Page 67 of Fated to Them

“I do know that because I compelled her. Compulsion can only be broken if I break it or die, and neither will happen.”

“What about my mother? She won’t like me leaving so quickly.”

“She already knows you were going to leave, and Eli paid off her mortgage and has taken care of everything else. You no longer have custody of Maya. Taylor does.”

“Wait, what?” I ask, standing up.

“I told you she would be pissed off when you tell her,” Cyrus says to Eli.

“You haven’t had legal custody of her for nearly a week. It was always going to be this way. I had Cyrus compel a judge to sign the documents. You are no longer responsible for Maya.”

“And you thought I was just going to be okay with you giving my niece back to a drug addict?”

“Reformed drug addict. She isn’t a drug addict anymore, and she is not your daughter. She never was, Addie. This is a good thing,” Eli says.

But I am outraged that they’ve meddled so much in my life, in my family’s life.

“I want to go home. Take me home,” I tell them, standing up.

“No, you are staying here. You belong with us, and that is where you will remain. You don’t have to like what we have done, but you will deal with it, Addie. You don’t have a choice,” Eli says, getting up and walking off.

“If it’s about Sam, I won’t talk to him anymore, I promise.”

“Regardless, we leave tomorrow, Adeline,” Eli calls out over his shoulder as he walks off toward the bedroom.

“Why is he doing this?” I ask Cyrus, who seems indifferent to the entire thing.

“Because I haven’t marked you, because of Sam, and because he wants to go home,” he says before sighing.

“And you agree with him?”

“I don’t agree with him forcing you, but yes, I am sick of being here. You need to come home with us.”

“I have to leave everything behind because he is insecure and homesick?” I ask incredulously. This is unfair.

“I’m sorry, Addie, but he is right. We have stayed long enough. It’s time to go home,” Cyrus says, walking off. “Are you coming to bed?”

I scoff. Is this fucker for real? The last place I want to be is in a bed with them. I flop back down on the lounge, and I hear him sigh before turning all the lights off.

I am leaving tomorrow, leaving everything behind.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Eli

Grabbing my suitcase out from under the bed, I toss the few things we have here that we actually need back home. Cyrus walks behind me and leans on the door frame.

“Where is Addie?”

“On the lounge. We could have waited another week, Eli.”

“I am done waiting, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but I wanted her to come on her own terms.”

“She would never come willingly. I am not waiting for the hunter bastard to convince her to leave us. She is ours. She will just deal with it,” I tell him, grabbing some of our suits from the walk-in.

“You have already marked her. Why are you like this?” he asks.