Page 125 of The Dancer and the Masks (Their Obsession 1)

“Fuck you!” I retort, gritting my jaw and turning my head away. I can’t believe I kissed Leon, that for a moment my need to soothe his pain had overridden everything that he’d done.

How foolish of me. Maybe Leon’s right, maybe kindnessisweakness.

“My brothers and I share everything,” Jakub says randomly, interrupting the moment and taking a knife to the tension, slicing right through it. “That includes moments of pleasure, pain and everything in between. I indulged my desires when I shouldn’t have. I set this path in motion. I acted selfishly but now that my brothers have had their fill, we’re even,” he says, picking up a shell and plucking the oyster out with a fork, chewing on it. “Perhaps we can move on, yes?”

“Even? This isn’t tit-for-tat. No one gets to take from me to even up a score between you all,” I protest, still arguing despite the danger I’m in. “Getting even is what got us into this shit in the first place! Just let it go. Let. Me. Go, and this will all end. I’ll make sure of it. There'll be no repercussions. I swear to you.”

“Do you want to spell it out for her, or should I?” Leon asks with a grin that I want to slap off his face. When no one answers, he continues. “You don’t get a say in the decisions we make. You don’t get a say in what we do or don’t take. You’re ourtoy, ourplaything, a form ofrevenge, that’s it. That’sallyou are. You’re Nothing. Zero. Nought.”

The venom coming from his mouth has me flinching, but it doesn’t deter me from saying what I do next. Drawing in a deep breath, I pick up an oyster and tip it down my throat. After swiping the back of my hand over my mouth, I fix my gaze on Leon.

“Funny, because I’m pretty sure I became more than that when you kissed me like a drowning man in your gym, when you called meChristyin Konrad’s dungeon... Tell me why you have those tattoos, Leon. Is it to remind you of the little girl you saved that day, huh? Is it to remind you that you were good, that you weren’t always a fucking monster?”

Konrad stiffens in his seat. “What the fuck is she talking about, Leon?”

“You don’t know anything,” he argues, baring his teeth at me and ignoring his brother.

“I know a scared man when I see one, he’s not so different from that teenage boy who rescued a little girl from a burning building. You can pretend all you want, but Iseeyou. I see the angel buried deep inside your chest and the next time I hold up that mirror, you will too.”

Their silence is deafening.

The aftermath, explosive.

I don’t know who moves first, Leon, Konrad or Jakub.

Either way, the table gets turned over as Leon tries to reach for me, incoherent words pouring from strained lips. I stand, stumbling backwards, my chair falling over. Glasses and plates smash, and oysters and wildflowers go flying. Leon has murder in his eyes. Pain too.

So much pain.

It’s the pain which makes me pause and not turn around and run.

He’shurting.

I should be glad about that, shouldn’t I? Yet… I’m not. It doesn’t feel good to see him in distress. It doesn’t.

Before he’s able to grip me around the throat, Konrad and Jakub wrestle him to the ground, pinning him to the floor beneath them both. Konrad straddles his chest, Jakub his legs.

“Bitch!” Leon snarls, bucking like a wild animal caught in a trap, willing to gnaw off his own leg than stay trapped. Despite the size and weight of both Konrad and Jakub, he seems to have inhuman strength as they both struggle to keep him contained. His rage is like a living, breathing entity. Like it has the power to reach out and throttle me to death. My throat dries out, my heart rate kicking into overdrive as I watch Leon unravel before my very eyes.

“Brother! No!” Konrad shouts, gripping his wrists and pinning them above his head.

“Get her the fuck out of here!” he roars, the veins in his neck pushing against his skin as he fights.

“Easy now,” Jakub adds, trying his best to calm his brother.

“I’m going to fucking kill her!” Leon shouts, but it comes out broken, as though deep down he doesn’t want to, like it hurts him to even say those words. “I’m going to take her throat in my hands and squeeze the fucking lies from it.”

“What she said doesn’t mean a damn thing,” Konrad says, lowering his voice, straining to keep him in place. “Just breathe, okay? Listen to my voice. It’s okay, Brother. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” I whisper, the guilt and sorrow building inside my chest taking form. “Nothing about this is okay.”

Leon thrashes, his mask falling away. His face is red, an angry vein pulses in his forehead, but it’s his eyes that unhinge me. They’re made startlingly bright by the tears that brim in them.

I should run. I don’t.

Jakub notices. “Back the fuck off!” he warns, locking eyes with me over his shoulder.

“I just—” One hand covers my mouth as a tear rolls from Leon’s eye. A fucking tear.

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