Page 7 of Tyrant (The Villetti Chronicles)

“If you run, I will drag you back by your hair and punish you,” he murmured as if he sensed my flight-or-fight response flaring.

“Punish me?”

He wrapped the towel around my body, forcing me to move my arms.

“Yes, punishments are for possessions who misbehave.”

I yelped when he picked me up like I was a fucking baby in his arms and carried me out of the bathroom.

“What are you doing?”

“Keep your mouth shut and let me dry and dress you.”

I wanted to retort that I could do it myself, but he did just warn me about punishments. And I wasn’t even going to start analysing the whole calling me a possession business. I didn’t think I should antagonise him after he’d agreed to help me, even if every part of me bristled against being owned.

You did just agree to be his. Whatever the fuck that even means.

Zayn said he didn’t want sex, so what did he want?

He set me down in a chair in the next room. I did not expect him to kneel and proceed to dry me from my feet, up my legs and torso, along with my arms. There was a strange sort of detachment in his expression as he did it. Like he was thinking about something else, and this was merely muscle memory. It made me wonder what went on in his head.

He stood when he was done, taking the towel back into the bathroom before returning. I watched him open a cupboard, select a grey shirt from it and bring it over. Zayn made me slide my arms into it before he buttoned it up.

I was in his arms again before I could take a breath. My eyes fixed on his jaw as he walked through his office and into the corridor outside. The stubble covering it was dark. I was tempted to touch the thick hair but decided against it. He wouldn’t appreciate it. I needed to learn to control my impulses. My father had always said I was prone to giving in to my reckless nature. He claimed I got it from my mother. She wasn’t in the picture. She never had been. Sometimes I wondered about her, but Dad didn’t speak of the woman who’d given birth to me very often.

Zayn took me out the back door into the cool night air. I shivered, burrowing into him against the chill without a second thought. My face pressed against his shoulder, eyes fixed on the alley behind us as he walked down it.

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

I had no clue where Zayn lived. Guess I was going to find out.

At the end of the alley, a car sat idling. Zayn placed me down in the back of it, slamming the door shut. A man was sitting in the driver’s seat. I didn’t recognise him. Zayn opened the door on the other side and slid in next to me. He reached over and forcibly put my seatbelt on. Then the car moved off. He took out his phone and had a low conversation with someone. I couldn’t make out a lot of the words because he wasn’t speaking English. I hadn’t realised he was bilingual, but I should have known, given his family’s Italian heritage.

I pulled the shirt lower on my thighs. I had nothing with me. When I’d run from the scene of the crime, I’d left everything behind.

“Shit,” I muttered.

Zayn looked at me before placing his hand over the phone.

“What’s wrong?”

“My bag… it’s with Uncle Justin.”

“I’ll have it brought to me.”

And with that, he went back to talking to whoever was on the other end of the phone.

I stared out of the window. If he wasn’t concerned about it, then maybe I shouldn’t be either. I was trusting him to dispose of my uncle. The fact he was covering up a murder I committed didn’t sit well with me. However, I had no other choice. Who would believe me if I told them what my uncle had tried to do? Girls rarely went around killing their would-be rapists. It wasn’t self-defence. I could admit I wanted him to die for hurting me and betraying my father.

I had grown up around career criminals. Getting sent to a private school did little to shield me from my father’s lifestyle. From his drug trafficking. From the gang wars. It was all I knew. A dog-eat-dog world. You lived and died by your actions. And Uncle Justin’s had led to his untimely demise.

“Arianna.”

I jerked out of my thoughts, whipping my head around to look at Zayn. The car had stopped.

“Are we here?”

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