Page 105 of Giving In

“Nathan…” I follow after him.

Up until now, I’ve never seen Nathan angry. He never raised his voice at me, never let out any hint that he ever got in fights or arguments in general. He’s always calm, funny, and lighthearted, especially with me. But as I follow him to the shop floor, I wonder if I got him all wrong.

Completely wrong.

The guy from earlier is practically unconscious on the floor, his face a bloody mess. One of his arms is bent behind his back in a way that is clearly broken.

“Oh my God,” I gasp. “Did you do this?”

I look up at him but he’s not listening. He’s back on the guy, kicking him in the ribs.

“You thought you were gonna touch her? Huh? You stupid. Fucking. Bastard.” Every breath he takes, he gives him another kick.

“Nathan...Nathan, stop,” I say in a panic, trying to catch his arm.

He stops for a split second to turn and point at me. “Stay back, Jamie.”

His voice doesn’t leave me much choice and I take a few steps back.

“Nathan, you’re going to kill him. Please stop,” I plead as the guy on the floor grunts every time he gets a kick.

Nathan squats next to him, grabs him by the hair, and bends his head to the side so he’s facing me.

“Take a good look at her, Dimitri, because if I see you or any of your puppy friends in the same zip code as her again, I’m taking the whole fucking pack down. One by one. And I won’t go as easy on them as I went on you tonight.”

My mouth goes slack and my mind numb at all the things I realize I don’t know about my boyfriend. Starting with the simple fact that he knows my attacker’s name.

He gets back up and spits on the semi-conscious body.

“Tell Volkov that Bianco says hello.”

???

The car ride to Nathan’s house is in complete silence. The shock has me mute and I’m still trying to swallow what I just saw my boyfriend do. He keeps asking if I’m okay, but I can’t reply because I don’t know.

My body is trembling, and a thousand questions are clouding my mind. My neck is burning, and I can feel drops of blood spread all over my throat and collarbone. It’s nothing, I don’t feel like I’m losing that much blood, but it gives me something to focus on.

As I’m taking a shower at Nathan’s house, I know that nothing is the same anymore. I saw a side of him I’m not sure I can understand. It has put a million questions in my head. Questions I’m going to want answers to. It has put doubts in everything I see around him.

Like how does he afford this huge Stoneview mansion at twenty-one years old, living on his own? How does he dare call the Wolves a pack of puppies? How did he know the guy’s name? How did he understand it was them when I told him about the tattoo? How does he even know about them?

My thoughts suddenly track to the bullet scar in his stomach. Why did I not pay more attention to this?

When I’m clean and dressed in one of Nathan’s giant shirts I go down to the kitchen. He is sitting at the kitchen island, his back to me, on the phone.

“...no, just go there and clean up. He was alive when I left so he should be gone by now. Make sure you clean the whole shop. I don’t want my girl getting in trouble with her job.”

There’s a pause while he listens to the person on the other line.

“I don’t care about that right now, man. Make this your priority.”

He hangs up and I wait a few seconds, watching him run his hand in his hair and mutter ‘fuck’, before clearing my throat to announce my presence. He turns around in surprise and his whole body and face relax when he sees me.

“‘Me,” he hurries to me and grabs both sides of my face in his hands, bending down to give me a kiss on my forehead. “Are you okay?”

I shrug because I’m okay but lost and confused.

His brows furrow when he looks at my neck. “It’s still bleeding. Let’s fix you up.”

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