“You didn’t; why would I? Besides, it was only a phase, no? Because you somehow got on Jeremy’s radar and you grew to like it. I rooted for you. I even encouraged it. In that fight, I noticed he was looking at you and I wanted to test him, so I said, ‘How does it feel to fancy someone who loves me?’ Kind of got beaten up for it, but confirming he has feelings for you was worth it. The mighty Jeremy in luuurve. Isn’t that poetic?”
I gasp.
So that’s what happened that day. That’s why Jeremy was so mad.
“I don’t love you. I never did,” I say with determination.
It was only a crush. A stupid one that I shouldn’t have had, but I allowed myself to feel it so I could try and forget about the whole Jonah thing.
If I had secret crushes and attraction, then that meant I was alive, or at least, that’s how my brain categorized it.
“That’s what he thought, though.” Lan grins. “Sorry, I mean thinks.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I push past him to organize the opposite shelf. “We’re no longer together, and even if we were, I would never help you hurt him.”
“Are you sure? Because he has a blonde bombshell hanging off his arm and pasting herself to his side like superglue. There’s her mute clone, too.” His voice darkens at the last bit. “The Sokolov sisters are vying for his attention, and if you don’t do something about it, one of them will have him.”
My fingers tighten on the edge of the shelf, but I slowly release it. “He can do whatever he wants. And don’t call her a mute. That’s not nice.”
“I’m not nice.”
“Shocker.” I roll my eyes. “Also, Mia is only around to watch her sister. She didn’t look to be interested in Jeremy.”
“Or that’s what she wants you to think while she slithers around him like a snake.” His voice has lowered to a strange range I’ve never heard him use before.
Lan might look like a charming god, but he’s emotionless, cold, and calculating. This is the first time I’ve seen him show interest or change his tone at the mention of someone.
“Point is, get Jeremy back.” He grins. “This is the last courtesy I’ll offer you before I slice his throat open and sculpt him into the ugliest stone.”
“I’m not helping you, Lan.”
“I don’t want you to help me.” His voice lowers further. “Just take him off the market.”
“Oh. I get it. Is this about Maya? Maybe Mia? Both?”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about that and just resume whatever weird thing you had with Jeremy.”
I release a sigh. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not interested in me anymore.”
He stares at me as if I’ve grown an extra head. “Not interested in you? On what planet have you been living, Cecily? The guy stalks you like a creep and actually smiles while he does it—honest to fucking God thought he didn’t know how. He’s also developed some bizarre fetish about removing anyone who poses an obstacle to you. That teacher who was giving preferential treatment to his friend’s kid? Jeremy was the reason he asked to transfer. Those American football players who stole and slashed your textbooks? Jeremy eliminated them. Those guys at the club who danced with you? Jeremy beat them the fuck up and put one in a coma. Oh, and news fucking flash, he tortured Jonah to near death by waterboarding him and threatened to kill his parents, brothers, sisters, and everyone he cared about. Then he proceeded to tell his family about all the scandals he could get them into by airing some of their dirty laundry. That’s the only reason Jonah turned himself in. He still gets beaten up in prison every day because Jeremy and his whole fucked-up entourage have the ability to pay off people who can do it. Inside England’s prisons, which should be far away from their territory, but isn’t. You still think that’s not called interest?”
My jaw nearly meets the floor.
The onslaught of information swirls inside me, barely allowing me to absorb anything.
I frown. “How do you know all of that?”
“I have someone who follows him, just like he has someone who’s following me.”
“Following you?”
“Yeah. You think he knows by now that I’m here?”
“Lan, whatever you’re planning, stop it.”
“I need you with him, Ces. I’m not asking.” And then he grabs me by the cheek.
I know where this is going, what he’s planning, and I want to stop him, but my reaction is delayed.
His lips are reaching for mine, and I try to push at his chest, but before I can do that, Lan is shoved off me.
Not by one set of hands, but two.
Jeremy punches Landon in the face, and when he falls to the ground, a very angry, very beautiful blonde stares down at him with a murderous expression.
Then she kicks him in the nuts. With her giant boot.
CECILY
I’ve never been more stunned than as I am at this moment.
The scene happens in slow motion, yet it’s so fast that I can’t keep up.
It’s like staring at the world through blurry lenses while riding a roller coaster.
Landon grunt, groans, then rolls onto his back, sporting a bloodied lip and a red jaw. However, he has the happiest, most genuine grin I’ve ever seen.
“Hi, mouse. Miss me?”
Mia continues glaring at him, and it looks anything but menacing, in view of her poufy dress, the ribbons intertwined in her hair like snakes, and her generally regal presence.
However, her kick was definitely painful considering the echoing sound. She flips him off and signs something to Jeremy. I don’t understand what she’s saying, but there’s a lot of energy behind it.
Mia strikes me as the type of person who simply can’t be defined by her disability, fashion sense, or spiky personality. It’s like she flows and flows, unable to put a halt to the flood of what’s inside her.
While she talks to the man who’s grabbing me from behind, a violent chill covers my skin as I glance back.
I’ve seen Jeremy exactly two times since he cruelly and indefinitely removed me from his life. Once when I drove by the cottage and saw him going inside.
The other time was when I allowed Ava to drag me to the fight club and watched him nearly be beaten to death by Killian.
It was one of those off-championship fights that happens every night, and it looked like he had a death wish.
I left before the fight was over.
Now, I regret looking at him, because nothing could’ve prepared me for being this close to him.
In a way, he hasn’t changed. He still has sharp, masculine features that drip with savage intensity and the build of a warlord who gets off on conquering lands and people.
His broad shoulders eat up the horizon, filling my vision with the dazzling strength of his presence.
The black T-shirt tightens around his biceps, and the tattoos ripple with each flex of his muscles. As if, like him, they’re on the edge.
My gaze flicks to where he’s touching me. My elbow.
That’s what he always grabs when he wants to put distance between us, when he treats me like nothing more than the object of his dirty fucks.
In fact, he’s only held my hand about twice.
The place where his flesh meets mine burns, flares, and gains a life of its own. And that has less to do with how his fingers dig into my skin and more to do with the fact that he’s touching me.
Those ash, cold-blooded eyes that should be mass-produced as weapons are concentrated on Mia’s signing. Not once has he looked at me or acknowledged me, but the weight of their attention can be felt through the absence of it.
Mia has finished signing and is now waiting for Jeremy’s reply with a hand on her hip.
“He’s all yours,” he tells her, obviously having understood her.
“Oh?” Landon jumps up to a standing position and straps his mask around his neck, appearing as cool as ever, short of the bruising and blood. “I’m going have to decline whatever deal you two have.”
He grabs my other hand. “Cecy and I have a date.”
No, we don’t.
But before I can say that, merciless fingers dig further into the flesh surrounding my elbow and I wince.
“The only date you’ll have is for a funeral.” Jeremy tugs hard, wrenching me from Landon, or more like, my childhood friend lets go at the last second.
“Necrophilia. Yum.” He grins with a suggestive lick of his lips. Mia lifts her leg to kick his crotch again, but he blocks her with a hand on her head, effectively immobilizing her in place. “Jesus fucking Christ, calm down, and stop acting like a rabid dog.”
That only makes her want to grab at him more as she struggles, punches, and kicks—mostly the air.
Lan effortlessly escapes her attempts at violence and stares at Jeremy with his provocative smile. “Let go of Cecily.”
“No.”
I pull my elbow free. “You have no right to touch me.”
He finally slides his gaze to me in the form of a glare. I glare right back.
Why does he get to act this way when he’s the one who ended us?
“What she said.” Lan tsks and shakes his head while Mia continues to struggle and exert herself for nothing. “How does it feel to be the second choice to me? In fact, you wouldn’t have even been on her list if you hadn’t stalked her.”
Jeremy strides over to him, but I jump between them. I know precisely what Landon is doing by making him jealous. He wants Jeremy to be with me again, but I won’t stand by and watch him claim ownership he doesn’t have.
I stare at Jeremy, even as my heart beats in my throat. “Stop it.”
“Step away.”
“I said, stop it.”
“And I said to step the fuck away.”
My whole body shivers at the lash of his words. I haven’t heard the gruff timbre of his voice for so long, and now that I do, it’s fills me with a myriad of chaotic colors and twisted emotions.
“We’re out of here.” Lan is dragging a struggling and obviously angry Mia out of the storeroom. “Remember, Ces. You loved me first.”
I can sense the destructive energy in Jeremy before he acts on it. If he’s stroking his fingers, that stops. And he usually stops breathing for one fraction of a second before he chooses violence.
Despite being scared shitless of this part of him, I don’t think about it as I block his path again.
Jeremy slams into me, my head bumps into his chest, and he steps on my foot, but he swiftly pulls back and actually stops.
That destructive energy that I’m sure is always thirsty for blood slowly lulls, tucking itself beneath the surface of his apparent calm.
He flexes his palm and remains still, probably realizing that Landon is already out of reach.
When he speaks, his voice shimmers with thick tension and unveiled anger. “Are you hurt?”
I touch my forehead as if that will somehow camouflage the trembling in my chin. Why does he have to ask that when he was the one who ripped my heart open.
“No thanks to you.”
His hand reaches for me, and I go still for a second, waiting, imagining the impact of his flesh on mine.
He drops it back down as another presence appears at the doorway. Zayn. My colleague who’s also been volunteering at the shelter.
“I heard a commotion. Is everything okay?” he asks in a careful tone.
Jeremy’s savage attention slides to him and I can see that unbounded violent energy rearing its head. If I don’t defuse this situation, he’ll probably use poor Zayn as a punching bag and brutalize him. After all, he’s still on a high from the whole Landon encounter.
“It’s all good, Zayn,” I say calmly.