And I realize something.
I don’t want to lose her.
But fuck, my patience is running thin.
“My eyes are open now,” she continues. “See, where you get me wrong is that you think I need to choose between you and my father. That I need to make one of you the angel so the other can be the monster. I don’t. Because there are two monsters in this doomed fairy tale.” She takes a breath. “You’re right about one thing, though. A single heroic act does not a hero make. A hundred wouldn’t make you a hero, Stefan, because you aren’t that. You will never be that.”
She turns on her heel and almost makes it a full step away before I catch her by her hair. She fights me when I spin her around and march her to my desk.
“Your eyes are far from open. And this thing, Gabriela, this thing between us, it’s no fairy tale.” I push her over the desk. I hold her face about two inches from the piece of paper there. “Read.”
“Let me go.”
“I said read.”
“I’m not interested—”
I haul her up, get in her face. “Do you need me to lock you up in a tower, princess?” I spit. “Is that it? Because you need me to be your monster? Is that the only way you know how to deal with men? Are we all monsters?”
I watch her eyes water but I don’t let go.
“You’ve proven yourself over and over again,” she says, still fighting even though she knows she’s lost.
“Read,” I say, turning her face back to the desk
“Let go of my hair! You’re hurting me!”
“But isn’t that what monsters do? Fucking read. Get all the fucking facts before you cast stones and once you have them, I may allow you to beg for my forgiveness. Of course, you’ll have to do it on your knees.”
“I will never kneel to you.”
I chuckle. “Before the night is out. Read.”
She pushes against the desk to raise herself up, but I keep her down over it and smack her ass hard. She grunts, reaching back to cover the spot.
“Read.”
“I don’t want to!”
“That’s too bad. You had some leeway with me but that’s finished. Don’t push me now. I’m very close to losing my temper with you. Fucking read.”
I only release her when she moves the sheet of paper a little, and I know she’s reading.
She flips one page, then another. It’s a few minutes before she turns to me, eyebrows knitted together.
“You can’t do this,” she says, straightening. “My brother isn’t a part of this.”
“Your father made him a part of it.”
“You can’t—”
“I can. And you’ll sign. Because it’s the only way to save him.”
“No.”
“Think, Gabriela.”
She looks away, her forehead furrowing as she thinks hard. She shakes her head, opens her mouth but she’s like a broken record. “You can’t.”
“You compare me to your father, yet you tell me you want to trust me, but you know what I think? I think you’re full of shit. I think you need to be locked away in that tower you’ve built for yourself because that’s the only way you know how to survive.”
“He can’t be a part of this.”
“This agreement will save your brother. It will save you both.”
She stares up at me and I can see her battle to make sense of what she’s seen. “It will deliver him to you,” she says.
I force a deep inhale, count to ten. “And what exactly do you think I’ll do with him?”
“I think you won’t only bury my father, but you’ll bury my brother and me along with him.”
My hands fist. “You believe that? Still?”
“Punish me if you have to but leave my brother out of it.”
“What would you have me do? Put cigarettes out on your back? Cut you? Is that the same deal you made with your father? Let him hurt you to save your brother?”
“That’s not…My brother…he’s already lost so much.” I see in her face she knows this is going to happen. And her pain, it twists something inside of me.
“I don’t do this to hurt you,” I say, cupping her face. “Can’t you believe that?”
“But you do hurt me.”
“Only because you refuse to see.” I smear a tear across her cheek. “You’re a sad little thing and I don’t want you sad. Don’t you understand?”
“Then change it. Take your name off it.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Because you don’t trust me and yet you expect me to trust you. I’ll do whatever you want, Stefan. I will.”
“I know you will.”
“Please just change it. Take your name off it.”
With my hand at the back of her head, I pull her to me and lean down to kiss her forehead, keeping my lips there for a long moment. I then kiss her temple, move to her ear.
“He’ll do anything to take you from me. He’ll do anything to get you back. He thinks I’ll give you up when he pulls his little trick—”