Click.
“I can’t stay locked up like this. I’m going crazy. I want to go home for Thanksgiving.”
“No.”
“This might be foreign to you, Elias, but I have a family. They love me. I love them. I miss them—”
“Don’t you tell me aboutfamily!”
He slams his fist into the wall, and I jump.
A muscle beats at his temple. His chest heaves as if the air hurts.
For a second, I see pain in his eyes—then it’s gone like a ghostly apparition.
“You’re not going anywhere.” He exhales, his anger vanishing too.
I swallow. “I-I’m trying to be reasonable. Even if I don’t go home, we need to work together to get out of this situation.”
Click.The damn annoying lighter again.
Fury tightens behind my shoulder blades. “You can’t possibly want to be married to me! I was there in the room, Elias. The Berishas forced you into it. I swear, if we just—”
“There is no ‘we,’ Lana. Let me make that very clear.” His eyes flash, and the hallway shrinks. “You aren’t going to mess this up for me.”
Mess this up for him?
I clamp my teeth on my cheek, barely registering the sting. Uprooting my entire life is aninconveniencefor him?
Click.
I snatch the infuriating lighter, ready to hurl it down the hall.
In a blur of motion, Elias grabs my wrist mid-throw.
“Don’t. You. Dare.”
His voice is pure venom. Wrath and thunder.
“I won’t have anyone, including you, jeopardize what I’ve worked for. And that includes going home and giving your brothers a chance to play hero and fuck things up.”
He leans in until barely an inch separates us. He steals the air from my lungs.
“Don’t try anything funny. Obey, or your family dies.”
Then he stalks off, leaving silence in his wake.
Snow blankets the world outside the window on Thanksgiving, daylight fading fast into winter gloom.
The fireplace roars in my room, but I’m chilled to the bone.
My eyes sting as I look at the care package spread before me.
Geraldine’s Chocolates courtesy of Belle; a slice of carrot cake from Estelles, Taylor’s favorite; Grace included a photo album of her baby. Olivia sent over aromatherapy lotions with a note saying she and Rex miss me and the lavender is very calming if Elias pisses me off. Alexis bundled up trinkets from her travels.
They think I’m sick with the flu. That’s why I couldn’t fly home for Thanksgiving.
Ever since my argument with Elias, our relationship—if you can even call it that—has plunged from cold to subarctic.
