Cold.
No, not different. He’s just finally showing his true colors.
I point the gun at his head. “Stay away from me.”
A sliver of a smile cracks through those sensual lips that used to worship my body and whisper lies in my ears.
Taking a step closer, he challenges me. “Tatiana.” His vocal cords are rough around my name. The sound is rusted. Raw. He says it as if the syllables are new, as if he’s never uttered it before, never bit it out like a man in pain during the final throes of his pleasure when he emptied himself in me. “After all this time, are those really the first words you want to say to me?”
I glance at the doorway, praying that Jazz and Noah will come home late.
I’ve played this scenario out in my mind many times. I never had to wonder how it was going to end. Dante has never been a man who did what someone told him to do. I always knew I was going to have to shoot him. What I didn’t know was how much it would hurt. Seeing how much I hate him, the notion catches me by surprise, but there it is, a fragile remnant of regret that survived the destruction, fluttering between the hurt and hate in my heart.
He smiles wider. It’s a smile any other woman will find disarming, a dangerous smile, but its cruelty hits me right in the chest. I don’t tell him to get out of my house because he’s not going to listen. I’ll just have to let my trigger finger do the talking.
Fuck, but it hurts. Still. After all this time. A part of me can’t forget our history, but I can’t ignore what he’s done or why he’s here.
He takes another step closer.
I tighten my finger on the trigger. The resistance of the spring is both reassuring and terrifying.
Fuck.
My hands are shaking. Badly. I try to think about Noah, and then I try not to think at all. I’ve made this choice many times over—what I’d do if he found me—yet now that he stands in front of me, taking a life is harder than I thought.
Before I can come to a decision, he pounces. He’s on top of me in a wink, grabbing both my wrists in one hand and forcing them above my head while wrapping the other around my neck. My back hits the wall, the breath knocked out of my lungs. He pins me in place with his big hand like an iron vise around my throat, barely letting me drag in oxygen as he wrestles the gun from my grip. The minute my hands are free, I grab his arms, trying to pull him off me. Trying to breathe.
Not easing up on me, he flicks on the safety and slips the gun into the back of his waistband under his jacket.
His deep voice cuts through me like glass. “Is it loaded?”
I manage a nod.
He loosens his grip, giving me air without setting me free, and pulls his eyes into slits as he presses his body against mine. “Do you even know how to use it?”
He’s hard. After all this time and everything that’s passed, he wants me. My body recognizes his touch. My belly heats, remembering our chemistry. But it means nothing. It’s just a physical conditioning. The parts that matter are lies, and his reaction as well as mine only piss me off, fueling years of suppressed anger.
The fury gives me an extra spurt of strength. I try to knee him in the balls, but he sees me coming and manages to deflect the blow, which lands on his thigh. He’s distracted for just a second, long enough for me to break his hold on my neck by slamming the narrow side of my palm on his forearm.
I’m free, running for the broken-down front door because it will take too long to unlock the back door, but I only get as far as the small entryway opening into the lounge before he catches me.
For what it’s worth, I fight as he pushes me up against the wall. We’re back to how we’ve been in the kitchen with him crowding me and his hand around my neck. He’s not strangling me, but he’s not letting me breathe freely either.
I flatten my hands on his chest, trying to push him away, but he doesn’t move an inch. His muscles are like a brick wall beneath my palms.
He clicks his tongue. “Bad girl.”
“Fuck you.”
“Tsk, tsk. Some mouth you’ve got. Swearing was never part of your vocabulary.”
Glaring at him, I banish my terror to a distant corner of my being because I refuse to give him my fear.
“I asked you a question, Tatiana. Do you even know how to use that gun?”
My throat burns inside. My voice scrapes through the ache as I push an answer out with loathing. “What do you think?”
His gaze plays over my features as if he’s trying to memorize them. A wry chuckle rumbles in his chest.