“You’re such a conceited whore. Never seeing what was right in front of you. Then you moved into the top floor of that fucking condo, and I lost my mind. I couldn’t watch you. I never knew if you needed me. I knew you would need me, Livvy.”
“I don’t understand,” the words tumble out of my mouth, and his blade only tightens on my throat, making me whimper.
“You were so independent, but you were consistent. You grabbed the same tea from the grocery store. You ate the same lunch every day. I watched you. Waited. And when you didn’tseeme because you were always self-absorbed by your own life, I forced you to slow down.”
“What did you do?”
He brushes his fingers down my hair. “Turns out, you can tell any doctor some sob story, and they’ll give you enough medication to tranquilize a horse. Or in my case, micro-dose you until you would swoon at my feet, and I could save the day.”
“You drugged me?” I gasp, jerking in his arms, feeling the knife slice into my skin.
“Calm down, it was prescription drugs, not meth,” he spews, struggling to control me. Hayes uses that moment to lungefor him, grabbing his wrist in a vice grip.
The surprise only lasts a moment before Noah attempts to recoil, but Jensen is stronger. He yanks him and the knife away from me, but the force of it knocks Noah off his feet. His body crashes into Hayes, and both of them fall to the floor in a heap of limbs
“No!” I scream, watching Noah flail until he rolls off of him and to his feet. Jensen is holding his stomach, and his face is pinched in pain. “No!!”
“Fucking animal!” Noah yells, wiping Jensen’s blood off his hand and into his pants as he turns to me. “He took you from me! He always saved you, but not anymore! You’re mine!”
“I was never yours, you psycho!” I scream, gripping the counter behind me as he points the bloodied blade at me.
“Don’t say that!”
“Just leave, Noah. Go and let me help him. I won’t tell anyone, please,” I cry, needing to check Jensen’s injury. He hasn’t moved from the floor, and the blood has already drenched the front of his shirt.
“I can’t leave.” He shakes his head. “It’s too late.”
“It’s not. You can go,” I beg.
“Come with me. Let’s run away.” He holds his bloodied hand out for me, and I fight the urge to vomit.
“No.”
“Livvy…”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Fine. You’ve given me no choice.” As he steps towards me, he pulls handcuffs from his back pocket and dangles them in front of me. “Turn around, or I’ll gut you like I gutted the felon. Then I’ll go find your little bitch friend and gut her and her baby.”
“You bastard,” I sob.
“This is your fault, Livvy. He’s dead because of you. Now, turn around.”
With shaky limbs, I do as he says, turning until my hip bones hit the edge of the counter.
“Hands,” he demands, and it takes all my strength to move my arms behind me.
“Please, don’t,” I whisper, feeling the warmth of my tears stream down my face, the saltiness burns the wound on my neck as I weep.
“I thought if I looked like Mr. Arkett, you’d notice me. I guess I should have scribbled shit on my arms and copied the felon instead,” he grits out. “The lawyer and the ex-con. How cliché?”
“You don’t know me at all, Noah. You’re deranged,” I utter the words.
The first wrist is cuffed with a finite clink, and my entire body shakes.
“You’re right, Livvy. I don’t know you at all…” His fingers touch the back of my bare thigh, and a strangled noise leaves my throat, “But I can’t wait to know every inch of you.” He inhales deeply against my hair at the nape of my neck, and a sob heaves out of me.
His hand trembles as his palm slinks up my hip, and it lifts the hem of my robe above my butt, making me flinch aggressively. The movement forces his hand to snap back to my wrists to keep me secure, and my bones cry out in agony as he attempts to finish shackling me.
