Page 152 of The Fire We Make

“He woke me up out of my sleep, dragged me out of bed, threw me in the ring and made me defend myself. Obviously, I was losing bad at first.”

Ace felt her smile against his chest as he fought to contain his anger.

“I mean, it was five boys, ranging from like sixteen to nineteen versus one fifteen year old girl.”

She swallowed.

“They didn’t hold back and when I realized my daddy wasn’t gonna stop it...something snapped. It’s like my body knew no one was coming to save me, so I went into fight or flight mode and I just...blacked out.”

She exhaled a deep breath and only then did Ace realize he was holding his.

“One minute I was guarding my face and the next, my dad was shaking my shoulders, telling me to breathe. There were five bloody bodies laying behind him.”

“Fuck, Rose,” Ace groaned. He couldn’t imagine how scared she was. How helpless she must have felt to lose control that way.

He wished he could go back in time, just to fight beside her.

“They lived,” she added quickly. “I broke some bones but... they were fine.”

She was silent for a beat. “I didn’t sleep at all that night, though.” Her voice softened. “I couldn't remember what I’d done and that shit scared me.”

She shook her head. “My dad didn’t comfort me after the black out. He just looked at me like he’d found a shiny new toy. Like a cheat code he’d just unlocked.”

Ace’s hand came up to cradle the back of her head, pressing her closer to him. Still silent, but making his presence known.

“You know what they started calling me after that?” she sniffled.

“What?” Ace rasped.

“’Lil Demon,” she huffed. “I wore that shit like a badge of honor too.”

He felt the dampness of a tear through the material of his shirt. In that moment, he began counting.

Each tear would be a bullet he put in the people who’d done this to her, he vowed.

“I was 21 when my dad arranged a marriage for me,” her tone was flatter now as she pushed the emotion away and began disassociating into the past once again.

“An old associate of his who was doing the same thing as him. Grooming his son for power. They said we would make a powerful couple. The strongest of our two stocks merging, like they were breeding fucking cattle,” she said with a bitter laugh.

“I wasn’t really on board at first. I wasn’t under the impression I’d marry for love but Jermaine just didn’t seem like a right fit.

“When I told my dad that, he said that love was overrated. That it came and went but power lasted forever when established on solid ground. I didn’t push back on it anymore. If he said that this was a necessary step for the foundation of what we were building, then so be it,” she shrugged. “Ole dude was kind to me and he wasn’t hard on the eyes. He was going to be running for office and needed someone at his side that could navigate both worlds. Someone who was equally successful and equally ruthless. That nigga wasn’t my equal, though. I knew it. My daddy knew it. Hell, even he knew it.”

She smirked faintly. “The king can only make certain moves, princess but the queen can go wherever the fuck she pleases. She holds the real power. You just need to play the game and the world is at your fingertips,” she quoted.

“It was cool for a while but… just like my daddy was in my ear, his daddy was in his. He didn’t want an equal, he wanted a trophy wife that turned into an attack dog when he gave the command. He wanted control and when it wasn’t given, he took it.”

Ace’s fingers flexed slightly against her back. No tears had fallen but he tallied more bullets anyway.

“It started small,” she continued. “Grabbing. Shoving. Digging his nails into my thigh under the table. Yelling...I let it slide to keep the peace. To play the game.”

“But one night...We had dinner with the Attorney General and his wife. We were talking about one of his cases and he cited the wrong Supreme Court case as precedent. I corrected him, as nicely as I could for a man with a fragile ego, and the General was so impressed that I hadn’t even graduated law school yet.”

Ace knew the direction this story was going and his jaw clenched.

She sighed. “Apparently, I embarrassed him and when we got home we argued and argued and he used his intimidation tactics but I couldn’t back down. It wasn’t my fault he felt as inadequate as he was. I told him that and the next thing I knew, he’d socked me in my mouth.”

She chuckled. “We tussled like two niggas on the street that night. And then it happened again. And again. Until the bruises I was covering weren't from my training but from him.”