6 – Stasi
Cool fingers grip my face, yanking me out of my doze. “Wake up.”
Groaning, I try and slap away the hand. My head aches. My whole damnbodyaches.
I just need to sleep.
My arm is caught, and I try and tug it free.
“Anastasia.”
The snapped sound of my name drags me back into wakefulness, and my eyes slide open. A pair of green eyes swim into view. “You might have a concussion.”
I don’t have a concussion. I just need to rest my eyes. Turning away, I bury my face into the warm material. When it pulls away, I finally open my eyes properly.
Kit stares down at me, his violet eyes devoid of emotion. “Please remove your face from my jacket.”
My face burns with mortification as I pull it back, and I glance around. Night has fallen, and I wonder how long they actually let me sleep before waking me up. The city is a few hours away from Oakbourne.
“We’ll be there in five minutes.”
I turn to Rafe, but he’s staring out of the window.
It feels strange, to be back between them again. I never knew that something so familiar, as familiar to me as breathing, could feel so… unsettled.
Broken.
And yet here we are. The men on either side of me both turn away, leaving me to my own thoughts as I try to scrape them back together around the pulsing headache at the back of my skull.
Maybe I do have a concussion. I’m struggling to process today’s events, to wrap my head around the fact that I’m back with the Tate brothers. That they’re taking me back to Oakbourne Manor, a house I haven’t set foot in for nine years.
But where I’ll apparently be spending the next twenty… as aservant.
My breathing starts to speed up.Don’t think about it.
I can’t think about how much of my life has been taken from me today. How much Ella has stolen from me, on top of the years she’s already had.
I wonder how much more these three men could possibly take, without there being nothing left of me at all.
And how long it will be before I find out.
When the car rolls to a stop and Kit and Rafe finally look down at me, the shaking in my fingers has softened to a tremor. I ball my hands into fists, waiting.
The car door opens, and Silas appears, his broad shoulders filling the doorway easily as he ducks down to meet my eyes. “Time to meet your sentence, AnastasiaCooper.”
There’s disgust in his voice, even as his large hands wrap around my waist, lifting me down from the car. He steps back as I look up at the familiar view. It hasn’t changed.
I almost expect William to come charging out, bouncing and grinning.
My mouth feels dry. I didn’t even think about their father. “Is… is he here? William?”
The tension around me ratchets up tenfold. Silas grips my shoulder, leaning into my face.
“Don’t youever,” he snarls, “say his name in my presence again. You don’t even get to think about him. Do you understand?”
I blink. “I—,”
He shakes me, the movement making my already aching head throb more. “No, he’s not fucking here. And if you want someone to blame,try looking in the fucking mirror.”
