Twisted (Never After #4)(70)

My thumb presses against her heel. “I’m sure you’ll give it whether I want it or not.”

A thoughtful look passes over her face. “If your mother’s as sick as she says she is, then you should try to work out whatever you two have going on before it’s too late.”

My hands stop their motion, dropping her foot back to the couch. “Advice not taken, thanks.”

She scoffs, crossing her arms. “She said she was dying, Julian. People do weird things when they’re facing their own mortality. Look at my father.” Her voice softens at the end, a sad look ghosting across her eyes. “You can talk to me, you know? If you’re struggling with her being sick. If anyone knows what that’s like, it’s me.”

She leans in, her arm reaching out for mine. I jerk back, and she sighs and drops her hand.

“She’s been dying for twenty years.”

Yasmin gasps. “What?”

“She’s a liar, gattina. A fake. She’ll do anything to get what she wants.”

Her gaze narrows into slits. “Wow, must run in the family then.”

She’s not wrong. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and everything I am, the people I’ve had to hurt in order to get to where I am, are only because of the ones who raised me. I am my mother’s son. In almost every way.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, her statement sending irrational anger surging through me. “You should go to your room.” Deadly silence.

And then a shoe flies toward me, missing me by an inch. My back slams into the arm of the couch and I look at her, unamused.

“Real mature.”

“I’m so sick of you telling me what to do,” she grits out.

“There’s the little brat who’s been missing.” I cross my arms. “I was wondering when you’d stop pretending you were some well-mannered woman and let your true colors shine through.”

“Oh, well, forgive the fuck out of me,” she spits, leaning forward until she’s close enough to jab her finger into my chest. “Sue me for trying to make the best out of the cards I’ve been dealt. The cards you’ve dealt me.”

I stay stoic, looking down at her from where she’s practically on top of me, telling myself that she’s not worth my time. That she’s nothing more than a necessary and temporary annoyance. Even though the heat of her body has my cock growing hard and my hands tensing with the urge to grip her by the hips and show her just how much I could make her enjoy being told what to do.

“God forbid I try to make this shitty situation that you put me in more bearable. Do you know what it’s like?” Her voice breaks and she drops her finger, closing it into a fist and slamming it into her own chest, digging in like she can rip out the hurt herself. “My father is dying, Julian. He’s really, he—he’s dying. And all I want to do, all I can think about doing, is being with him. But instead, I’m here, getting wrapped up in you, the person I’m supposed to hate.”

She sniffs, and I clench my jaw, my hands curling into fists at my sides to keep from reaching out.

“Life is so tough, isn’t it, gattina? Such a hardship to be so spoiled.”

“And that’s the fucked-up part, isn’t it?” she cuts in. “I know. I am spoiled. I never had to learn to drive. I never had to learn to cook or how to fold my own clothes. I never once had to worry about learning a life skill or a trade because why would I ever, in a million years, need to work for a living? And that is a prison in itself. It feels like I’m stuck at the top of a bell tower, hidden away, and never let out to see the light. If you can’t see that, if you’re not capable of empathizing, then I don’t know why I’m even talking.”

I clench my jaw.

“My father tried to auction me off to the first prick who came along, because he knew I wouldn’t be able to make it on my own,” she continues. “And he’s right. And I bet you love that, don’t you? Having me here at your mercy and knowing I can’t do shit for myself.”

“Poor little rich girl,” I hiss, leaning in until our gazes lock. “You have no clue what it means to struggle, no idea what real trauma is. So sorry you’ve had to deal with your caring father while living in a twenty-thousand- square-foot mansion, handing you the world, and having him love you too much to want to leave you.”

Tears well in her eyes, making them even more beautiful. More raw, maybe.

“Truly, how can you survive it?” I ask, my voice rising with sarcasm. “Must be so hard having a stable, healthy relationship with him.”

“Don’t take it out on me because you treat your mother like shit,” she bites back. “Let me tell you something, Julian. If you don’t make amends now, if you don’t at least try, when she does die? You’ll regret it the rest of your life.” She pauses, looking at me with disgust. “But I guess it’s to be expected from a man who bleeds evil.”

“That’s a little dramatic,” I reply.

She reaches out to push against me.

I grab her wrists instead, locking her in place against my chest. “You’re the devil, Julian Faraci. And I hope you burn in hell.”

I press in close, until my torso barely ghosts across her body, rage pulsing through my body to the beat of my heart, filling up my bloodstream until I’m seeing nothing but red.