Page 19 of Broken Souls
Unless it’s just a power play.
Gaining pleasure from forcing her to obey.
Feeling pissed he thinks he can fuck with my family, I turn for the door to kill him. Fuck the meeting. Fuck using his gang to protect my own. I’ll find another way for us to –
“Varius, wait.”
I stop instinctively, the tone she used ingrained within my soul, demanding obedience.
“He’s forcing you –” I growl with my back to her.
“My entire life,Ihave beenforcedto do things.”
My fists clench. “I can stop –”
“But I am not forced in this,” she cuts in. “Ichoseit to save Khalid. It is mere lotion,” she says strongly. “He cannot force me to think what he wants me to.”
To think about him while she applies it, she means.
My stomach churns at the thought of him obsessing over her. Jacking off to her. Then plummets at the sudden arrival of a memory.
Not too long ago, I entered her room, thinking someone was in there while she was out. But the noises I heard were from a porno playing on her TV. With a woman that looked like her. There was a bottle of lotion on her nightstand…
That was the day Micha was blackmailed.
The day someone knew we were all out.
The day Aleric called me away to a parlay held in the center of town and then failed to show.
“Can Aleric pass our wards?” I ask.
She jerks back. “Of course not. Why –”
“How did he drop off Khalid when he saved him?”
“He came and got me. You saw him grab me –”
“He’s broken past our wards before.”
“Decades ago. We’ve strengthened them since. Where is this coming from?”
I pause, then force out the words, trying not to imagine them as I say them. “The day we were all out of the house, you left the TV on in your room.” Another pause. “It was playing a porno.”
Spinning on her feet, she picks up the dishcloth hanging over the sink’s faucet. She soaks it, then starts to wipe down the pristine counter, her back facing me.
“Mother.”
“I left it on,” she says. “I…asked him for another favor, and he –”
“I’ll kill him.” I turn.
“Don’t.”
That damn tone again stops me.
“We need this alliance, Varius,” she says.
“You were originally against it.”
