HAZEL
“Maybe you didn’t,” Axel replied coolly, “but you live under my roof. You follow my rules.”
“And whose decision was that?” I shot back. “Did I want to live here? Did I want to follow your rules?”
I stepped forward without realising it.
“I haven’t followed a single one of your rules,” I said. “So, what are you going to do, Axel?”
The two of us locked eyes.
For a split second, something crossed his face, anger, frustration, something darker, but it vanished just as quickly.
“Natasha has been with this family for years,” he said, ignoring my question again. “She’s proven herself. She deserves respect. All she’s ever asked is that people don’t invade her space.”
I held his gaze.
“And what do I deserve?”
The room went quiet. Not the comfortable kind.
The kind that presses agai
