Dollars (Dollar #2)(54)

Step after step, I waged war on my decision. Step after step, Elder’s face tightened as his arm fell to his side, patiently waiting.

It took a year and a day or perhaps only a second, but I reached his side, and my mind quietened all thoughts of running as he smiled. “Why didn’t you?”

I don’t know.

I dropped my head to our grimey feet.

His hand came up, then paused. His shadow on the pavement resembled the bat I’d so often been struck with; I couldn’t stop my body from cowering. My mind knew the chances of abuse were slimmer every moment I spent in Elder’s company. But my muscles didn’t speak the language of my heart and only saw a slayer ready to maim.

He hesitated with his hand outstretched between us.

Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to look up. The second my eyes met his, his hand connected with my chin, keeping my head high and at his mercy.

His jaw worked as he sorted through the words he wanted to spend. “I don’t know why you didn’t run. But I’ll tell you now, you made the right choice.” Stepping closer, his nostrils flared as my lips parted.

The attraction and almost kiss of before sprang feverish and unrequited. His fingers tightened on my jaw. “I wanted to see what you would do. If you’d run, you wouldn’t have gone far. Do you believe me?” His eyes searched mine. “I lied this morning when I said I wouldn’t chase after you. I’d chase until you gave up. I can’t let you go yet, Pim. But today has been about choices for you, and you needed to make that for yourself. Run or come to me, the outcome would’ve been the same.”

He bowed his head, his mouth tickling my ear. “You would’ve been back on the Phantom whether you liked it or not. Don’t torture yourself wondering what could’ve happened if you had run. This is what would’ve happened because there is no other choice for us.”

Letting me go, he growled. “The moment we met, our choices were stolen from us. Yours because I’ve decided to control your fate. And mine because you’ve decided to deny me what I want.” He bared his teeth. “One of these days, I’ll know who you are. You will answer my every question, and you will let me inside your mind. It’s an inevitability, not a choice, Pim. You might as well get used to that.”

I sucked in a breath as he let me go.

Berating me with his black gaze, he added, “In the meantime, let me return the favour. Allow me to show you who I am, so there is no doubt to what I expect.”

My blood scurried faster. I didn’t know how he planned to show me, but tension glimmered in the air around us, pregnant with promise.

Squirming bodies of a Chinese tour group suddenly engulfed the busy streets. They descended on the sidewalk in matching baseball hats and named lanyards.

Elder dodged to the left, forcing me to go to my right to let the two-by-two crowd slip past.

He never took his eyes off me as if expecting me to run again.

His voice kept repeating in my head, activating fear and the slightest hint of a threat. It had been a threat but unlike any I’d had before.

I’d chase until you gave up.

At the core of that was a promise to never let me go. The primal part of me liked it more than loathed it.

After tour-group-badge-twenty-two brushed by, Elder stepped toward me as I stepped toward him in perfect synchronicity. We snapped back together as if being far apart was unnatural.

It made no sense to be so aware of him when only seconds ago I’d been so close to never looking back.

His lips spread into a smirk as he held up a black wallet with a wad of Yuan currency sticking from the top. “I’ll tell you a few secrets of my own, silent one. I steal because I’m good at it. I steal because I get pleasure from it. You are my possession, and once stolen, I don’t relinquish what is mine—to anyone. And this—” he waggled the wallet— “is how easy I take things that don’t belong to me.”

My eyes widened as he opened the leather and thumbed nonchalantly through the cash.

Did he just steal that?

He didn’t care he was on a street in front of hundreds of people with property that didn’t belong to him. His body language didn’t change. He remained aloof and uncondemnable.

His thumb and forefinger pinched a colourful bill, rubbing it in a way that made my cheeks flare. Images of his fingers rubbing my nipple sprang from nowhere; only this time, it didn’t make me want to vomit.

He glanced up. “A few years ago, I would’ve stolen his money, thrown his identification and credit cards in the gutter, and run. I would’ve taken what was his because I believed I had every right to do what I needed to survive.”

He moved closer, drawing to his full height. “Just like you think you’re doing everything you have the right to do to survive.” Tapping my nose with the wallet, he whispered, “But sometimes, what you think you have the right to do isn’t the right thing at all. Sometimes, it’s wrong, and others get hurt.”

I ignored the condescending lesson he preached; my eyes darted from his, desperate to lock onto the man he’d pilfered from. Stealing me was one thing. Stealing someone’s hard earned cash just because he could was entirely another.

The babble of voices from the tour group wrenched me around.

Them.

He stole it from them.

Elder murmured in my ear. “Third man from the back. It was too easy. A small reach into his back pocket and goodbye holiday funds. What should we buy, Pimlico? Should we blow it on things we don’t deserve or donate it to another who has nothing? I could play Robin Hood, if you’re inclined.”