We’ve been doing this all week. Now that Mark has set his eyes on me, Zade is paranoid that I will go missing in the dead of night.

I’ve seen his eyes crease with worry when he explains the possible threat looming over my head. A threat far more serious than Max and his cronies.

Zade’s men have been lingering outside my place, and I get the feeling they’ve been there since the moment I walked out of Mark’s house. I hadn’t noticed them until a few days ago, and my lack of awareness did knock some sense into me.

The frustration of my situation mounts as I fail once more at breaking free of Zade’s chokehold. I wouldn’t need to know any of this shit if Zade would’ve just left me alone. Let me live my life in peace and blissful ignorance of the terrors of the world surrounding me.

I was happy. Bored, but happy.

And now my very own stalker is teaching me self-defense moves. Not against himself, but his enemies. The irony is not lost on me, unlike my success in not getting choked to death.

“This is all your fault, you know,” I hiss, a bead of sweat dripping into my eye. The burn is minuscule compared to the fire raging in my chest.

Zade stills, and his eyes study me closely. “Is it?” he counters.

“You pretend like you care about me, or whatever you convince yourself that you feel for me, but I’ve been in danger because of you. You do know that, right? Max would’ve never came aft—”

He steps into me, and my mouth involuntarily snaps shut. His presence is powerful and invokes my will to bend to him. Whether I want it to or not.

“Don’t pretend like fucking Archie would’ve been the end of it. The man would’ve dragged you into a life full of pain and suffering, and Max and the rest of them would’ve stood idly by while Archie destroyed you from the inside out. I saved you from that life.”

I snarl. "But he wouldn't have come after me if you didn't kill Arch."

"You're right, and that was my mistake to not take out Max when I took down the rest of Archie’s family. But I'm not going to apologize for what I did. Had I left you and Archie alone, you would've been hurt and traumatized, and I would've ended up killing him anyway. If I hadn't killed him for touching what's mine, I would've for hurting you instead. Archie's fate was sealed the moment he led you up those stairs."

"You traumatized me."

He leans down and snips, "A gun in your pussy certainly is traumatizing, little mouse, but only because I used it to make you come, not to make you bleed."

I snarl, refusing to acknowledge that. “And Mark? I would’ve never been on his radar.”

“False,” he snaps. “Mark didn’t show up at Bailey’s because of me, Adeline. And he wasn’t seated where he could get a perfect view of you because of me. I brought no attention to you whatsoever and did my best to keep him distracted, but I can’t control a man’s wandering eye. Even if you’re a decade older than his normal taste.”

I balk, disgust curling deep at his implication.

“You knew I was at Bailey’s,” I guess. “And you knew he was heading there? So why not redirect him somewhere else?”

His spine straightens. “Do you think I possess magic and can influence a man to do everything I say? I regret to inform you that I can’t.”

I tighten my lips at the condescension in his tone. “I tried to, but Mark was insistent on going to Bailey's, and trying to force him to go elsewhere would have only aroused suspicion.” He takes another step into me, crowding me against my bedroom wall. “And that’s the last thing I need when Mark’s trust in me means saving lives. Because you know what I can do, little mouse? I can protect you. And I can teach you to protect yourself. But those children and girls that are being held captive? They don’t get that privilege right now.”

My eyes drop to my toes, and all I can manage to feel is shame. He tips my chin up with his finger, and I’m too lost in thought to fight.

“You’re allowed to be angry and frustrated with your situation. You’re even allowed to be angry with my stalking you. Life strips you of power often, but what you can control is pointing the blame in the right direction. Don’t misplace Max’s and Mark’s ill intentions onto me when I’ve been doing my best to keep you safe from them. What we’ve been doing all week is to keep you safe. So, you can either redirect all the effort you’ve been putting into acting like a brat and apply it towards something useful, or you can continue to be powerless in the situations life throws you in. You choose, baby, because I’m not going to keep making these decisions for you.”

I had forgotten what it felt like to truly be scolded like a child. My mother does it often, but considering that’s all she’s ever done, it felt less like being scolded and more just like a normal conversation with her.

But now? I feel nothing but small and bent out of shape, like a piece of paper wadded up in Zade’s fist. Pride bucks against that feeling, and I want nothing more than to snap something clever back and hold on to my dignity.

I’d only be proving him right, though. He’d look at me with superiority, and I’d only shrink further beneath him.

“Okay,” I relent. “Fine. I’ll just be mad at you for being a creep then.” I pause, hating the words but knowing they need to be said. “I’m sorry for misplacing blame, but I’m not sorry for the ass beating you’re about to get.”

He suppresses a smile, but he can’t contain the emotion in his yin-yang eyes. Pride. Amusement. Something deeper and far scarier than Zade’s hand wrapping around my throat.

I don’t give myself time to panic, nor do I hand myself over to the heat he invokes, I just let my body take over. I jerk to the left, bringing my elbow down on his outstretched arm before he can blink.

His grip loosens. And I seize the moment, pouring all my frustration into my limbs. I may not be able to hate him for Max’s misplaced blame for Arch’s death or Mark’s wandering eyes, but I can use that against him in a different way. In a way that matters.

I curl my fist and swing it back into his face and then crush my elbow directly into his nose.

His head jerks back just in time, my elbow striking true but hardly enough to be gifted with a bloody nose.

He lets go and it feels like I can finally breathe. Not because he was squeezing hard enough to genuinely choke me, but because I finally succeeded.

He chuckles, deep and low, as he steps away from me. The bastard doesn’t look the least bit ruffled, but I choose not to dwell on that. If I focus on everything I didn’t do, then I’ll only be stripping myself of power.

“There you go. That was really good, baby.”

“Don’t call me that,” I mutter, but really, I feel a tinge of pride swelling deep in my chest cavity.

“Or what?” he challenges. I sigh, not having the mental capacity to spar with Zade right now. I need a hot shower and then a long soak in the bath. I refuse to bathe without washing the dirt and grime off first. I don’t like to spend hours pruning in my own dirty bath water.

He goes through the motions with me for another hour, forcing me to perform the move over and over until I’m panting, and he has a bruise forming under his eye.

Somehow, it just makes him look sexier, and I want to punch him in the face for the tenth time all over again for it.

“That’s enough for today,” he announces, smiling despite the fact that I just nailed him in the face again with my elbow.

“Good, because I need to take a shower, and you need to leave because you’re definitely not coming within six feet of that bathroom,” I grouse, planting my hands on my hips.

A smile curls his lips, slowly and salaciously, until flames lick at my cheeks again.

Bastard of a man.