Page 35 of Tyrant (The Villetti Chronicles)

I waved my hand at the end of the bed. She planted herself right at the edge, as far away from me as she could get. It made me smile. Silly girl. I wasn’t going to hurt her. She’d told me not to touch her earlier. I’d made her angry enough to show the fire burning beneath her skin. I would never tell her this, but it gave me a thrill to see her so riled up. It made me angry too. I couldn’t help the way I equal parts loved and hated how it turned me on to watch my little fairy stamp her feet and demand things from me. As if she was in charge here. I owned her, not the other way around.

“I need to ask you something.”

“Then ask,” she responded, looking down at the covers rather than at me.

“What exactly did your uncle say to you about Derek McGovern?”

She flinched, fingers curling around the ends of the blanket to hold it against her tense frame.

“I don’t want to talk about that night.”

“You need to tell me why he was going to give you to Derek.”

“Why?”

“Look at me.”

Ari’s eyes flicked up to mine. We couldn’t fully see each other in the dark, but I needed her attention on me. To know how fucking serious I was.

“I know it’s difficult for you, but this is important. Answer the question.”

“What difference does it make if I tell you? Not as if you’re willing to do anything about my father starting a war.”

My hand clenched into a fist by my side. The only sign of the way her defiant attitude affected me.

“There’s one very important lesson you clearly haven’t learnt about our world, and that is knowledge is power. It may not seem important to you why I need to know what your uncle had to gain from giving you to Derek, but I assure you, it is.”

Ari fidgeted for a long moment before she let out a sigh. Her eyes lowered as if she couldn’t bear the thought of maintaining eye contact.

“Derek doesn’t care about a war with my dad, I don’t think… not really. He wants… he wants… me.”

“Wants you how?”

She scoffed.

“Like in a creepy ‘I want to lock you in my basement and make you fall in love with me’ sort of way. I mean, he’s never said that, but the way he looks at me…”

She didn’t need to fill in the blanks. I was well aware of the type of shit a man like McGovern would do to someone like Arianna. None of it would be good or consensual.

“You’ve met him often, then?”

“No… not outside of him showing up on the estate to piss my father off.”

“Then how do you know he doesn’t want a war?”

“Justin told me Derek doesn’t care if my father comes after him. I’m what he wants.”

The cunt wasn’t going to lay a finger on her. I would kill him first.

You can’t go around killing gang leaders, Zayn, not without repercussions.

I knew that. I fucking knew and yet I still wanted to wring his goddamn neck for even thinking he could have my little fairy.

“And Justin? What did he have to gain by betraying your father?”

“He didn’t say.”

So, McGovern wanted her, but I was no closer to understanding why Justin would be complicit in his plans.

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