“I’m going to make a change to your routine,” Cross says as if it’s a threat.
Again, my head falls to the side to look at him, my energy waning. “Is that so?” I ask him, and he quirks a devious grin.
“You’ll only eat when I feed you. Bite by bite.” His eyes flicker with a heat that should scare me, but it does other things to me that I choose to ignore. “You should have eaten before, songbird. Your defiance is only hurting you.”
The thought of him feeding me is something that will haunt me for hours once he’s gone, I already know it. It’s not just the loneliness that attracts me to Cross. I felt it the moment I saw him.
“I wasn’t going to eat anyway,” I tell him in a single breath rather than allowing my imagination to get the best of me. I’ve heard death by starvation is a horrible way to die and I know I’ll have to figure out another way. I know I’ll cave, just like I already have. As if reading my mind or maybe knowing better, Cross smirks at me, but it’s different from the previous ones. There’s something almost melancholy about this one.
“You’ll eat,” he tells me and then stands up without another word. As he turns the doorknob, I close my eyes knowing the bright light is coming. Even with my eyes closed, I can see it. And then it’s gone, and once again I’m alone and trapped in the room.
I should feel a touch of ease, knowing he’s given me some information I can hold on to. But all I can think about is my mother and the last day I saw her.
She wanted to leave and run away. She begged me to understand. And I cried when she told me, “Ria, please.”
I’ll never forget the wretched way my name fell from her lips that day. The fatal flaw of any mother is how much her love for her children will blind her. It’s my fault. Fresh tears leak down my face and I don’t even bother wiping them away as I crawl to the mattress.
It takes a bit longer than usual for him to do it, but with the blanket wrapped tightly around me, the lights in the room go off. Loneliness is my only companion unless I give in to the memories. And I hadn’t realized how harmful they can be. My own past is becoming my enemy.
I find myself filled with nothing but regret as sleep takes over.
If only I could go back and not fight her.
If only I could go back and tell her, we can’t go home.
Chapter 11
Carter
* * *
It’s different when I’m in the cell with her. When there’s nothing but an isolated war between the two of us. I know she’ll break, and she’ll love it when she does.
When I’m in there with her, staring her down and watching every small, calculated movement from her, all I feel is the need to bring her to that edge and watch her fall.
I can picture her beautiful hair a tangled mess as I fist it in my hand, taking my pleasure from her even if she’d give it freely. She’ll be on her knees, desiring the same things that I do.
It consumes me when the four walls of the cell surround me, but the moment the steel door closes behind me with a finality that another day has passed where I don’t have control of her, the desire changes to desperation.
She has to submit. To kneel when I walk into her cell and to wait eagerly for my command.
And soon.
I have other plans and I want her to be a part of them. She needs to give in. It starts with a simple kneel.
I’m still reeling from seeing her sweet defiance when the door shuts tight. Slipping the painting back into place, I get a glimpse of my brother as he walks toward me in the hall.
“You’re waiting for me?” I ask him, and he matches my pace as we head toward my office.
“I think I know why it’s hitting heavier on the edge of the south side, closer to the Romanos.” He doesn’t waste a second to start talking business.
“The supply?” I ask him for clarification. The drug market is predictable. That’s the best part about an addiction. It’s steady, rampant, and easily maintained. When demand increases in only one area, there’s a reason for it. And I need to know why this shift is so unexpected.
“Romanos have their hands on it. They have to be producing it by the amount they’re selling.” My blood chills in response to Jase’s revelation. My jaw tenses as we make our way down the stairs. Each step only emphasizes the hollow pounding in my ears.
He wanted an ally.