Hayden exhales sharply, stepping closer. “You don’t know anything, you little brat.”
“Then tell me!” I snap, chest puffing out in false bravado. “Where the hell were you for two days? Why are you suddenly obsessed with securing my assets? Why would you even want to marry me?”
My voice rises, my pulse hammering in my ears. I shove his chest, surprising myself with the force of it, with the anger burning through me.
Tears prick my eyes, “You took everything from me, and somehow, even after I was stripped bare, you still found a way to find parts of me I didn’t know existed and take what little I had left.”
He just stares at me, opens the car door for me, and tilts his head, his face a mixture of distaste and annoyance. His expressions are always at war with how he claims me and what he demands of me.
“I don’t…” My breath catches, my throat tight. “I don’t even know what I’d say if you actually gave me a choice. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Between us, you never give me one. You just take and take until there’s nothing left of me.”
My eyes sting with tears, but I refuse to let them fall. “You’ll never give me a choice, will you? I lost all of mine when you took me away from my home.”
Hayden’s jaw tightens, his hands flexing at his sides. For a moment, I think he’ll say something, fight back, deflect, or justify. But he doesn’t. He just stands there, silent, unmoving. And somehow, that infuriates me more.
I shake my head, furious. “I don’t understand any of this. You won't tell me why I’m in danger. You won’t explain what happened to my brothers, or why you have this sick obsession with me—”
He cuts me off before I can say another word. His hands grip my face, tight, almost bruising, as he crashes his lips against mine.
The world tilts.
His kiss is rough, devouring, a collision of fury and possession, full of everything he refuses to say out loud. It isn’t careful. It isn’t kind. It’s a battle, a demand, a brand. My pulse spikes, my anger tangling with something just as volatile, just as reckless.
I shove at his chest even as my fingers clutch his coat; my grip is desperate, furious. My nails scrape against the fabric, againsthim, torn between pulling him closer and pushing him away. He growls into my mouth, biting at my lower lip, and I gasp, whether from shock or something darker, I don’t know. Heat licks up my spine, searing, all-consuming.
I press myself against him when he deepens the kiss, sliding his tongue into my mouth and running it along my teeth.
I moan into his mouth.
I hate him. I hate that he does this. He always wins.
And yet I kiss him back like I want to hurt him for it. Like I want to leave marks, just like he’s leaving them on me.
Then, just as suddenly, he rips himself away.
The cold rushes in, brutal and biting, as I stagger back, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Hayden’s chest rises and falls, his eyes burning into mine, dark, dangerous, unreadable.
“This,” he mutters, voice rough, low, and thick with something I can’t name. “This is why.”
His fingers twitch, like he might reach for me again, like he might drag me back into that suffocating, electric pull between us. But instead, he takes a slow, measured breath, shoving it all back beneath the surface.
Then his voice turns cold, controlled as he ushers me into the front seat. “Now get in the fucking car.”
I glare at him as he shuts my door, my body still trembling with adrenaline, with anger, with the ghost of his lips against mine.
But I don’t argue. Not this time.
The car ride is silent, tension still hanging thick in the air between us. My fingers twitch in my lap, my lips still tingling from the way he kissed me, like it was a warning, a promise, and a punishment all at once. I want to be furious, but I’m still trying to catch my breath.
I watch him from the corner of my eye. His jaw is set, his hands gripping the wheel a little too tightly, like he’s holdingonto more than just control of the car. His mood is tough to assess, shifting between restrained rage and annoyance.
Minutes pass, the city fading behind us as he takes an unfamiliar route. My stomach tightens as I realize we aren’t heading back to the house.
I glance at him, then back at the road. “Where are we going?”
Hayden doesn’t answer right away. He just keeps driving, his grip steady, his gaze locked on the road ahead, unreadable. The silence between us thickens, stretching, tightening.
Then, in the distance, I see it.
