CHAPTER 11
1015 Words
MABEL POV
I rushed toward him, my eyes searching his body for the source of the blood.
“Where are you hurt?”
“I don’t need your help,” he muttered, brushing my hands away.
“I’m a nursing student,” I shot back. “Just tell me where you are injured so I can help while we wait for the doctor.”
He let out an impatient sigh before pulling his shirt over his head.
I gasped as my eyes roam around the dark tattoos and scars stretched across his chest and disappeared over his shoulder and down his back.
“The blood isn’t mine,” he said.
I stared at him. “…What?”
“I got into a fight.”
My stomach dropped.
“No one’s dead.” His voice was flat, almost bored. “It happens.”
Something inside me snapped.
At first, I’d been worried, now I was furious
“You disappeared…” I said slowly, trying to keep my voice steady. “Only to come back…”
He walked past me. “I’m not doing this.”
I stepped in front of him before he could reach the bathroom.
“Yes, you are!” I yelled. “You embarrassed me in front of my entire family. My dad was trying to welcome you, and you couldn’t even show him basic respect.”
“I wasn’t in the mood.”
“That’s your excuse?”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?”
My hands curled into fists. “That’s not the point!”
His eyes darkened as he closed the distance between us.
“I don’t give a flying f**k about your family.” His voice dropped, causing goosebumps to rise on my skin. “And I sure as hell don’t answer to you.”
“You do!” I fired back. “You agreed to this arrangement. The least you can do is keep your word.”
A humorless laugh escaped him.
“I never agreed to anything, baby girl.” He leaned closer. “Do you honestly think I enjoy pretending to be the boyfriend of a girl whose own family barely respects her?”
His words stung but I refused to show it
“Then why come back?” I asked through clenched teeth. “If we’re all such a burden, why are you here?”
“Because I can.”
His lips curled into a mocking smile.
“And tell me..” He stepped so close that I had to tilt my head to keep looking at him.“where do you find the courage to argue with me, when you left your own family treat you like garbage,”
I jabbed a finger into his chest. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
“I know you were broken enough to throw yourself off a balcony.”
My heart stopped.
“I know you’re spending this vacation beside the people who betrayed you because you’re terrified of being left out.”
My chest tightened.
“You’d rather accept scraps than walk away.”
“If you knew what having a family meant,” I snapped, my voice shaking “you’d understand why people stay. But you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
I took another step toward him.
“Because you are a loner with no one left to love you,”
Thebwords had barley left my mouth when Zach slammed me against the door, his eyes blazing with rage. His hand closed around my neck—not hard enough to hurt me, but firm enough to keep me pinned in place.
My heart hammered violently against my ribs.
I wanted to scream, but fear rooted me to the spot. If I provoked him any further, I wasn’t sure anyone would reach me before he snapped my neck.
His chest rose and fell with controlled breaths as he stared at me.
Then he leaned closer.
I could feel his warm breath brush against my ear. His much larger body pressing lightly against me. The musky scent of his cologne mixed with the metallic smell of dried blood clinging to his skin.
“What if I wiped out your entire family?” he asked quietly. “Then we’d be even.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“They’re all asleep now,” he continued in that same calm, terrifying voice. “I could walk into their rooms one by one and kill every last one of them.”
His fingers tightened ever so slightly around my neck.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors about me.”
His gray eyes seemed darker than before, almost devoid of humanity.
“I could kill every member of your family without a shred of remorse…”
His finger slid beneath my jaw, pressing lightly against a sensitive spot.
“…starting right here. It would be quick.”
My breath caught.
“And when they’re all gone…” he murmured, “…maybe you’ll finally stop pretending having a pathetic family is something worth protecting.”
I couldn’t speak.
I could only stare at him while he taunted me with that calm, almost seductive voice of death.
I swallowed hard.
“You won’t do that.”
A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Then you still haven’t figured me out, darling.”
He released me without warning.
Air rushed back into my lungs as I leaned heavily against the door.
Zach bent down, picked up his bloodstained shirt and jacket from the floor, and pulled them over one arm.
The sight of the blood reminded me all over again just how dangerous he really was.
He looked at me one last time.
“Find someone else to play your little family games with.”
Without another word, he opened the bedroom door and walked out.
I remained exactly where I was, my back pressed against the door as my legs threatened to give out.
For the first time since meeting Zach…
I truly believed every terrifying rumor I’d ever heard about him.
- Writer
