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But I was willing to dance in the shadows for her. Even knowing she’d hate me for it.
I felt like I was starting to lose myself entirely.
All this time, she’d been fighting this without my knowledge. Guilt and shame consume me.
I punch into the tiling, satisfied by its pain. I continue pummeling the tiles. Blood streams down the tiles and into the drain.
I hit it repeatedly, waiting for the adrenaline to run its course and give me some type of satisfaction, but it doesn’t.
The Lion had found my weakness, and it was partly why I set her free all those years ago. And now it was a cruel reality twisted into the shape that he wanted it to be. I curse under my breath, needing a release.
Needing her.
And if I couldn’t have her right now, then my only other outlet was violence.
26
ELANEE
It’s four in the morning, and the buzzing of my phone wakes me. I flinch, wide awake, having been a light sleeper for years now. When I realize it’s the burner phone, I go to answer it but notice the video call request instead. I look back and forth. Sure I look like a mess, but I answer it anyway, pointing the camera to the ceiling.
“Dmitri?” I ask.
He sighs in relief. “I just needed to hear your voice.”
My stomach fills with butterflies, but my heart aches as I fiddle with the necklace around my throat. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe because he sounds tired…. defeated even. “Is everything okay?”
“Am I looking at your ceiling?” he asks, purposefully evading my question.
My cheeks still heat because I’m embarrassed. “Well yeah, it’s four in the morning, and I probably look like shit.”
“I’ve had you drunk and vomiting down my back before. I think I’ve seen the worst.”
A hiccup of laughter rises. I don’t remember much of that night, but he makes a point. “Shouldn’t you say something like I was beautiful even then?”
“Down my back, Elanee, as I piggybacked you from a party. My back,” he says as if answer enough.
I bite my bottom lip. I’d been pissed off with him that day for some reason and drank myself stupid. When he caught wind that I was at a house party, he was there within minutes and stormed out with me over his shoulder. Or so I’d been told. I was blackout drunk. And yet, it’s somehow a fond memory.
“I mean, technically, I vomited on myself as well,” I say in my defense and adjust the camera. I can only see half of him, the camera on an obvious angle. “Is everything okay?”
“Better now that I’ve seen you in that tight tank top,” he jests.
I look down at my peaked nipples and bite my bottom lip. Before I can speak, he cuts in. “I miss you.”
My heart flutters. It’s sick and messed up, but the moment he says it, I feel it in my core: Hope.
This murky path we were both trying to push through might get us killed. And I was selfish for letting him join me on it.
But there’s something in his tone I don’t entirely understand. Right now, I think in his own way, he needs me. I only wish I knew what happened to make him sound so… uneasy. Yet, still warped in his cocky arrogant ways. So I’ll give him what he needs. I’ll let him take and take until there is no more to give.
“What do you miss about me?” I ask sweetly.
The corner of his mouth kicks up into an arrogant smile. “Are you trying to have phone sex with me, Cricket?”
I bite my bottom lip. He looks comfy on a leather sofa with a bookcase behind him. I imagine it’s somewhere in his apartment not that I’ve ever seen it.
“Good because I’m already stroking myself.” He points his camera down. My thighs clench together, a warmth flooding my core as I watch him slowly stroke his cock. The veins in his hand protrude, and I can’t help but stare, mesmerized, until I notice the wounds on his knuckles.
