Page 97 of Unorthodox
The gun. The way his eyes glistened with tears he’d never shed.
He’s embarrassed.
“I cannot tolerate weaknesses.”
He’s angry that I saw him at a moment of weakness. That’s what this is. Not a truce. Not an apology. This is a reckoning. A do over. A way for him to claim his power back, his strength, by making me feel small.
“You don’t know me, baby girl.” He presses his brow to mine, his fingers tightening around my wrist. “You won’t.” He smiles, and it sends a shiver down my spine. “You’ve seen me hold a gun to three men’s heads. How many of them are still alive?”
I suck in a breath as he tugs my lip down lower, and I don’t know if he really wants me to answer him or if…
“One.” His finger leaves my mouth, comes to rest gently around my throat instead. “Only one.” He runs his mouth over mine, and I try to step back, but he tightens his grip on my neck, keeping me still. “So, don’t think you’ve got me figured out, Addison.” His lips brush against mine as he speaks. “Don’t think I showed you something you can use against me. The only person I’ll ever save is myself.”
I wish he could hear the pain in his own words. I wonder if he knows he’s bleeding out for me, right here. Showing all the ways he really is weak, in his threats to try to make himself appear strong.
I wonder why he’s giving me so much, and if he realizes he is.
“I know, Max,” I tell him, still so close that every word brings my lips to meet his. “I know you’re really just a scared little boy.”
His grip on my throat is bruising, but I can still speak.
“I know you only think of yourself,” I continue, while I still can. “But the thing about being so selfish, Max, is that you forget you’re not the only one born from monsters.” I step closer to him, nearly gagging with his fingers around me, but I don’t care. “And you’re not the only one who will do whatever it takes tosurvive.”I smile at him, and his eyes narrow, turning murderous. “This isn’t my first trip to hell, Max Bennett. Now,” I swallow around his hand circling my throat, “do you still want togo outside?”
He stares at me a long moment, marginally loosening his hold on my throat. Then he lets go, turns on his heel, and slams the door closed.
I hear the lock click, but even still, I can’t help but smile.
Max is cracking.
The bookshelf is brokenon the floor, books scattered around and over the polished hardwoods. The floorboard is gone, the safe open.
I’m breathing hard, the exhaustion of destroying a solid oak bookcase wearing on me. The hammer is against the wall, opposite my desk. I think about picking it up again, swinging it a few more fucking times to get this weight on my chestoff.
I fist my hair in my hands, stare at the rectangular flash drive, blood still flecked against it. It’s on my desk, beside my laptop, next to the empty decanter of whiskey I finished before I destroyed half of my office.
It was better than what I wanted to do.
It was better than destroyingher.
“This isn’t my first trip to hell, Max Bennett.”
Like it’s mine? Like murdering my own guard, my only friend, was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life? The worst thing that’s ever happened to me?
She doesn’t know me.
She doesn’t know what I’ve seen.
And maybe her father is a dick. Maybe those cigarette burns came from him, and maybe her and Danik have had a few demons of their own. But she’s stillgood.What could they have possibly done that would compare to what I’ve lived through? That innocence she still cleaves to, what could they have taken from her? She has no idea what happened to me. What happened to Oliver.
I think of her under Dante.
She was so willing. So eager to give to him to get away from me.Shegaveit to him.
I swipe my hand across my desk, knocking the decanter and the rocks glass to the floor where they shatter into pieces.
Snatching up the flash drive, I stand in front of my desk, put it in the USB port with trembling fingers.
Trembling fucking fingers.
