I need so much more than he’ll give me. Touch, acceptance. Love. “I quit.”
Molten silver. That’s what fury looks like, streaking across his eyes. “Excuse me?”
“I quit.”
His laugh cuts me inside. “What do you want? More money? More pain? Should I start using a cane on you?”
Is this all I needed to do, threaten to leave? It’s too late for that. Maybe those things would have been enough. They might have kept me here for a few more months, at least. I’m dangling off a cliff, and I’ll keep scrabbling at loose rocks on the way down. That’s all he can offer me: loose rocks. I know it’s going to hurt at the bottom—God, it will hurt. But I can’t keep grasping for him. I have to fall.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
That was a mistake. He stalks around the desk, and I tense. I’m not afraid that he’ll hurt me. Not exactly. He’ll find something much worse than that. A way to punish me for leaving. I think what would hurt the worst is if he said nothing at all. If he could watch me go, just as casually as I’m acting, as if it’s not tearing him down inside.
“No,” he says, so softly it’s barely a sound.
I should have expected this. Not punishment. Denial. “I know you’re upset with me, but I’ve made up my mind.”
“Have you?” he asks, his voice strangely pleasant. “And what makes you think it’s up to you?”
My heart beats faster. “What do you mean?”
His smile is a baring of teeth. A threat. A promise. “You understand me, little one. You always have. What the fuck makes you think I’m going to let you walk up those stairs?”
Fight-or-flight. That’s my first reaction to his words. I want to run up those stairs, fast enough that he can’t catch me. I want to lash out at him for making me feel afraid. “What are you going to do, keep me chained up in a basement?” I laugh unsteadily. “Even if you don’t care that it’s illegal, it seems a little cliché for you.”
Bad move.
Three seconds later I’m slammed up against the wall, Ivan’s forearm at my throat, his face an inch away from mine. “You think I give a fuck about clichés? Or the fucking law? Do you?”
I can’t breathe, and the fear I’ve been pushing back claws its way up my throat. “Please.”
“You think you can just walk away, like these years mean nothing?”
They do mean nothing, because he’s never going to make it real.
I didn’t want to feel anything. I didn’t want to let myself feel anything. I was content to drink and smoke and rub my clit into oblivion. The ice has been cracking now, for months. Even when I walked down those steps, there was part of it still intact.
It cracks now, an actual shattering sensation in my chest.
“Ivan,” I whisper, and a tear tracks down my cheek.
He watches it fall. “Am I hurting you that much?”
Not with his arm against my throat. Not with his body holding mine. But he is hurting me. He’s breaking me into pieces. “I wanted us to be real. I want for you to—” For you to love me. “I tried so many times, and I just….I can’t. Not anymore.”
“Real,” he scoffs. “What the fuck is real?”
“I don’t know.” And that’s the honest-to-God truth. I don’t know what a real relationship is like. I don’t think he does either. “But I know it’s not this.”
He presses even harder, and black spots dance in front of my eyes. He’s really going to do it. My brain is going soft and foggy, the edges drawing in, but that’s the thought that stands out—a kind of gentle amazement that he’s really going to do it. Make me black out. Maybe even kill me.
I stare into his eyes. I’m not even fighting him. However this ends, it will be over.
My lungs burn from the lack of oxygen, my whole body folding in on itself. The world seems light, insubstantial. I’m floating…
A loud crack jerks me from my reverie. Ivan pulls back in surprise, and my body sucks in a breath all on its own, bringing me back to life and making me choke. Footsteps ring out on the metal steps, fast and heavy.
Luca appears at the entrance, his expression grim. There’s an unholy light in his eyes, violence and blood reflected back. He doesn’t seem surprised to find me in a choke hold. “You’d better come upstairs,” he says. “Both of you.”