Page 59 of Fear Me, Love Me

He’s shouting in my face, and I flinch and can’t reply because I’m so choked up.

“I knew it.” He throws the photos at me and they scatter all over the floor.

I stare at a photograph of myself with my hands pressed against Tyrant’s bare chest as I gaze up at him. Adoring the man who took my virginity. Who could have done this? Tyrant himself? For what purpose? The photos are taken from an angle slightly above us, and they’re grainy as if the photographer has had to zoom in from a distance. Tyrant uses CCTV in his labyrinth. I saw the room, but these don’t look like stills taken from a security video. Whoever is responsible, their purpose was to humiliate me in front of Dad and Samantha. Tyrant must be furious with me for sneaking away with Barlow, but I don’t believe he would do something like this. It doesn’t seem like his way of punishing someone.

I need the comfort of a cuddle with my brother. I reach for Barlow, but Samantha backs away to the other side of the room with him.

A fierce ache of loss opens up in my chest. “Why won’t you let me hold Barlow? I’m not going to hurt him. I risked everything to bring him home to you.”

Samantha shakes her head and turns away from me. “I don’t want you here, Vivienne. You’re hiding something.”

Dad gives me a disgusted look. “Go back to your dorms. We can’t look at you right now.”

“But when can I come back?” I choke out, trying to hold on to my tears.

“When you’re ready to tell the truth about what happened last night. We’re so sick of your lies.”

The unfairness of it all is making my stomach clench with despair. I collect my satchel and my coat from the places I left them last night. I don’t know what to tell them. I just wanted my brother back, and then everything got out of hand.

Dad and Samantha don’t say goodbye as I let myself out of the house and into the cold morning air.

I’m halfway down the street when someone grabs me, pushes me against a car with his massive body, and growls into my ear, “Got you, you little thief.”

20

Tyrant

Vivienne’s sweet scent blooms around us as I crush her against my car. Relief pours through me. She’s back in my arms where she’s meant to be. She stole my fucking hostage, but right this moment I can’t even feel angry about it.

I turn her around to face me and find that there are tears pouring down her face. Vivienne throws her arms around me and sobs against my chest. She’s crying?

“What the…” I pull open the rear door of my car and lift her inside, get in after her, and close the door behind us. Liam’s in the front seat, and he drives off down the street.

Taking Vivienne’s face in my hands, I ask, “What happened? Why are you crying?”

She’s sobbing so hard she can barely get the words out. “Dad and Samantha told me to leave. I brought Barlow back to them and…and…”

I wipe the tears from her cheeks. Stone and his fucking wife. I spent all night making this girl come and smile and pour out her heart to me, and those assholes reduced her to a whimpering mess again in a matter of minutes. I vividly imagine Stone’s windpipe beneath my foot as I crush the life out of him.

“Someone took photos of us having sex in your labyrinth last night. They delivered the photos to my home. Who would do such a thing?”

“Photos of us? How? Where are they?”

“I left them behind. I don’t know how they were taken. It was humiliating enough, other people seeing us when we thought we were alone. I didn’t say I didn’t want you, but then Dad told me not to pretend again that I’d been forced.”

A deadly, ice-cold sensation washes over me.

Pretend she was forced. Stone threw that in her face when she half-killed herself trying to get Barlow back for them? I would bet my fortune that they didn’t even thank Vivienne for stealing Barlow back for them. She doesn’t ask me if I took the photos, so she must understand that I would never be that petty. Not now, anyway. Stealing her diary and reading it aloud to her was pretty fucking petty, but I never would have done it if I’d known her story. Seeing those scars on her body changed everything.

Fresh tears run down her cheeks and her face crumples. “Samantha wouldn’t let me hold Barlow. I have a terrible feeling that they’re never going to let me see him again.” Vivienne starts to cry in earnest.

I’ll have my revenge on those two, and it will be bloody and brutal beyond anything they could imagine. I take Vivienne’s shoulders in mine and force her to look at me. “Ask me to fix this for you.”

Vivienne wipes wetness from her cheeks. “You can’t fix this. No one can. All I can do is come back next week and hope that Dad and Samantha have calmed down enough to let me hold Barlow again.”

She’s wrong. I can fix this in a heartbeat. I narrow my eyes meaningfully. Come on, angel. You can figure out what I’m offering. You know exactly the kind of man I am.

“Say,I wish Tyrant Mercer would give me my heart’s desire.”

---