“Rori…” I stop at the door and look back at him expectantly. He stares at me for a moment, and then shakes his head, before saying, “I lied.”
“About what?” That hope builds higher. Did the mention of some more stellar sex already change his mind?
“I lied that it has anything to do with what’s going on.” I frown. What? “You and me, we aren’t going to work. Ever. The other night, it was a mistake, and one that I’m not willing to make again.”
A lifetime of control keeps me from outwardly reacting to his words. Even as it feels like he’s taken a knife to my chest and driven it deep.
A mistake? I was a mistake. Well, if that isn’t a blow to the ego.
“So, what, you slept with me just to see what it was like?” I’m careful to keep my voice calm and cool. “A kind of weird curiosity.”
“I wanted to get you out of my system. The chemistry we have was distracting. Then you came on to me, and it made me realize that I wasn’t going to be able to function and do my job if I was always allowing you to be a distraction.”
Wow, a mistake and a distraction. We’re just batting a thousand with this, aren’t we?
Instead of screaming at him like I want to, raging that he’s a fucking bastard, I simply nod, open the door, and walk out, shutting it quietly behind me. There is nothing left to say.
I’m an idiot. I knew better. I should never have allowed myself to think that a man like Alonzo would ever look at me that way. Like he said, I’m a distraction. A mistake.
Well, fuck him. I need to find Sofia because there is no way in hell that I’m going to spend another night in that roomwith him. A mistake and a distraction shouldn’t be around the person they cause it to, right?
20
RORI
Days Later After Note With Chameleon Title Was Found in Little Dove:
“You’re not doing it.I fucking forbid it!” Alonzo barks furiously as he grabs my arm and pulls me into his room. A room that once was a place that I loved to be in, and now just reminds me how stupid I was. I really don’t want a constant reminder of it.
Not to mention, I’m pissed off that he thinks that he can forbid me to do anything. Like he has any say over my life. He’s the one who has spent the last few days making it perfectly clear that he doesn’t want anything with me. From me. He’s only interested in keeping me under his thumb so he can control me and seem like the good guy to everyone else.
Then there’s the whole him trying to control Hades part. That alone makes me want to hurt him. That stunt he pulled earlier, ordering Hades, was the last straw. Now he wants to pull this shit?
Fuck him. The hurt I’ve been burying builds higher, but I stamp it down as I face the furious man in front of me. His face is flushed with anger. “Did you hear me, Aurora? I forbid it. You are not calling them. You are not putting yourself in danger. Ever.”
That does it. I don’t bother to hold back my fury anymore. The man is delusional if he thinks I’m going to step back and take this.
“You have no say over my life, you over-grown ape!” I scream. “You think because we fucked once, that gives you any right? You took it back! You regretted it! You don’t get to change your tune now!”
His face flushes a dark red, the cords in his neck straining with the anger pouring through him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this angry, but I don’t care. “This has nothing to do with what happened between us. This has everything to do with you being an idiot and trying to play hero. How the fuck do you know these people?”
“I already told you that it’s none of your business. The only thing you should be doing is thanking me that I might be able to stop whatever is being planned before it happens.”
“Thank you?” He gives an incredulous laugh. “You want me to thank you for proving everything I’ve been thinking all along? That you can’t be trusted? You’ve been working with them this entire time, haven’t you?”
I narrow my eyes. “With who?” I already know I’m not going to like where this conversation is heading. A sense of dark dread builds.
“Don’t play dumb now. Fuck, I knew you were hiding shit. I fucking knew it. You tried to pull me in, seduce me so that you could weasel your way in. This has nothing to do with helping Sienna and everything to do with you seeing an opportunity and taking advantage of it.”
Ice fills my veins. That’s what he thinks? “I think you need to start using your big boy words, Goliath, because right now you’re talking out of your ass and not making any sense. I sent Sienna to Alessio. To you. I told her to let you help her.”
“You really expect me to accept that, knowing full well that your family is attached to a Russian crime syndicate, you have nothing to do with them? One of the families in this city is Russian. You could be working with both of them so that the Russians have the numbers and strength to take us all out.” He sneers. “And what better way than to sleep with one of the men closest to the family, try to get them to spill anything that might help you. You’re their puppet, and you’ve been letting them pull the right strings so you could get what you needed.”
Any love and hope I had that Alonzo and I could ever fix whatever it was between us dies instantly. It turns to ash, and I can feel the walls I’ve built for so long slipping. The urge to hurt this man is fierce. The anger is bone deep.
After everything, this is what he thinks of me? Thinks that little of me? Fuck, I really am an idiot. Trusting this man, telling him things I haven’t told people in a long time about myself, not even Sienna, and thinking that I was working toward building something with him. The entire time, none of it was real to him.
He was testing me. He was suspicious, ready to pounce the moment I slipped up. To him, this is that moment. Instead of seeing that I’m putting my life on the line for him, for his family, for the women who have become some of my closest friends already, he sees someone willing to sell them all out.
