Page 140 of Villainous Rise

“I meant it,” he snarled. “Every fucking word. I would take anything you gave me. I would take scraps. I would take stolen moments. I would take secret meetings in dark corners.”

He stepped closer.

“But I will not take you coming to my bed with another man’s ring on your finger.”

The venom in his voice made me flinch, but I held my ground. “It’s not real!”

“It is to everyone else! It is to him!” Cipher’s face contorted. “Do you think he won’t use this? Do you think he won’t touch you every chance he gets? Put his hands all over what’s mine?”

“I’m not yours,” I shot back automatically.

Cipher went still. Dangerously still. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a whisper.

“Then what the fuck are we doing here, Annie?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, my anger deflating slightly. “I don’t know what we’re doing.”

“I do.” His laugh was bitter, broken. “I’m standing here like a fucking idiot, offering you everything I have, while you decide if I’m worth more than your fear of disapproval.”

“You want me to choose,” I said quietly.

“I want you to choose me.” His voice cracked slightly. “I want to be more important than your precious Alliance. Than your fear of stepping out of line.”

He was asking me to choose between him and my safety net. Between the unknown and the comfortable prison I’d built for myself.

“I need all of you, Annie. Not just the parts you’re willing to give me when no one is looking. If that makes me a liar, fine. But now that you’ve told me you love me, I can’t settle for scraps anymore.”

“So if I hated you, you’d be fine with all of this?” I shot back. “Is that it? You were happy to take whatever I gave you when you thought I hated you, but now that I love you, suddenly it’s not enough?”

Cipher’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Don’t twist my words.”

“I’m not twisting anything. You’re the one changing the rules.” I jabbed a finger at his chest. “You said you’d be whatever I needed. Was that just another lie to get me back in your bed?”

“Fuck you,” he snarled, grabbing my wrist. “I meant every goddamn word. But I didn’t expect you to say you loved me and then turn around and play house with someone else.”

I yanked my arm free. “I’m not playing house! I’m doing my job!”

“Your job includes pretending to marry other men now? Must have missed that in the Keeper handbook.”

“You don’t get it,” I hissed. “Not all of us have the luxury of burning everything down when we don’t get our way.”

Cipher laughed. “Right. Poor Annie, always the victim, never responsible for her own choices.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” I spat. “The man who lied to my face. Who betrayed me to Dread. Who only told me he loved me when it was too late to matter.”

His face went pale. “I know what I did. You think I don’t replay that every single time you look at me with doubt in your eyes?”

“Then how can you ask me to burn my life down for you? After everything you’ve done?”

Cipher’s jaw clenched. The guilt was still there, but desperation quickly swallowed it whole.

“Because I’m trying to fix it. I made a calculation and it was the worst mistake of my fucking life. It almost cost me the only thing I actually care about.”

“And that’s supposed to make me trust you? You want me to give up everything for you when I can’t even trust that you won’t betray me again the second something more important comes along.”

“There’s nothing more important than you.” He leaned his forehead against mine, his breathing ragged. “I’m standing here, begging you to believe that I would burn the League, the Alliance, and the entire goddamn city to the ground before I let anyone hurt you again.”

I pushed at his chest with trembling hands, finally getting some space between us. “Easy to say when you’re not the one with everything to lose. If I walk away from the Alliance, what do I have left? If I tell them all to go to hell like you want, where does that leave me when you decide I’m not worth it anymore?”