“It was delivered.”She rolls to a stop and kicks a large box at her feet.“Waiting right here this morning.”
My pulse detonates.
A quick glance tells me the box contains rockabilly clothes, boots, and cyberpunk accessories.All things I would’ve chosen for her.
Except I didn’t send it.
I can guess who did.
Violent, explosive fire crawls up the back of my neck.
“Who?”Keeping my voice even, I step into her space.“Who sent it?”
She offers a facial shrug.
“Don’t lie to me, brat.”I lean down, growling against her lips.“Who?”
She pulls herself taller.“Jag.”
There it is.
Jag.
That slippery fucking cunt.He knew she needs clothes.Knew she loves skates.Knew exactly how to remind her he’s still orbiting her life.
It was supposed to be me.
I was supposed to take her shopping tonight.Fill her closet.Feed her.Protect her.Give her everything.
A tiny black eye blinks in the rafters.A camera pointed straight at me.I feel him watching through that lens, smug and smirking, getting off on the show.Watching me lose.Watching me boil and burn and do nothing.
My hands don’t shake.My breath doesn’t hitch.But inside, I’m nuclear.
I don’t touch her.
I don’t look at the box again.
I turn and stride out before I torch the whole fucking garage.
I don’t hear the door slam behind Wolf.He just leaves.Silently.That’s somehow worse.
My throat aches, and I don’t know why.
I don’t know why he looked at me like that before disappearing.
The look wasn’t angry.Not exactly.It was tense and closed off, as if he wanted to say something but decided it would hurt.
Removing my tool belt, I bend to untie the laces and swap the skates for my boots.Then I sit there for a second.
Okay.So maybe he’s mad.But not about the skates.That would be stupid.
The skates arrived in that box.The one with the clothes.The new tool belt.The perfume I haven’t touched.All of it handpicked by the man who used to braid my hair with bloodstains under his fingernails.
I stare at the skates, black with red laces, just like the pair I left in California.But not the same ones.My old skates had cracks in the wheels and a missing toe stop.
These are brand new.
I didn’t ask for them.I didn’t ask for any of it.But Jag sent it anyway, like he always does.Strings attached.Mind games sharpened to a razor point.He doesn’t care what I wear.He cares what it does to me.
