Page 37 of All's Fair In Love & War

She wasn’t wrong, and she never called me unless it was urgent. Mrs. Deleon wasn’t the type to rattle easily, not after everything she’d seen where she came from and from dealing with The Bulgari family. So if she was picking up the phone, it meant Felicity had done more than act out; she’d shaken something loose in her.

I leaned back in my seat, jaw tight. That girl tested limits she had no business reaching for. First, she bit my dick, and now, she’s demanding I come see her, like I didn’t have a million other things to handle.

I stared at the phone for a long second, then returned my eyes to the road. If Felicity wanted a visit, she’d get one, but she damn sure wasn’t ready for the version of me walking through that door.

“I’ll be there in twenty,” I said before hanging up and tossing the phone onto the dash.

By the time I pulled into the driveway, I was already two seconds from tearing the damn door off its hinges. My grip tightened around the steering wheel, knuckles pale against the leather as I sat there, forcing myself to breathe through the rage clawing at my chest. I hadn’t even made it out of the car, and I was already pacing through every outcome in my head, and none of them good.

Felicity had some damn nerve summoning me like I was one of her servants.

I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me. Felicity had me fucked up if she thought I was about to walk in here and play games with her—not today.

Chapter 11

Dangerous

Felicity

Footsteps could be heard stomping down the long hallway. I quickly sat up and scooted to the middle of the bed. Legs crossed, I dropped my head, thinking about my father, Enzo, his death, and all the time we'd lost, just to bring on the waterworks.

It didn’t take but a single thought about my father calling me his princess before deserting me for years to make my throat tighten and tears roll down my cheeks. I knew which memories to tap into, and which parts of myself to press down on to make them come. They weren’t fake, not really. The pain was there, buried beneath resentment, grief, and feelings of betrayal, but it was also something I could weaponize.

“Do you want to be the prey or the predator?” I hadn’t stopped thinking about Tandy’s question since she’d asked it.

At the time, I brushed it off, pretending to be unbothered, but it stuck like blood under my nails and regret in the back ofmy throat. Most days, I felt like both. Prey, because of how easily men tossed me around. I’d been dragged, drugged, traded, and dressed up in diamonds to flaunt around like a timepiece, never something to protect. Never someone to love.

One would think that my father would have been my first love, but he wasn’t. He was an ass just like the rest of them: power-hungry, emotionally vacant, and allergic to softness. If he ever looked at me like I was his daughter, it was only because it meant I could be used to settle his debts or secure his throne. But not Dallas.

He was the only person who ever made me feel like I mattered. With Dallas, I was just Felicity, his little sister, nothing more, nothing less. To me, he was everything: my protector, my confidant, the only one who ever looked at me, really looked at me, in that cold, lifeless house full of staff and parents who only showed up for photo ops.

I used to push limits just to feel something. I’d set curtains on fire, climbed out of second-story windows, picked fights at charity galas, whatever it took to break the perfect little image they tried to paint of me. I was loud, messy, and always doing too much.

When I stole the Maserati at ten just to get their attention, it was Dallas who took the fall. When I got caught snorting crushed Adderall in the back of a town car at eleven, it was Dallas who cleaned me up before anyone else found out. He never tried to tame me, just tried to keep me safe, and maybe that was why it hurt so damn bad when even he gave up on me.

However, my parents? They didn’t send me to boarding school because they were scared for me. They sent me away because they were embarrassed. Dallas had begged them not to, even promised he’d keep an eye on me, but they didn’t give a damn about what he said.

After they shipped me off, everything changed. Dallas never visited, and eventually stopped calling, and I stopped pretending I wasn’t broken. I used to think he left me. Now I wonder if they made him. Either way, I will never forgive him for letting me go, or for selling me to the Bulgari.

I blinked, letting the tears slip down my cheeks, enough to blur my lashes and leave a soft sheen across my cheeks. Khalil wouldn’t get the tantrum he expected. I wanted sympathy, and to get out of this room.

When the door slammed open, I jumped and threw my hand over my heart for dramatics. “You scared me,” I whispered, my voice so low and soft, he instantly paused as if someone had yanked the fury out of him mid-step.

“Hi,” I whispered with my chin tilted high and my lower lip trembling as I studied his posture.

Khalil’s hands were clenched at his sides, and his jaw was tight, but his eyes told me he was conflicted, that I’d caught him off guard with my little display of vulnerability. They scanned my face and dropped to the way I sat, all small and fragile, staged right in the center of that stupidly oversized bed.

His mouth parted slightly, like he wanted to say something but didn’t trust what would come out, so instead, he took a step forward, then stopped again.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, curling my arms around my waist like I needed to hold myself together. “I know you probably thought I’d be up here throwing shit, cussing people out, and threatening to throw myself out the window.”

He didn’t deny it.

“But I’ve been thinking about my father… Enzo,” I added, in case he needed the reminder. “And how we never got a real goodbye. I just… I just needed to cry. That’s all. But if you’re busy, you can leave.”

Khalil stayed silent, but his shoulders dropped half an inch, maybe less, but I caught it.

He exhaled sharply through his nose, still not moving, still watching me like I was a loaded weapon dressed in silk and crocodile tears.

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