“But?” I prompt, my hands digging into the granite as fear surges through me. I hate fear, it makes us weak. She makes me weak.
“But…how can I be completely happy as a captive? Don’t you want me to choose you? To not need you, but want you? I’ve lived my own life, I have my own place, my own business. I earn my own money and pay my bills and buy the shit I want. I’m not rich, but I’m comfortable. I learned to change bulbs, to mow the fucking grass, to change a goddamn tire. To build furniture, to travel and be alone. In all that, I learned I didn’t need a man to be with me, to do things for me, I could do it for myself. Nothing is too difficult, you can always find a way. But that means, when I’m with someone…when I choose someone, it’s because I want them. Not because I need them for something, because I have to be with them, but because I can be with them. Don’t you want that?”
It’s my greatest fear and what I knew from the start. Why I tried to stay away. Roxxane wants to be free. From us. To leave…but would she come back? She’s asking for that choice, and who am I to keep that from her? If I truly care for her, surely I should let her choose us. But what if she doesn’t? D will never let her go, it would break Kenzo’s heart, and Garrett—fuck, he’s finally letting someone in again, trying to heal.
She would kill us all, and break everything we have worked so hard for.
But the other option is that she will slowly begin to hate us again when the glamour and kindness isn’t enough, when we aren’t enough to stop that hate, the hate from having her own choices taken away. After all, isn’t that what her father did? She despises the man. Are we any better than him?
We aren’t good men, we’re criminals, but for her? Could we do something good, just this once?
I turn around and start making the food, debating my answer.
“Ry?” she whispers. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, I really don’t. At first I did, I hated you all, and I think a part of me probably still does, but I also care. D told me something which makes sense now. If I really hated you, I would have killed you that first night, and he’s right. I’m strong, I know that, I could have killed you, I had plenty of opportunity. But I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to earn my freedom that way. But like D’s name for me, I am a bird, I need my wings. I need my freedom. It was taken from me as a child, I lived in constant fear and hatred so strong it warped me, and when I was free? I could be me, I found who I was. I don’t want to lose that again. I don’t want to hate you.” Her words end on a whisper, and I shiver.
“I don’t want you to either,” I tell her, “but I don’t know how to let you go.”
“I know.” She sighs before her arms wrap around me from behind. “I’m your worst nightmare, Ryder Viper, something you never saw coming. Something you can’t control.”
I grip her hands to my stomach as I lean into her. She’s right. But she’s also the best thing to happen to us. She’s filled with such life, such capability for laughter and joy. She brings out the best in us and accepts the worst. Could I love her?
And if I do…
Can I really deny her?
Could I bear for her to actually hate us in the future? Like my mother hated my father?
“Maybe I’m more like him than I want to admit.” I sigh.
“Like who?” she questions.
“My father. I know you know some about him, but he was a bastard, love. A true bastard. He moulded me to be like him, but what if I am? What if all that moulding, all those lessons, made me into the very thing I fucking hate? Kenzo sees it, so do you. I am capable of such destruction, such vile acts, yet I excuse it with the need to save my family. Yet here you are, my prisoner, and I don’t want to let you go. I want you to ourselves, to lock you away in here so no other can ever have you. Just like he did to my mother. Am I doomed to repeat his mistakes?”
She’s quiet for a moment. “Am I doomed to repeat my father’s actions?” she counters. “To be a person so weak and cruel? I don’t know, I could be. But I think the fact we are worried about it shows that we won’t, because we don’t want to be, because we are aware. Yes, you can be cruel, cold, and manipulative. I can be mean, a bitch, and cruel too. But that doesn’t make us them. It makes us, us. Stop fighting who you are, Ryder, stop fearing who you might find if you do. You never know, you might even discover you love yourself.” She pulls away then, and I let her go, because I have to.
I could keep her here with me, but that might kill the part of her I love. The strong, crazy, unpredictable Viper, because that’s what she is—one of us. There is no use denying it, I knew it when I first saw her. Which is why I was so afraid. Because if she is one of us…what happens when she leaves?
I’ve done some evil shit in my life. I’ve stepped on people. I’ve killed them. I’ve destroyed their lives and families and businesses without a blink. My hands are covered in more blood than she could ever imagine. All for them. My family.
So what will I do for her?
Everything.
It comes to me easily. I would do anything. Everything. I would burn this whole fucking city to the ground and find her in the cinders. I would kill, I would steal, I would lie. But what about letting her go?
Can I do that?
To everyone else, we are the villains, we are the evil in this city. Men immersed in power and money. We are the ones they fear, whom they hide away from. Yet she doesn’t, she basks in it. What if I kept her? Here, forever? Would that really be so bad?
I’m turning to grab the pasta cutter when something hits me in the face. Coughing, I swipe away the white powder and spin to see Roxxane laughing, holding a bag of flour in her hand. She smirks at me, the one that makes me want to do bad things to her. One smile, and it pushes away all my demons that are longing to be free.
“Run,” I snap.
She giggles and backs away.
“Run, love,” I warn, as I prowl around the island towards her. Laughing harder, she tries to escape, but I grab her, capture her again, and yank her to me. “You should have run faster,” I murmur in her ear.
“Maybe I wanted to be caught.” She laughs as she wiggles, trying to break free.
Grabbing the eggs from the side, I crack one open right over her hair. She screams and lurches away. Watching it drip down her face, I can’t help but laugh. Her nostrils flare, her eyes narrowed. “Oh, you’re dead. Now it’s your turn to fucking run!”
She grabs the butter on the side and throws it at me. Ducking, I chuckle as I grab some pasta and lob it at her. She screams and chases me with some milk, making me laugh as I swerve and avoid her. She turns to snatch something else, and I wrap my arms around her waist from behind. “Truce,” I cry out with a chuckle as she kicks and laughs.
Stilling, she giggles and leans back into me. I turn her in my arms and grin down at her as I brush away a scraggly strand of egg-covered hair. She smiles up at me, her dark eyes shining with happiness. How did she do that?
She set me free from my demons without even trying. Never has this home had such laughter or happiness. It echoes around these silent, miserable walls, filling it with life. Filling it with her.
Flour covers my face, I have food in my hair and on my clothing, and I’m smiling so large, I don’t remember the last time I kissed her. A desperate, clinging kiss. A goodbye, because I know now. I have to let her go.
Even if she doesn’t come back to us.
Because Roxxane was never meant to be locked away. She is meant to be free, wild, and uncontrolled. Even now, with laughter on our lips and happiness coating her expression, I know she’s pondering if she would really be here if she had a choice.
She’s too strong, too fucking strong for this.
If she chooses this life, I could accept it, but she didn’t, she had no choice, and I have to give her that. Even if it ruins my family.
Even if it means the end of the Vipers.
I have to let her go.
Chapter Thirty-Six
ROXY
I slept in Ryder’s arms again last night, after we had showered of course. At least he stopped working for a little bit, even if the conversation did turn dark. So when I wake up and he’s gone, I’m not surprised to find a note on his pillow.
See you soon. Behave.
Asshole. With a smirk, I slip into one of his shirts and then freeze, recalling our conversation last night. Was he really contemplating letting me go? I don’t know, but if he does…will I leave? I’ve gotten used to living here, and I really do care for them…they make me feel alive, they make me happy, but can happiness, can love, really happen when I had no choice?