Relenting won’t make her punishment any easier on her. In fact, it might make it worse.
She walks out of the room first, and I follow. Zeke and Langston both know what I’m about to do, but I won’t do it in front of them. Not when they have taken a liking to Kai. But they won’t stop this from happening. If either of them had betrayed us, then I would have punished them all the same.
I close the door to Zeke's room behind us calmly, as if I’m not about to explode.
“Enzo, I’m sorr—”
I glare at her.
She stops speaking.
Then, I start walking.
I can’t do this here. Not so close to Zeke. He has too big of a heart. If he hears her screaming, he’ll tell Langston to stop me.
So I walk upstairs to my bedroom, which I know is soundproof. Kai follows, walking like a prisoner about to go to the gallows.
I expected a fight, but apparently, she agrees she should be punished.
I hold the door open to my bedroom and wait for her to walk through. Then I slam the door shut.
She jumps at the noise.
“Enzo—”
“Don’t. There is nothing you can say.”
She crosses her arms across her chest looking at me defiantly.
“I should kill you,” I say.
“You won’t.”
I hate how confidently she says I won’t kill her. But then I should have killed her when we were teenagers, and I didn’t. I won’t do it now either. I can’t. She knows it, I know it.
“I won’t.” That would be too easy.
She exhales as if she didn’t fully believe I wouldn’t kill her until this very moment.
“You killed Jarod?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, with tears in her eyes—tears of forgiveness. I could be forgiven so easily if I just told her the truth. She’s so close to giving it to me anyway, even if I don’t fully deserve it.
But I don’t want her forgiveness.
Just like she doesn’t deserve mine.
We’ve both hurt each other too many times for forgiveness to ever be an option.
“I wouldn’t do it again. I’ve saved you too many times.”
She narrows her gaze at my cruel words. “Stop pretending you are a monster when you aren’t.”
“You don’t think I’m a monster?”
“Not as often as you are a protector.”