Page 49 of When Sinners Fall
I grab a gun from under the main table, ready to fuck her with it and prove my own damn point. No one challenges me and lives to tell that tale. The Herrera family felt that. Maybe if she gets a feel of that, she'll think next time and keep her mouth shut rather than snipe at me.
One hand reaches for her, and she claws to get away, but I hold tight. She trips as I drag her into the bedroom. “This is what happens when you push me, Wren,” I mutter, planting her backside down on the bed.
She fights with me and tries to get up.
Not happening.
“Dante, please. Stop. I don’t understand and–”
“Stay still.” She doesn’t, she struggles and crawls up the bed to the headboard. “I said, sit your pretty fucking ass still before I make you.” She goes rigid, stares at me like she’s never seen anything like it in her life. I’d like to think I could keep hiding it from her, but I can’t, and won’t if she wants all in. This is the me I’ve been keeping at bay. The person I’ve tried not to be for her. I was enjoying that. Living it. Trying to see it as a line I could draw down. For her.
Tears come then. They well up in her eyes, real fear starting to level itself at me. She just sits there quivering and shaking, her legs tucked up tight like any other woman I've used, just like Mariana’s were when they took her. Something about that makes me check myself. Fuck knows why. I’ve seen plenty of tears in my life. Made them happen. Forced them to pour so I can get a woman to do what I want her to do, but hers? They fucking hurt. First time in a long ass time something’s made me feel pain.
“What is wrong with you?” she whispers through her tears.
I snarl at myself and her, then start pulling back before I do something I can’t undo. I keep looking at her as I walk backwards, though, and slide the gun into my waistband. I keep glaring and making my point felt until I’m under the doorframe and I’m physically grabbing it to stop myself carrying on with what I was going to do. “Don’t fucking challenge me again, Wren. Ever.” She sniffs up some tears, stays perfectly still. “You stay here until I tell you what you can and can’t do. You hearing that? All in means you do exactly what I tell you from now on.”
I watch her swallow those words and then peel my hand off the frame so I can get out of here and cool down. I don’t care if she likes the thought of being told what to do or not. She wanted in. She got it. She’s gonna have to live with the consequences of that.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WREN
Quiet.
Apart from my tears and sniffs.
What the hell just happened? He was deranged. Angry. More than angry. And, despite everything that’s led to this, tonight was the first time I really felt fear - genuine fear at what he might do.
I’ve seen glimpses, and now, looking back, there could have been warning signs I’ve chosen to ignore. But real fear for myself? That’s not what I want.
What I did want was some normality. Something easy between us. So far, everything has been challenging or pushing or something that he’s controlled. There have been glimpses of the man I once knew under that Cortez skin he’s so secretive about. They've shone through, but after this, it’s hard to see anything other than violence.
I wait, still tucked up against the headboard of his bed. The same bed I went to sleep frustrated in because he wouldn’t touch me. And now what? Was he going to use a gun on me somehow? Teach me a lesson with it?
A gun.
No.
Fuck that.
I rub the sleeve of my shirt against my nose, not caring that it leaves a trail of snot on the cuff. Climbing off the bed, I pause at each step, waiting to hear something from beyond the door, but it’s still quiet.
With each step, I look around and assess the damage.
Shards of glass litter the floor, and it reminds me of when that man – that junkie attacked me. He would have raped me, I’m sure of it. He would have used me for whatever disgusting thoughts came to his drug-addled brain, but Dante stopped it. He told me not to worry, and I believed him, thinking that the man he was saving me from was the monster. Now, I’m not so sure Dante isn’t the bigger monster, because how can you treat someone you say you care about like this? How can you intimidate them until they’re scared for their life?
He had a gun.
My mind keeps circling back to the weapon, but am I really that shocked? Haven’t I looked the other way because it’s suited me? It’s an unwelcome and hard thought to swallow, but it’s staring me in the face.
Continuing to tiptoe around the debris over the floor, I follow the path of Dante-wreckage back into the main room. I look over at the bar and think about pouring a drink. A fucking long one. He said if this between us was to go anywhere, it would have to be all in. Maybe my definition is different to his because it sure doesn’t mean being dragged off and shoved into his apartment. The ironic thing is, after New Orleans, if he’d asked me to move in, I’m not sure I would have said no. Maybe that's just my feelings talking, though. They’re still wrapped up in this obsessive, demanding, all-encompassing world he’s shoved me in.
But like this? No.
I stomp to the bathroom, run the water and splash my face to clear off the smears of makeup. My reflection catches my eyes, and I take a long, hard look. Dull and weary green eyes stare back at me, the echoes of fear and exhaustion still haunting them.
I try to recognise the woman who moved back here only a few weeks ago, but she’s been replaced by something a lot darker. I thought my fantasy world was harmless. I thought it was a little bit of fun – a distraction from the mundane and monotonous. What do they say? Be careful what you wish for? I seem to have ended up in a whole heap of dark, and not just the sexy retellings of the big bad wolf.
