Chino’s voice sounds like guidance—a moral compass pulling me away from the darkness of my mind. “He looks like he got fucked up, but where’s the girl?”
He hasn’t put two and two together yet. But I did. Which means her betrayal is known to Roman, and he won’t hesitate to hurt her—to make her pay for hurting what’s his. My head falls into the steering wheel as I shift the car to park. Trying to slow down my pounding heart, I whisper. “Why?”
My mind tries desperately to make sense of it all as the passenger door opens and closes. However, my body refuses to move, refuses to acknowledge the kind of woman my half-sister is.
Tokyo
I watch as Xena’s chest rises slowly. I cleaned up her wounds as best as I could from what I’d learned from cleaning up my mother’s wounds. Rizz always had violent men around us, and she hated cops—so she taught me how to clean her up. I close my eyes and exhale a deep breath before opening them again as the sound of the shower water running pulls me back into reality.
“I’m sorry. If things were different, we would have been great friends.”
Xena whimpers, a small, pathetic call for her Roman. The sound feels like a knife to the gut, leaving a cold whisper of fear running down my back.
Roman.
I don’t know who I should be more afraid of. The man who would do anything to protect what is his or the monster in the shower waiting for me to suck his dick. As if on cue, his voice rings out from the shower.
“Tokyo.”
“At least you don’t have to fuck the enemy,” I whisper as I softly tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. Would it be fucked to say that it’s nice I no longer have to wear a mask? That I’m no longer alone with this heavy weight? That same heaviness lifted the moment I realized her injuries weren’t as serious as I thought. There was so much blood, so I feared the worst.
“Fuck. Tokyo.” Alec snarls from inside the bathroom, his voice snapping me out of my thoughts. He’s growing impatient, and that never helps my case. Begrudgingly, I stand, peeling off my bloody clothes and hearing them as they fall to the ground. Everything goes quiet as I step out of the room and saunter down the hall. The cold bites into my bare skin—the warmth of the shower is a welcome relief as I step over the threshold.
“You took long enough.” He snaps, his glacial orbs narrowing. “I don’t like to wait.”
“Sorry.”
I wasn’t, but he needed my apology…. He needed to think he was winning. Truthfully, he reminded me of a child, a very spoiled one. Throwing a fit whenever he didn’t get his way. I let out a sigh as the warm water falls over my body. That ache settles within my chest, the one that keeps me focused. Xena was only a small sacrifice for my greater plan if I wanted to keep Kai safe. In order to do that, I would have to become a greater monster than the one fisting my hair and choking me on his cock.
I never wasted time getting things done; it’s not like I was a stranger to an unwelcome touch. My childhood was marked by it. Marked by trauma and pain. Two things that shaped me into the monster I am today. I wonder what Kai would think of me if he knew. Would he still hold on to the illusion he conjured up of me? Or would he love me with no mask?
Doubt it, love always comes with conditions. This is why I run and will always continue to run.
There was a time when I believed Alec could have been forever, but his love came with control. So, I did the only thing I knew, ran, and even then, he chased me. Then fate had other plans. Learning that I had a brother felt like a breath of fresh air. Our connection was instant. I used to think it was the blood calling, but it was our hearts. I fell in love with Kai the moment he showed up at the police station. The organ between my chest feels like it’s being ripped out, and tears sting my eyes. So I close them and try to go further into my mind, to avoid feeling the way his cock slams into the back of my throat. How the water drowns me, depriving me of air.
Kai.
I want to scream.
But the shame holds me hostage. My need to be protective keeps me obedient.
“I wish your big brother could see how big a whore his little sister is,” Alec growls out before I feel the sting of pain across my cheek. “Open your eyes, on me.”
I obey.
“Good whore.”
I am.
My cheeks hollow and dissociation takes over until his thrust becomes sporadic… breathing ragged and ropes of cum invade my mouth.
Chapter Eight
Xena
3days later...
My eyes flutter open, and for a second, I think the warmth beside me is Roman, but the softness tells me it’s not. Just like every day since the day I woke up from my accident, there’s an itch from the collar around my neck.
