Page 48 of The Pretty Psycho

Those four little words kept echoing in my head as I watched her walk away with Yolanda, desperate to get away from me. Granted, I understood where that sentence came from, but that knowledge didn't soften the blow those words had created the moment they came out of her mouth.

She didn't fucking trust me, and why would she?

Since she came to the Academy all I had done was belittle her, threaten her, and pull her in ten different directions. Then she found those motherfucking documents before I had a chance to tell her myself. Building trust took time, but time was one thing we didn't have.

I wanted her by my side, dammit. I wanted her in my line of sight, because the mere thought of her being far away from me was sending my heart into premature cardiac arrest, and I didn't want to spend days thinking about her safety when there were other things we had to take care of. She wanted to be involved? Well, fucking great. Then she should've fucking stayed instead of running away—again.

But this time I wasn't letting her do this. The last time I let her chill and relax, I almost lost her, and I wasn't taking another chance on that.

My feet moved before I could even comprehend what was happening, my entire body already eager to touch her, to feel her, to tell her that she didn't have to trust me, for now. That she didn't have to love me, not yet. She just had to fucking stay so that I could breathe. The moment I couldn't see her body anymore, the oxygen disappeared, leaving me in a state of despair.

I'd only managed to take a couple of steps in the direction she took off when a hand landed on my shoulder, making me turn around abruptly.

Arseniy stood there with a forlorn look on his face, as if he could understand the turmoil happening inside of me.

"Don't try to stop me, brother," I murmured. "I-I… I can't let her do this again."

His head shook, and I understood that while he could see the turmoil in me, she was still his sister. She was still his priority. He loved me, he respected me, but he'd been searching for her for so long that if it came to choosing between the two of us, he would choose her. Which, as funny as it was, I was glad for. I loved the fact that she had him in her corner, because God knew what happened to those that stood on the opposite side of Arseniy Morozov.

But right now I needed him to be on my side. I needed him to understand why I couldn't let her go.

His lips moved, but no sound came out, and for the hundredth time since we met each other, I cursed his father for taking his voice from him. For crippling him in such a way, robbing him of the one thing that could make everything easier for him.

"He's saying that you need to let her go," Dimitri said from my other side, making me look at him. "She needs time, Adrian. She needs to process everything that has happened, and she needs her friend. She's gonna come to you once she's ready, but for now you need to let her go." I almost forgot that Dimitri could read lips, which was how he assisted Arseniy with practically everything.

I wished I could too because then I'd be able to understand what my friend was saying right now. He tapped my shoulder again, making me look at him, while Dimitri translated everything he said.

"The amount of information that was thrown at her in the past couple of days is a lot," Dimitri said. "She's strong, but even the strongest need to break sometimes. All of this," Dimitri continued. "It's a lot. Learning you have a brother and that the organization you've spent most of your life in was the one betraying you, is fucking a lot. But more than that, having gone through such a terrible thing shakes you to your core. So let her be. Let her relax with Yolanda."

Goddammit, I understood. I fucking understood every single point he'd made, but that didn't mean I liked it.

I knew she needed to break. I'd been waiting for her to completely shatter, to let it all out, but something told me she didn't know how to. It’d been ingrained in all of us from a very young age that emotions weren't our friends. They were the enemies we had to defeat every single minute of our waking life, and letting someone else see those emotions was as good as a death sentence.

But I wanted her to be comfortable enough to shatter with me. To come undone, while knowing that I'd be there to pick up the pieces. I felt like an addict desperate for his next fix without her here, but Arseniy was right.

I had to let her come to me, or at least I had to give her some time away from me.

I took a complete one-eighty with her, going from a seemingly disinterested man to one completely obsessed with her. Little did she know I’d been obsessed with her from the first moment I laid my eyes upon her. I’d been dreaming of her my entire life, and now that she was here it was hard letting her go.

"Fine," I bit out, finally relenting and letting my body relax as much as possible. Arseniy's hand fell off my shoulder as a sad smile graced his lips. "I understand. I don't like it," I said as I looked at Dimitri. "But I understand. She needs her time." And I needed to come up with a plan that wouldn't fucking scare her into running away again.

I turned around, seeing all of the men and women from The Brotherhood looking at us with watchful eyes. Some of them seemed confused, others smiling, but none of them looked smug about what just happened. You had to be a fool to not realize that I just had a massive fight with my girl, but no one commented on it.

Jax and Dante stood closer to the group, carefully observing my every move as I crossed the distance between me and them, as if they were asking me without words if I was okay.

I wasn't, but I would be. Eventually I would be.

Vega could have a couple of hours while I dealt with everyone that came in, but then it was game on. She wasn't sleeping anywhere else but my bed even if she fucking loathed it. She could hate me all she wanted, but I wasn't going to let her leave me. We were going to talk about all of this, whether she liked it or not. We would get to the bottom of this shit even if I had to drag her into my cabin kicking and screaming.

"Are you okay?" Jax asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "That seemed intense."

"I'm fine." Fuck did I hate that word.

Fine.

Nothing was fine. Not me, not Vega, not this whole fucking situation. We weren't supposed to start doing anything for at least another few months, yet here we were, ready to engage in a war we were definitely not prepared for. Our people were spread all over the world, and pulling them in on last-minute notice definitely took some handling. I was surprised to see the generals already here on such short notice and I would never be able to thank them enough.

"Let's just get to business," I grumbled, sidestepping him and moving closer to the men and women gathered in front of me.

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