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I scoff. “Absolutely not. Who’s going to babysit him while he’s babysitting me?”
“Will you take any of my men with you?” he asks through gritted teeth.
I shake my head no.
“Fine,” Nik says loudly, throwing his half-full coffee mug in the sink. I jump at the sound of it breaking against the stainless steel surface. “Have it your way, then.”
Before I have time to react, Nik wraps his hands around my waist. The next thing I know, he throws me over his shoulder. I struggle against his hold, but it’s pointless. I might as well be trying to bend metal.
“Let me go,” I ask, kicking my legs and hitting his back with my closed fists.
Easily subduing my attempts to free myself, Nik marches out of the kitchen, ignoring my protests.
He laughs humorlessly. “Not a chance. If you want to behave like a reckless, unreasonable child, I’ll treat you like one. If you insist on showing me I can’t afford to trust you, then I have no choice but to respond accordingly.”
Nik’s long strides make quick work of the penthouse’s vast corridors and halls. Before I know what’s happening, he drops me on a soft surface. Slightly disoriented, I’m slow to recognize it’s his bed.
“Once I’ve dealt with McGuire, we’ll talk,” he says, walking towards the door. “You’ll stay here until then.” He inserts a key into the bedroom door’s outside keyhole, and I gasp, horrified.
“Nik, no. Please don’t do this. I’m begging you.”
My pleas do nothing to move him. Relentless, he isn’t dissuaded from locking me away in his bedroom, making me his true prisoner at last.
“I wish I didn’t have to,” Nik dispassionately says under his breath. “But I just can’t trust you not to put yourself in danger. I can’t trust you not to leave me. And I can’t lose you.”
I sob, shaking my head frantically. “If you do this, Nik, there’s no turning back. I won’t forgive you for this. I can’t.”
Nik’s dark brown eyes—once so dear and familiar—look utterly alien to me as he takes his time studying me. Without another word, he steps outside the room and locks the door, shattering my heart in one move.
17
NIK
It didn’t have to be like this.
Night falls outside, and I struggle to stay still. I push away from my desk for what feels like the hundredth time in the past hour to pour myself another drink. But even as it burns down my throat, the amber-colored liquor provides very little comfort or distraction.
Unable to force myself to sit back down, I aimlessly and pointlessly pace in front of my desk instead.
For a moment, I consider turning my computer back on and trying to get some work done. An instant later, though, I admit there’s no point in wasting my energy. I know I’m worthless right now, completely and utterly incapable of focusing on anything for more than a few seconds.
A particularly uncomfortable tightness has settled in my chest since I left Kat in the bedroom. The most horrible sensation has taken hold of me as the muscles around my ribcage and abdomen feel as if they begun to freeze into place, stiffening and losing elasticity. With each passing second, it gets harder and harder to breathe. As the minutes tick by, I almost fear that soon my heart won’t be able to beat, as my core clutches it still.
Paradoxically, my skin feels clammy as I start to sweat despite feeling cold to my bones.
After rolling up my sleeves, I check the thermostat, surprised to see it’s set to a balmy sixty-five degrees.
I walk over to the windows behind my desk, hoping that their less than stellar insulation will help adjust my confusing body temperature.
Unseeingly staring out the windows, I force myself to take a deep breath, slowly inhaling and exhaling. I even attempt to center my roaming thoughts, purposefully focusing on the mechanical aspect of simply breathing for a moment. All of it is a waste of time. Intrusive thoughts find their way back into my mind almost immediately.
Over and over again, Kat’s face—as she looked when I locked her away—flashes in my mind. It doesn’t matter whether I keep my eyes closed or open. I see her now almost as clearly as I saw her then. To make matters worse, as time goes by, the hurt and desperate look I saw in her beautiful eyes grows even more haunting.
I admit I have conflicting emotions about the chaotic way things escalated between the two of us earlier today. Truthfully, I can’t help but feel a little justified in the course of action I took. After all, I pretty much begged Kat to be open and honest with me, and she refused. She didn’t even bother giving me a good reason for her refusal. She can’t expect me to trust her blindly under these extenuating circumstances.
It’s not like I can trust Kat to take care of herself and be reasonable about her safety, either. Even if I disregard her long history of making reckless choices, I can’t forget her little rebellious act. To sneak around like that—when she knows one of the most bloodthirsty men in the Seven Families is dying to get his hands on her—was incredibly foolhardy, even by her standards.
The mere idea of McGuire getting close enough to hurt her makes my blood run cold. I’m all for taking calculated risks, but this is one of the few instances where I will not roll the dice. If something were to happen to Kat, if McGuire were to take her from me as well… that would be it for me. There would be no surviving this loss. I simply wouldn’t be able to function without her. Not anymore.
