Chuckling, he slips in the rest of the way, joining me in the water, but keeping his distance. “You’ve hardly had to lift a finger and you have people jumping to do anything to please you.”
My stomach twists with his claims. “That’s different.”
Smirking, he swims closer. “Oh? How so? You manipulate them for your own gain, Elysium.”
“You’re wrong,” I whisper, though I can’t help but feel like a liar as doubt starts to take root. “I don’t want anything from them except to care about me as much as I do for them.”
As I tilt my chin up to look at him treading water right in front of me now, I see the hard gleam in his cold eyes before he spits, “And why would anyone care about you? You’re a burden, and you know it. There’s a reason that no one tried to help you before, and it isn’t because they’re indifferent. It’s because you’re not worth the effort.” I barely manage to suck down a breath before he shoves me under the water, closing my eyes and fighting to not panic.
It’s all just a game. If he wanted to kill me, he would have done it by now.
Lungs ready to burst, the pressure on my head lessons and I kick hard, pushing myself through the surface, gasping. His hand fists my hair, refusing to let me go far. “Nobody cares about you, Elyse. No one loves you, and no one gives a damn. If they did, you think they would have left you here with me?”
The tightening of his grip is a small signal giving his intentions away and I suck down another gulp of air before he shoves me beneath the surface again. He keeps me under longer this time, and my chest starts to burn. Gripping his wrist, my nails bite into his skin as I start growing frantic, survival instincts pushing aside logic and forcing my body to react.
Yanking me up by my hair, I choke on a sob as I can breathe again, not wanting to open my eyes. “Look at me!” he shouts, shaking me in his grasp and I force my eyes open, blinking back tears. His neck is red, his jaw tightly clenched as he glares down at me like I’ve ruined his life. “Everyone else has abandoned you. But not me.”
His glare softens into that of a stern parent, acting like he hates being the bad guy, but it’s a mantle he’s forced to bear. “I took you in when you had nowhere else to go, provided for you. All I ask in return is that you earn your keep. Yet you continue to keep causing me trouble, making my life harder than it already is. You’re a curse, Elysium. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be whoring yourself out on the streets, not sure where your next meal was coming from or where you’d be sleeping that night. I can make you more; better.”
This time he doesn’t give a sign before he shoves me under, and I end up thrashing in his grip. Still, he doesn’t budge and I’m choking on water a few seconds later, clawing at his arm.
Finally allowing me to breathe, I start heaving up water, sputtering and coughing as my eyes and nose burn. “You’re wrong,” I choke out between gasps. “They care about me.”
“You’re a shiny new toy they can fuck, but that’s it,” he snarls. “You don’t even know who you are besides the helpless girl that everyone’s forced to take care of. Do you know why it was so easy for me to completely take over your life, Elysium?” He shakes me as I grit my teeth at the pain on my scalp. “It’s because you had no future, not without me. You’re just as ungrateful as Samael once was, but breaking you will be so much sweeter.”
He forces me under again, and the more that I struggle, the tighter his hold. My entire body is on fire, muscles burning as desperation clogs my throat. The fight starts to fade from my limbs, my movements growing sluggish. The temptation to just sleep, to escape the pain and fear, becomes so overwhelming that I nearly cave.
But something he said echoes through my mind, not letting me rest.‘I can make you more; better.’I absolutely refuse to let him succeed, to have any sort of victory here. I’m already better than the person that I was when I showed up at his doorstep, and it has nothing to do with him. I’m better because of the men in my life that helped me realize that I deserved more from life than what I was allowed. I was scared and so damn tired that I was just enduring, existing. But they reignited my will to live, to fight, before it was completely extinguished.
I became more because they needed me to be, and they still do. This man has already taken everything else from them; I won’t let my death be another thing flung in their faces to keep them in line.
I will live, simply out of spite.
Air assaults my face and I suck it down with desperate gasps, vision blurred on the edges as Julian’s face comes into focus. “I can keep going all night,” he warns, and by the hard set of his features, it’s not an empty threat. “Just say the words that I want to hear, and all of this can stop.”
My face falls with defeat, luring him into a false sense of security. His hold slackens ever so slightly, just enough to prove he thinks me so weak that he’s accomplished in a single night what others failed at over the course of weeks. He claims to want to make me stronger, but he wants to ensure I’m thoroughly brainwashed and able to be controlled by him before giving me those tools.
“You can’t break someone that’s already broken.”
Slamming my head forward, I smash into his nose and blood instantly flows, a mirror image of my training with Maverick. Julian releases me to clutch his face and I waste no time shoving away from him, hauling myself out of the pool despite the way my arms protest with a scream, threatening to give out.
My feet nearly slip out from under me as I sprint for the door, flinging it open and crashing through into the furnished part of the basement, shoving it closed behind me without turning. The carpet makes it ten times easier to keep my footing as I hear the door being flung open behind me the same moment I start running up the stairs. Throwing myself into the basement door, I shove my way through, slamming it shut and letting out a soft, frustrated shriek that there isn’t a lock on the handle.
There’s no one around for at least a mile.
But fuck it, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Neighbors have never helped me before, so I doubt they’d start now.
Sprinting down the hallway, I skid on the smooth floor a bit as I make it to the living room. A hand clamps around my mouth, smothering my startled shout, and pulls me back against a hard body. He takes a step back, pulling us out of the line of sight of the hallway and into the entryway.
A shadow flickers in my peripherals, Jax’s bodyguard coming into sight. His eyes lock on me instantly, simply tipping his head in acknowledgment before his attention is pulled to the sound of the basement door slamming open against the wall.
The hand over my mouth remains there as Jax’s voice whispers in my ear, “Play nice and we can both walk out of here alive.” A brief nod is all I manage before Julian comes into view, led closer by Jax’s guard digging a gun into his back.
“Julian, my old friend,” Jax purrs, removing his hand from my mouth and wrapping an arm around my collar to plaster my dripping body against his chest. His free hand withdraws a blade, pressing it to my throat. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Julian’s damp face and chest are coated in blood, his nose swollen from my hit. He’s shoved down onto one of the couches, and as his murderous stare falls on me, I actually press closer into Jax, picking the lesser of two evils right now. He’s either here to kill me or kidnap me, but at least the latter gets me out of here, and I can worry about escaping later. One step at a time.
“I’ve given it some more thought,” Julian declares, donning his business voice. “You want the girl so badly? Take her. You’ll be begging me to take her off your hands again soon enough.”
