Page 160 of Consume Me

“He’s someone you could never be,” Mia says.

He strides up to her, and I shout, “Don’t you fucking touch her!” I grit my teeth, my chest heaving. I thrash in my bindings, to no avail.

He grips her chin tight enough that his fingers dig into her flesh.

“You think so highly of him. Hmm, I wonder if he has told you everything.”

That’s why I wanted to wait because I still haven’t told her about my greatest crime.

Squeezing my eyes shut, his sardonic laughter hits my ears. Pleading wouldn’t help. Instead, I open my eyes and hope to convey with them that I am sorry for waiting so long. For not being the one to tell her. It should have come fucking first, before my love declaration.

“Nothing you tell me will change how I see him or my feelings for him,” she says so resolutely, hope fills up my chest.

“So much love and admiration for a traitor.” He tsks.

My mouth clamps shut as if there’s an invisible fist squeezing my lungs, and only a dejected puff of air escapes.

“He’s not a traitor.”

I love this girl so much––this spectacular woman who owns me irreversibly.

“Should I do the honors?” he asks with a tone of superiority that makes me want to strangle the life out of him until his eyes pop out of their sockets.

Caleb has never shown me any fatherly affection. Not even when I was a small child, asking about my mom. He would shut me up immediately. He never allowed me to cry or grieve.

I don’t show him any reaction. That would only please the bastard. Instead, I look at Mia. If I weren’t a coward, I would have confessed what I did a while ago.

“Let me hear it, asshole. It’s the only thing you still have on him,” she tells him, and my fascination for her is boundless.

“I killed Grandmother,” I say, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

She whips her head to me. Inhaling sharply, she blinks at me but masks her expression quickly and stares him down.

My father was so busy watching my reaction that he lost the chance to see hers.

“Always ruining my fun.”

“Let me see how many fucks I have? I just ran out of them,” I say, looking back at her.

I expect her to tell me any moment that I am a monster, that she can’t love someone like me.

“Sir, we have to leave,” the guard says, coming inside, but Caleb waves his hand dismissively.

“When I am done here. Inform the pilot to get ready for takeoff.”

He hurries out, and I say, “Where’s your boss?”

“Felix is not my boss. We’re equals.”

“Ah, Father, you can’t be that stupid to believe that.”

“You insolent and ungrateful bastard.”

My father, who has dedicated his life to erasing emotions, is the most easily riled-up person I know, and it gives me great satisfaction.

“I planned to do this differently, but I can’t lose any more time. You could have led the Family with me, instead you betrayed me.”

“In order to betray you, I would have had to be loyal to you. I had to protect my friends, the people to whom I am loyal.”

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