part of. The game is to drug women, take them back to an apartment and film their rape. You would have been their newest star.”
I still in place, my mind racing to understand what he isn’t saying.
And then it connects, fear wrapping its cold arms around me as tightly as Ari holds me now.
“So, when I was ditched?”
He laughs softly, the deep baritone of it vibrating against my back.
“You made it home without incident. He didn’t.”
The stub falls from my fingers, and when I move to pull away from Ari, he locks his hands over my wrists before wrapping both our arms around me, my body tight to his.
A dip of his head, and his soft voice is against my ear. “What’s wrong?”
I try to swallow the knot in my throat. Fail. My body shivering despite his heat.
“What happened to Tyler?” I ask, not sure that I want the answer. And almost positive that I already know.
Ari spins my body around, shoving me back against the bookcase. My eyes lift to his, and I see an expression so utterly vacant of emotion that it scares me more than the night Grant had me cornered.
It’s one thing to have someone lose control, to see the truth of what they’re thinking and feeling written across their face. But to see nothing...
“I think you already know,” he says, his eyes studying my face.
You should fear the man that has you. He’s not right in the head...
Lincoln’s warning echoes in my thoughts, a whisper against my senses, a truth that is becoming clear.
His stare drops to my mouth, head tilting just a bit as he reaches to pull my bottom lip down with his thumb.
“You have an annoying habit of chewing your lip when you’re worried or thinking.”
The inside of my lip is raw, and the salt of his skin stings. I’ve been worried a lot, apparently.
Grey eyes lift to mine. “I don’t appreciate it when people break my things.”
I don’t think he’s talking about my lip.
More like he’s answering my question about what happened to Tyler.
Ari’s hands have killed. I know that now. I feel it. But is it wrong if he did it to protect me?
But you also have a fuck ton of answers displayed around you in this place. Some will piss you off. Some will make you think that maybe Ari is a good guy. He’s not...
Break my things. I brush aside the idea that Ari saved my life for my benefit. He did it for his.
His stare traps mine, cruel lips curling as if he can follow the direction of my thoughts.
“What will you do about it, Adeline?”
Another swipe of his thumb against my lip.
“If your previous behavior has anything to say about it, not a damn thing. And I still win.”
A sophisticated brow slowly arches above one grey eye, his lips stretching into such an arrogant smirk that it stabs like a knife to the gut, twisting so the pain is more violent.
“I have you trapped. Always have, really. The only difference is you know it now.”
Ari pushes to his feet and stares down at me. A subtle, dismissive shake of his head before he steps away to grab the bag he’d dropped near the doorway leading to the elevator. I watch him cross the living room to turn down the opposite hall to his bedroom, listen as the door unlocks, swings open, then closes again.
That’s when the tears start. I’m not just being held prisoner, I’m trapped by a man who kills.
My head falls back against the bookshelf, and I give myself a few minutes to feel the terror that realization evokes.
And sadly, I still don’t know the half of it.
Mentally, I start counting the number of my friends who disappeared. The strange coincidences and occurrences. The stuff that I