Page 4 of Make Me Your Hitta

Xenobia scoffed, stepping backward. “Again, I can take care of myself,” she spat.

“Yeah? Like you did the last time?” The words were out before I could stop them.

Her expression went blank and then flushed with anger. “Fuck you, Adonis.”

I stepped closer, backing her against the wall. My voice dropped low, intense. “Listen to me, Xenobia. I don’t give a fuck if you hate me. But Iwillkeep you safe, even if I have to chain you to the goddamn bed and lock you inside your room to do it.”

Her breath hitched, and I saw something flicker in her eyes for a second. Something that wasn’t anger. “You wouldn’t dare,” she whispered.

I leaned in, my lips nearly brushing her ear. “Try me, Nobi.”

With that, I turned and strode away, my heart pounding. I didn’t look back, but I felt her eyes burning into my spine.

Later,alone in my room, I paced like a caged animal. The conversation with Xenobia played on repeat in my head. What the fuck was I doing? I should’ve never picked up her father’s call. Three run-ins with her already. How the fuck was I going to keep her safe when all she was hell-bent on doing was pissing me off?

I collapsed onto the bed, exhausted but wide awake too. But when I closed my eyes, I could only see her face. The way she’d looked at me—the sweet scent of her butterscotch skin. The past and present swirled together, memories I thought I’d buried clawing their way to the surface. Xenobia, laughing as we raced through the garden as kids. Xenobia, screaming and crying the night her mother and brother died. Xenobia, covered in her family’s crimson blood. My blood-stained hands from stabbing her attacker to death.

But I’d been too late. She’d almost died that night.

I groaned, pressing the heels of my hands against my tired eyes. It was gonna be a long fucking night. As I lay there, trying to shake off the ghosts of the past, my phone buzzed—a text from Luca, my guy on the inside of my father’s operation. He was the only one who knew I was on the Hawthorne detail. I’d paid him handsomely to keep me in the loop on my father’s moves while I was away.

Luca:Movement in the ranks, timeline moved up. Something big brewing. Watch your six.

Fuck. Just what we needed.

I sat up, running a hand over my curls. My father’s men were like sharks, constantly circling, waiting for a moment of weakness to strike. And now, with Xenobia vulnerable and theold man distracted with a new business venture, it was the perfect fuckin’ storm.

I got up and moved to the window, peering into the darkness. The estate grounds stretched out before me, shadows upon shadows. Somewhere beyond the walls and the guards, danger crept in closer.

My jaw clenched. I’d die before I let anything happen to her. The Hawthorne family—as fucked up as it was—was all I had left in the world. But as I stood here, the weight of it all pressing down on me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were standing on the edge of a cliff. And the Toussaints? They were just waiting for the right moment to give us a big ass push.

I turned away from the window, my mind already racing through contingencies. Sleep could wait. I had work to do. Because in this world, in this life? The moment you let your guard down would be the moment you lost everything.

And I wasn’t about to let that happen. Not on my watch.

Xenobia Hawthorne

Who the fuck does he think he is, coming back into my life after six years? Just walking around my house and talking to me as if nothing ever happened?

I was beyond pissed. I didn’t know if I was madder that I hadn’t seen Adonis since the ambush or that he somehow was still the closest thing to my icy heart after all this time. My heart almost leaped from my chest when my eyes landed on his. He still had the power to snatch my breath straight from my lungs. Still, I hated his handsome ass, for good reason too.

When I woke up in the hospital after surviving a brutal attack, he wasn’t there.

When we buried my mother and brother, he wasn’t there.

When I asked my father where Adonis was, he said we would never speak of him again, all for him to be standing in his study six years later, and I needed answers.

The oak door cracked open beneath my palm as I burst into my father’s study. My fury sizzled like lightning, scorching everything in its path.

“What the hell were you thinking, making Adonis my bodyguard?” I snarled, slamming my hands on his massive desk. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

He didn’t even flinch. He just sat there, cool as ice, those stern, chocolate-brown eyes boring into me.

“It’s for your protection, Xenobia,” he replied, voice soft but unyielding as iron.

“Bullshit,” I spat. “I don’t need a watchdog. I’m not a teenager anymore. I’m twenty-four years old. I can take care of myself.”

But even as the words left my mouth, phantom pain bloomed across the scars chiseled into my skin. Reminders of how close I’d come to death. How fragile my human form truly was.

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