Page 41 of The Pretty Psycho

"I thought I had outsmarted them," she chuckled sadly, looking at the photos spread in front of us. "I thought I had it all under control, but it is obvious to me now that they have played me. They took what I wanted the most and used it against me."

"It's not your fault," Dimitri said, mirroring my exact thoughts. "You thought you had this all figured out."

"No," she shook her head, "I was cocky. I was too confident and that confidence is what landed me in this whole mess." She turned toward me, her eyes filled with an anger I could understand. "They've been lying to me my entire life. Your father has been lying to you. They've used us." She turned her attention to Jax, Dante, Dimitri, and Arseniy. "They thought they werecreating puppets they could use for their fucked-up wars." The solemn expressions of my friends told me they wholeheartedly agreed with what she said. "But we're not mindless puppets. We're not the heartless monsters they wanted us to be."

"No, we're not," Jax murmured, looking at his interlaced fingers on the table. "We're not puppets."

"I have spent so long looking for even an ounce of love in this loveless world." Vega chuckled, her sadness enveloping us. "I've been trying to find my place, to figure out where I belonged, because I always knew that The Schatten isn't my family." I couldn't take it anymore.

I wrapped my arm around her middle, careful not to press against her ribs, and lifted her from her chair, depositing her right on my lap. She yelped, looking down at me as if I had lost my mind, but whatever it was that she saw on my face had her calming down immediately, and instead of trying to move away from me, she relaxed, wrapping her arm around my neck as I pressed my nose underneath her ear.

Arseniy was grinning like a fool, while Dimitri rolled his eyes, but neither one of them tried commenting. Neither did Jax or Dante.

"We need to fight them," Vega said, playing with my hair at the back of my neck. "We need to destroy them," she bit out, her tone becoming more and more vicious with every new sentence. "I have no idea what your plans are for the future," she looked around the table, "but I refuse to be their puppet. I refuse to be controlled by men or women who wouldn't even blink if they needed to sacrifice me just to gain something for themselves." She took a deep breath, her nails scraping over my neck. "And I want in," she said. "I want to be involved with all this planning." Her eyes found mine, burning with the fire of a thousand suns, scorching me to the spot. "No more secrets, and no more lies."

My lips pulled into a bright smile, because I never expected her to sit here and command the room this soon after the attack.

"I am not a victim," she bit out for the thousandth time, repeating the words she said to me just last night.

She wasn't.

She was a warrior even on the days when the burdens of the world seemed to be too heavy for her to carry by herself.

"I know that," I murmured, wrapping my hand around her neck and pulling her closer to me. "We all know that." Murmurs of agreement passed over the desk, giving her the fuel she needed to continue her little harangue.

"Good." She smiled. "Then I want to know it all." Her eyes communicated even before she voiced it out loud. "I want to know the full history. And then," she looked at Arseniy, "I want us to destroy them just how they tried to destroy us."

And if I wasn't already falling for this girl, I knew I was definitely well on my way now.

13

VEGA

"It started longbefore any of us were born," Dimitri started telling the story I needed to hear. "Well." He chuckled, looking at Arseniy. "Maybe not that long." Arseniy's eyes rolled into the back of his head before his hand flew out, smacking Dimitri on the shoulder, which only made him laugh harder. "Okay, okay, I'll be serious." Dimitri looked at Adrian and me, and I'd be lying if I said I hated sitting on his lap, with his hand splayed possessively over my hip, while his fingers rubbed little circles over my clothes.

I shuddered every time he dragged his hand from my hip to my stomach, but I didn't dare voice out loud the effect his touch had on me. I had to keep him guessing, at least a little bit, but judging by the little smirk he wore, the fucker already knew what he'd been doing and he still did it regardless.

"Heinrich and Gerard were inseparable," Dimitri said. "Or at least that's what the documents we've found are saying. Heinrich was the older brother, eager to please their father, eager to learn and follow in his father's footsteps, but Gerard, well," Dimitri cleared his throat, relaxing against the backrest, "he wasn't a follower."

"Gerard was the Lucifer to Heinrich's Michael," I murmured, unable to look away from the photos on the table. I wanted to be shocked and mourn the loss of the only family I had for so many years, but something inside me broke long before these events, and I guess that I knew deep down I could never trust them.

I already didn't trust Heinrich, but Alena… Alena's betrayal hurt just a little bit more.

"Go on," Adrian grumbled, pulling me to him, my back to his front. I could feel it then, his hard cock pushing against my bottom, pulsating, begging me to do something. My body was nowhere near ready for anything, though, and my soul… My soul was still in pieces, shattered at my feet from what happened. I didn't want to give Tyler the satisfaction of having any kind of control over me, but the sad part was that I had no other choice.

I needed time to heal, to recuperate, and to become strong again.

I wanted to play with Adrian, to show him I wasn't afraid of him or what might happen, but I couldn't—not yet.

But that didn't mean I couldn't tease him, at least a little bit.

Relaxing in his hold as Dimitri continued talking, or more like, bickering with Jax and Dante, I slowly leaned back, resting against him.

The fatigue was slowly catching up with me, and no matter how much I wanted to ignore the signs my body was throwing at me, I couldn’t. Not really.

I was trying to pay attention to the story Dimitri was sharing, when Adrian wrapped his arms around my middle, just enough to secure me on his lap.

"So, Gerard decided to get the fuck away from his family and create his own empire," Dimitri said, reminding me why we were here. I had no idea how long he had been speaking or what was even said, but I pushed myself to focus on the story rather thanthe feeling of the man I was definitely falling for holding me to him.

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