Page 77 of Tyrant (The Villetti Chronicles)

I did know. I neededher. The thought of Ari walking away from me… I couldn’t cope with how it made me feel. How my insides were tearing apart like someone had gutted me.

“She’s still here, in case you were worried she’d left.”

I deflated, slumping back against the sofa as my fingers went to the bridge of my nose.

“I fucked up.”

“I told you she’d be trouble.”

I hadn’t wanted to listen to Arlo when it came to Arianna. Apparently, I’d been too busy being enamoured with the girl, consumed with the need to take care of her, to become her everything because she made me feel alive for the first time since my mother had been put in a coma.

“You failed to warn me she’d cause trouble here.” I laid my other hand on my chest. “She’s going to put me in an early grave.”

I heard Arlo snort. Dropping my hand from my face, I looked at him. The fuck was smirking.

“I’d question how a twenty-two-year-old managed to get you all twisted up like this if I hadn’t met her or watched the two of you together.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I know I was against you helping her, but now, I genuinely think she’s good for you, Zayn. So how about you stop moping around and go fix what you broke.”

I sighed and looked away.

“I would if I knew how.”

“An ‘I’m sorry’ might be a start.”

Normally, I wouldn’t make apologies to anyone. She was different.

“She thinks I betrayed her because I didn’t trust her with the plan. That I don’t care about her.”

“Do you trust her?”

Dragging my teeth across my bottom lip, I pondered his question. She had given me no reason not to trust her other than when she threatened to go back to her father. Ari hadn’t done anything since then. Fuck, she’d stayed in the club even though she was angry, hurt, and upset with me. I didn’t know if it was because of her feelings for me or because she dreaded telling her father the truth about Justin. Or… was it both?

“Yes.”

Arlo didn’t look remotely surprised I’d answered that way when I turned my gaze back to him.

“Then prove it to her.”

“How?”

He shrugged.

“You know her best, not me, but my suggestion would be to tell her the truth about your family and give her the option to walk away from all of this.”

I hadn’t explicitly told Arlo why I was so hell-bent on protecting Ari. On keeping her away from my father. He knew who Gennaro was behind his mask, and he knew me, so no doubt he’d guessed.

“I can’t do that. I can’t let her leave me.”

“Then work it out yourself. I think you know what she wants to hear. Give it to her or be prepared to have an uphill battle on your hands.”

Did I know what Ari wanted to hear? I thought I had until today, but I was wrong. It wasn’t about what she wanted to hear, but what she needed. Her words from earlier, when she’d got jealous over Remi, rang in my ears.

“I don’t get to call you mine.”

What my girl truly wanted… what she needed… was to know I was hers. The fucked up thing about it was I had been since the day she walked into this very office, covered in her uncle’s blood and had begged me to save her.

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