Page 100 of Unorthodox
I can’t tolerate weaknesses.
Not even from myself.
The bookshelf, what I said to Addison in the darkness of her room? All weaknesses. But I’m better now. I watched the video.
I faced that fear.
I know where I came from. And I know I will never allow myself to go back there again.
And I willneverleave my brother alone again.
When I can get my hands on him, Addison will be gone.
She’ll hurt, and she’ll hate herself. Her life. What she’ll become.
But Oliver…he’ll be safe.
“Are you ready?” Evora’s voice draws my attention and I stop pacing, slipping my hands into my pockets, fisting the king in my hand.
Evora is in another white dress, long, glossy hair over one shoulder as she eyes me. She has yet to meet Addison, but in a few moments, that will change. She knows there’s a girl here to be sold, but Evora is smart.
She doesn’t ask questions she doesn’t want the answers to.
It’s why she hasn’t spoken to me about Dante again.
“Someone is coming with us,” I tell her. Her eyes narrow as her heels click on the floor when she crosses the space between us, running her hands down her hips, smoothing her tight dress. I smell her floral perfume as she approaches, see bruises around her throat from my hands.
I wonder what it would be like to make Addison watch me fuck her. Maybe that would completely erase that moment of weakness I displayed, gun to my head.
“Don’t take the coward’s way out,”Addison had said.
“Who?” Evora asks me, still frowning.
“The girl.” I glance down the hallway her room is on and see Evora turn her head, too. Evora’s cheekbones are bronzed, her lashes thick with mascara, expertly applied. She’s beautiful, in her mid-twenties, and with everyone but me, she’s feisty too.
I briefly imagine her first encounter with Addison and feel a sick pleasure that she’ll likely make the girl feel small.
Weakness.
Addison saw my weakness.
It’s another reason, despite Dante’s death, we have to go to this fucking party. I cannot allow her to think she could manipulate me with her words. That she actually got through to me.
Not to mention the parties waiting for proof of life lurking in Luca’s home. I can only hope they don’t ask her about her purity. Knowing her, she’d be sure to tell them all the things I did to her.
All the thingsDantefucking did to her.
“Why?” Evora asks, an edge to her words as she turns to face me.
I arch a brow. “Since when do I have to explain myself to you, Evora?”
She swallows, averting her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest as she takes a small step back. “Are you fucking her?” she snaps, but she doesn’t have the guts to face me when she does.
I step closer to her, grab her chin between my fingers and force her to look up at me. I see the fear in her eyes, and I relish in it.
If Addison thinks what I did to her in her room after she destroyed her stuff is bad, she really has no idea. That was the least of what she deserved for fucking with me.
Evora knows better. She’s seen me at my worst.
