Page 100 of Ruthless God

Snow looks at me and my father. “Because I can’t be away from Lyrical, sir.”

“Go before I kill you, Snow. It’s over between you and my daughter. She doesn’t want you.”

“You can go ahead and kill me if you must, but I’m not going away until she orders me away, sir.”

My father looks at him, then back at me in confusion. “Has he always been this clingy?”

I nod my head and Snow rolls his eyes, crossing his arms.

“You’ve got to the count of thr—”

“You can’t keep me from your daughter. So go ahead and kill me. Slice me up, toss me in the ocean. Then go after my father because he wants her dead.”

Without taking his eyes off of Snow, my father says, “Let me speak to Snow alone.”

I do what he says and go inside the living room, where my mother is now sitting on the couch. She’s watchingTheGolden Girlsand I sit next to her, biting my nails. I don’t want my father to kill Snow.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” My mother props her feet onto the coffee table.

I tell her everything, leaving out the revenge part.

“In this lifestyle, you will have to be a pawn to your husband and be second sometimes. I’m not telling you to accept it, but we were always supposed to be their trophy wives and bear their children. Snow should have told you about his father, but they live by this code of conduct. They are not supposed to tell you what’s going on.”

I hang on to her every word, and she’s right, but it doesn’t stop the betrayal and pain I feel about how he lied to my face. I lay my head on my mother’s lap and cry for several moments.

My father and Snow walk into the living room, and I sit up quickly, wiping the tears from my eyes.

“Snow and I have an understanding. He will be staying here until we kill his father.”

“What the fuck?” I yell.

“Until his father is dead, Snow has our protection,” my father says.

Snow shrugs, and I push past him. He turns on his heel and follows behind me, up the stairs.

“Lyrical.”

I stop, trying to keep the tears at bay—trying to be strong here.

I don’t turn around, afraid I might give in to my feelings for him.

When I don’t turn around, he says, “I’m sorry.”

Those words go straight through my heart.

“It’s not enough,” I answer.

“I know.”

He moves past me and walks to the guest room, which is the room across from mine. We have several guestrooms in this gigantic mansion, yet he chose that one.

Moments later, he shoves my sketch journal into my hands—the one he stole from me, all those months ago.

I run my fingers over the worn leather and flip through the pages fast, noting that Snow wrote on some of his favorite sketches. When I land on the last page, I find a drawing of us as stick figures, with a gigantic heart around us and the caption,Snow and Lyrical forever. My tears splash onto the page. I didn’t even realize I was crying again.

Is he giving it back to prove that he’s sorry?

“I’m sorry this isn’t enough, Snow. I love you, but this will never work between us. After we find your father and you kill him, it’s over between us.”

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