Page 45 of Sweet Possession (Criminal Underground 1)

“What do you think we do, Mare?” Ian spoke first, all three of their expressions were stoic in an attempt to hide whatever it was that they were feeling, but I saw it. The fear and worry in their gazes as they watched me.

“Criminals of some kind. No one has the connections you guys do without being on the wrong side of the law.” Shrugging, I trailed off, wanting to hear it from them. The silence stretched, my nerves slowly growing more frayed with each passing moment.

“We’re mercs, Mare,” Archer finally told me. Standing there, I processed his words. Although I thought I should have been scared, or at the very least surprised, I wasn’t. The answer fit what I had concluded, my mind realizing they could truly take care of themselves and me when it came to my father.

The worry about them being a target, about not being able to handle any killers my father sent vanished, and in its wake left only the anger at being left out of the loop. It was only when they didn’t say anything that I realized they were waiting for my response.

“Okay,” I murmured, unable to think of much else.

“Just okay?” Archer questioned with a head tilt. “That’s it?”

Shrugging, I took a drink of my coffee. “Not really that surprising. I just needed to hear you say it. To finally be honest with me.” My voice was hard at the end of my statement as I glared. The unspoken connection to the flowers and my father was clear in my tone, but just when I felt like I was finally calm enough to talk level-headedly, Ian opened his mouth.

“You want us to be honest with you,” he stated.

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Then you need to be honest with us.”

I frowned. “When have I not—”

“You never even told us you were in trouble,” he said, stopping me. His brows creased as his stare bore into me. “We had to find out in other ways.”

My eyes narrowed. “The exact details on how you found out I still know nothing about, by the way,” I pointed out. “Telling me you guys are mercenaries really doesn’t explain much of anything.”

His face grew darker, a cloud of anger passing over his expression. Ignoring my comment, his voice boomed as he lost that ever present cool of his. “Goddammit, Mare!” he snapped. “I’m trying to keep you safe. But it’s hard to do that when you won’t tell us when you need our help. You didn’t tell us about your father. You didn’t tell us what you saw. You didn’t even tell us about the damn court hearing.” The more he ranted the louder he got.

“Because I didn’t want you to know!” I yelled back, dropping my arms. “I didn’t want you involved in this shit. MaybeIwanted to be the one protectingyou!”

“I’m the fucking Dom,” he growled, stepping closer. “I do the protecting.”

“You’re only my Dom in the bedroom, Ian,” I replied, keeping my gaze steady. “In the real world, I’m supposed to be your partner. You can’t use domination to keep me in line whenever you get scared.” And regardless of whether he would admit it or not, that’s exactly what he was doing. “You think if you can control me, you can protect me,” I accused. “But you can’t—not in this way.”

“How the hell else am I supposed to take care of you, huh?” Red crept up the sides of his neck. The vein in his forehead bulged. “How am I supposed to trust that if we had told you your father was after you that you wouldn’t have taken off on your own—to protect us?” He added the last bit with a gesture back to Jensen and Archer, both of whom were watching the two of us with concerned expressions.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. That was exactly what I probably would’ve done without knowing what they were capable of, and there was a sliver of me that was still thinking about doing it. I closed my mouth and shook my head. I didn’t know what to say.

After a moment, Ian calmed enough to step back. He breathed in through his nose and exhaled slowly through his mouth. Then with fists clenched, the note Archer had passed him crumpled in his grasp, he spoke. “You’re moving in with us,” he commanded softly.

My jaw dropped. “The hell I am,” I sputtered. Moving in with them would do the exact opposite of what I wanted to do—which was building this relationship without bumps or issues like we were currently fucking dealing with.

“You’d be safer, Mare,” Archer added.

“If you wanted me to be safe, you would have told me the truth to begin with,” I countered. “Ignorance is, in fact, not bliss, not when it can get you killed. If I would have known, I wouldn’t have gone to the damned library, and I would have been more conscious of my surroundings.”

“You should do that anyway,” Jensen told me.

Grinding my teeth, I didn’t dignify his statement with a reply.

“That doesn’t make what you did okay.” My glare bounced off the three of them. Jensen and Archer looked contrite; Ian, though, was back to his stoic anger, his gaze unwavering as he looked at me—eyes searching for a way to make me follow his command.He can’t help it,I realized. This was just who he was. When he was afraid, he tried to control things. And I could see it—the fear in his eyes, however he tried to hide it.

“We want what’s best for you, America,” he bit out. Even from a couple feet away, I could feel the waves of barely restrained violence flowing off of him—not towards me, never towards me, but definitely towards this entire situation. “We are here to keep you safe. I protect what’smine, Mare, and you are safer under our roof and not in this apartment.”

“If you wanted to help keep me safe, then you should have told me,” I reiterated.

“Maybe we should have, but there’s no changing what is done,” Archer pointed out, his hands going up in exasperation as if he couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t go with them. Arguably, he was right, and if I wasn’t considering that I might have to leave them behind like I did before, I would’ve jumped on the opportunity. But what if the only way to keep them safe was to bail? “Will you at least let us stay here with you?”

“The three of you aren’t fucking fitting in this apartment.” Just them standing there made the somewhat spacious studio feel like a goddamn closet.

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