Brutal Prince (Brutal Birthright)

Meanwhile Oliver used to run the forty in 4.55. He may have put on a few pounds since his glory days, but when he puts his head down and pumps his arms, he still charges through the sand like a linebacker.

He tackles me so hard that it knocks every last molecule of oxygen out of my lungs. They’re so deflated that I can only make a horrible gagging sound before I can finally drag in a sweet breath of air.

My head is pounding. I’m covered in sand, it’s in my hair and in my mouth. And worst of all, in my cast, which is gonna drive me fucking bonkers.

Oliver is already on his feet again, watching me with pitiless eyes.

“I don’t know why you do this to yourself, Aida,” he says. “You’re so self-destructive.”

I want to tell him that I didn’t fucking tackle myself, but I’m barely breathing, let alone able to speak.

While I’m gasping and gagging, Oliver rummages through my purse. He finds my phone. Kneeling down on the sand, he picks up a rock the size of his fist and smashes the screen. His face is red with effort, the muscles straining on his arm and shoulder. My phone practically explodes under the rock, while Oliver keeps hitting it again and again.

Then he picks up the broken metal and glass, and he flings it into the water.

“Was that really necessary?” I ask him once I’ve recovered my breath.

“I don’t want anyone tracking you,” he says.

“Nobody—” I break off, my mouth hanging open.

I was about to say, “Nobody has a tracker on my phone,” but I realize that isn’t true.

Oliver put a tracker on my phone. He must have done it when we were dating. That’s how he always knew where to find me. At restaurants, at parties. And later, at Callum’s fundraiser.

That’s probably how he found me today. He’s been watching where I go. Most of the time it’s completely boring places like school. But it still gives me a sick feeling, knowing that I was a little dot on a screen, always under his eye.

Oliver leaves my purse laying in the sand.

“Come on,” he says. “Back to the house.”

I don’t want to get up, but I don’t really want him to carry me either. So I drag myself up and shuffle after him, with only one shoe and an itchy sand-filled cast that’s already driving me crazy.

I try to shake it out.

Oliver says, “What happened to you?”

“Got my hand slammed in a trunk,” I say. A perverse giggle bursts out of me, as I realize that I’ve been shoved in a trunk twice this week. A new record, over the zero times it had happened in my entire life before this.

Oliver watches me, unsmiling.

“I knew this would happen,” he says. “I knew he wouldn’t be able to take care of you.”

I scowl, stomping through the sand. I never wanted anybody to “take care” of me. Oliver was always trying to do it, and that’s one of the things that annoyed me about him. Once we played pickleball with another couple, and Oliver almost got in a fistfight because the guy slammed the ball right at me. Oliver wanted a chivalrous game. I wanted a challenge.

He was always calling me “princess” and “angel.” And I always thought, “Who in the fuck are you talking about? Because that sure ain’t me.”

But I guess I misread Oliver, too. Because I never thought he’d do something as crazy as this.

I follow him up to the back of the beach house. We climb the weather-worn steps. Oliver holds the door for me.

I’m surprised to find the house almost entirely empty inside. We’re in the living/dining/kitchen area, but there’s no table or chairs or couches. Just a bare mattress on the floor, with a blanket on top.

I can’t say I like the look of that any better.

“Why’s it so empty in here?” I ask Oliver.

He looks around resentfully, as if counting all the things that are missing.