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“I don’t know what he sees in you. I hope that stick in your ass punctures a vital organ.” Then, because I’d been raised with manners, I added, “Thank you for the ride.”
The glowing red numbers on my alarm clock told me it was 4:44 a.m. A pinprick of dread blossomed at the base of my neck and slithered down my spine. In Chinese culture, the number four is considered unlucky because the word for it sounds like the word for death. Sì, four; sǐ, death. The only difference between their pronunciation is a tone inflection.
Sure, she led me into dubious situations sometimes, but she’d been my ride or die since freshman year, and I wouldn’t have anyone else by my side.
Most people thought the biggest sacrifice they could make was to die for something. They were wrong. The biggest sacrifice you could make was to live for something—to allow it to consume you and turn you into a version of yourself you didn’t recognize. Death was oblivion; life was reality, the harshest truth that had ever existed.
I hated how much I wanted her, and I hated that she wasn’t smart enough to run away from me while she still had a chance.
She was mine. She just didn’t know it yet. I hadn’t known it myself until I saw her in Colton’s arms and every instinct raged at me to tear her away. To claim what belonged to me.
You want the world to think you have no heart when in reality, you have a multilayered one: a heart of gold encased in a heart of ice. And the one thing all hearts of gold have in common? They crave love.”
I’d never seen him like that. Pissed, yes. Annoyed, definitely. But not like that. Like he wanted to burn the world down at seeing me hurt.
I was right. Alex Volkov did have a multilayered heart.
Everyone fears something; it’s what makes us human. And Alex Volkov—for all his control, all his power—was still wonderfully, frighteningly, heartbreakingly human.
“You’re right, sweetheart,” I said, dropping my forehead to hers with a resigned sigh. So. Fucked. “But the rules don’t apply to you.”
I’m sorry, honey, but it’s over, I told my poor heart. You don’t belong to me anymore.
“What did I tell you? You’re mine, Sunshine. You’re never touching another man unless you want him six feet in the ground. So yes, we’re fucking exclusive.”
“You want to fuck, we fuck. You want to date, we date. You want to call me your boyfriend, I’ll call you my girlfriend.
“You are the light to my dark, Sunshine,” he said in a raw voice. His lips brushed against mine as he spoke. “Without you, I’m lost.”
“Because I love her!” I slammed my hands on the table. “There, happy? I love her so much I would rather give her up than hurt her. But if you think I’m letting her go to another country alone, with no protection, you’ve got another think coming. Now give me her fucking flight info.”
I felt like the world’s worst movie cliché. Running through the airport trying to get the woman I loved to give me another chance…how original. But if it got me to Ava in time, I’d do it in front of prime-time TV.
“You told me once there was something beautiful waiting for me, something that would restore my faith in life. I’ve found it. It’s you.”
“I never claimed to be Prince Charming, and my love isn’t a fairy-tale type of love. I’m a fucked-up person with fucked-up morals. I won’t write you poems or serenade you beneath the moonlight. But you are the only woman I have eyes for. Your enemies are my enemies, your friends are my friends, and if you wanted, I would burn down the world for you.”
Whether it was joy, sadness, or anger, she expressed her emotions fully and without reserve. She poured herself into the world with the confidence of someone who refused to hold herself back to make others comfortable, and she shone all the brighter for it.
