Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)(44)

He laughs, but I don’t find him funny. Not at all. He hasn’t the faintest idea what it’s like being a woman, especially one in my predicament. I try not to let his flippant reaction get to me, but it stirs up a hurt I sometimes have a hard time hiding.

“Oh, woe-is-f*cking-me. Just the fact that you can make a joke about that tells me all I need to know about you and your privilege.”

“My privilege? Does this look like a face that’s privileged?”

He points to his face, to make his point, like he thinks maybe I haven’t looked at him in the last twenty seconds, like maybe I forgot what he looks like, but he still doesn’t get it.

“Yeah, it does,” I say. “I hate to break it to you, but your face isn’t a detriment. It’s not. If anything, it helps you. People take you seriously, not only because you’re a man but because you’re a man who clearly went through hell. They don’t look at you and see something broken. They see something strong, something that won’t break, because you’re still standing, despite everything. It intimidates them. They respect you for it. But if you were a woman? You’d be ruined. The world would look at you and think ‘aw, poor thing, someone broke her, she must be so weak.’ That’s what they think about a woman who has been though hell. Believe me, I know.”

“I don’t think you’re weak.“

“But you think I’m broken,” I say. “You asked me who broke me, like I’m made of glass and someone can just shatter me and scatter my pieces, like I’m that fragile. I might be hurt, I might be beat down, but I’ll be goddamn if a man will ever break me, Lorenzo. But the world can’t comprehend a woman being that strong. We’re supposed to buckle and break, like the only time we can possibly have any strength is if there’s someone with a dick standing by our side. It’s like a penis is a prerequisite for an opinion, so if I don’t have one myself, I’ve got to be utilizing someone else’s in order to have any say-so in my own f*cking life.”

He stares at me like I’m speaking some foreign language that he’s never heard before, and I’m suddenly wondering what kind of women this man spends his time with, because they certainly can’t be the type to stand up to him. “I haven’t the faintest f*cking idea what to say right now, Scarlet.”

“Of course you don’t,” I say. “You don’t know what it’s like to have to pretend to be helpless just to stay safe. There’s a reason girls yell ‘fire’ instead of ‘rape’, why we lie and say we have boyfriends instead of just saying ‘no’ when we’re not interested. Because a lot of men respect another man’s property more than they respect a woman’s right to her own body. So while I’m forced to live in a man’s world, I do what I have to do. And if that means taking my clothes off for some schmuck with a few bucks, then by golly, I’ll do it, no matter how you feel about it.”

I get up, to leave, because he’s really touching a nerve right now and I’m dangerously close to doing something insanely stupid, like trying to fling him off of the roof. Wrapping my arms around my chest, my fishnet-covered feet trudge a few steps toward the door back down to my apartment when his voice calls out. “I get it.”

I stall, turning around. “Do you?”

“Mimicry,” he says, swinging around to face me. “You be whoever they need you to be.”

Exactly.

“And I didn’t mean to hurt you when I said you were broken,” he continues. “It’s just a word, you know. Broken. Just a f*cking word. Hell, you can call me broken if you want. You can call me anything.”

“Except Scar?”

He reacts as soon as I say it, body tensing, hands clenching in his lap. “You can call me that, too, if that’s what you really want. Doesn’t make a bit of damn difference.”

“You say that as you make fists, like you want to punch me for it.”

“Maybe I do,” he says, standing up, strolling toward me. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to, though. It’s a free country, Scarlet. Choose your own adventure. If you’d rather keep bending over for with these yellow-bellied motherf*ckers, I won’t begrudge you for it. But if you want to try something else, I’m sure I can find a place for you.”

“I won’t f*ck you.”

“We’ve already f*cked.”

“I mean I won’t be your whore,” I say. “So don’t think I’m some thing you can just have or use or pass around. Nobody touches me without my permission, so don’t think—”

“I don’t think it,” he says, cutting me off. “Wasn’t my intention. You’ve got other assets, you know… * isn’t the only thing you’ve got going for you.” He grabs my wrist, pulling my arm up, his thumb pressing against the pulse point beneath my tattoo. I can tell it annoys him, not knowing what it stands for. “You’re smart… stealthy… sharp... am I even getting close?”

I shake my head.

His cheek twitches. “Regardless, you are. You’re slick, Scarlet, and I don’t mean that in the wet * kind of way, although, well…” He pauses as he looks me over, like he’s lost his train of thought, before he shakes it off, letting go of my wrist. “I’m just saying sex isn’t all you’re good for. You don’t want to f*ck me? That’s fine. Under no circumstances is f*cking me a requirement. But I’ve seen what you’re capable of. So maybe you’re right, about being a woman. I don’t know, because I’m not one. Maybe, to make it on these streets, you need someone in your corner. In that case, you need to reassess who that someone is, because if they’re not taking you seriously, Scarlet? If they don’t see you for the threat you are? They’re doing you no goddamn good, because when trouble comes, they buckle, baby. They’re the ones who aren’t strong.”