Not ever.
I close the bedroom door behind me, quiet as I can manage, and turn only to come face to face with him.
Adam. Myformerbest friend.
He looks like shit. Same wrinkled shirt from last night. Eyes bloodshot, and he’s still got dried blood coming out of his already bruised and swollen nostril.
My bad, I guess.
I realize that his usual smugness has been replaced with something akin to panic.
Adam takes a step toward me, looking rather frantic, but I raise my arm and speak low, "I'll fuck you up again if you come any closer."
He freezes, chest heaving. "I don't know why you're entertaining this bullshit engagement with my sister, but you need to give it up. Go back to school and let her marry Vincent."
My blood runs cold. My glare sharpens. "Why do you care so much who your sister marries? You've never looked out for her, ever. Full stop. It’s always been me."
His face twists and he punches the wall, the crack of knuckles on drywall sounds painful. "They're going to fucking kill me if you don't give her to them."
I stare at him. Not moving. Not blinking. Just burning with rage at the thought of giving Lilac…MY LILAC to anyone else.
There’s more to this than I anticipated. I thought her father was just trying to make a connection, con someone else out of money. As I got older, I realized he had a reputation, and it wasn’t a good one.
I grit my jaw. "The answer is no. No matter what. You didn’t protect Lilac when it was your job, and it’s mine now. You’re lucky I’m not snapping your fucking neck for suggesting I hand her over to someone who clearly doesn’t have good intentions."
I step toward Adam, and he backs up slightly, cradling the hand he just punched the wall with. His face is turning red with rage or shame? I can’t be sure.
"I owe them a lot of fucking money," he mutters. "I don’t even know how it got this bad. It started out with a few bets, and the next thing I knew I was in the hundreds of thousands."
My fists clench.
This piece of fucking shit.
"So your father worked a deal that Lilac can pay off your debt. And he used the fact that we got in trouble at the mansion to try to force her to go along with it?" My chest is burning and I swear my vision goes back for a second. If I kill him right here in this hallway, I can’t be held responsible.
Adam rolls his eyes, muttering something under his breath, and turns to leave like he’s done with this conversation.
I’m not.
I grab him by the back of the neck and slam his already fucked up face against the wall hard enough to make him shout out in pain.
"You better hope the Warshaws take care of you because if they don’t, I’m going to make sure you regret ever uttering this stupid fucking idea." I grit out the words. I want to kill him right here. I’m on the verge of it, but I don’t know how Lilac would view me if I actually killed her brother.
“Your grandmother paid my parents to take you in. They never wanted you. You were an extra paycheck,” Adam grits out, and I still my entire body at his words because the way he grits it out, I don’t think he’s lying. He’s talking about the grandmother I share with my cousin Caiden. I killed her son, my father, and I didn’t think she wanted anything to do with me after that. She knew he tried to kill me and that he did succeed in killing my mother, but I thought she washed her hands of me.
I don’t have time to get into this now, and I’m not sure Adam really has any other information, so I settle for cracking his head into the plaster one more time and let him go. He tries to shuffle away, but he veers to the left like he’s drunk and bashes into the wall and collapses on the floor.
The family that took me in, that gave me a bed and a second chance, they’re willing to trade their daughter for their son’s debts.
They’re not who I thought they were, clearly. But I guess they don’t know everything about me either. They don’t realize that Lilac isn’t theirs anymore.
She’s mine.
I’d set this whole fucking world on fire just to keep her. Every street. Every building. Every man who’s ever made her uncomfortable. I’ll leave it all in a pile of ash just for her.
Does that make me the villain?
Maybe.
