LOVE? NEVER | ✓

Chapter Twenty - Three

"Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison us, it enslaves us. When we try to  understand it, it leaves us lost and confused." - Paulo Coelho

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"Why are you here?" Jonathan questioned, his face blank and fearless.

"To protect her from you."

"She doesn't need protection."

"Stop acting fucking dumb," I faced him, lifting my chin a little as he stood up from where he was sitting.

"What did you say?" he came closer to me and growled.

I smirked, "Stop. Acting. Fucking. Stupid, Jonathan."

He held my face with his hand and looked into my eyes. "You listen to me, kid," he started, his grip tightening with every word. "This is my daughter we're talking about, she is not leaving this house, she is not going with you anywhere, and she definitely doesn't need your protection."

"You can't control her life."

"Oh, but I am," a gin played its way to his thin lips.

I glared at him, holding his hand with mine and moving it away quickly before he reacts. I stood up, towering over him with my height. "Stop eradicating her personality!" I yelled. "What are you trying to do? Kill her presence from society?! Eliminate every option of her living normally?!"

He didn't reply.

"You think what you're doing is healthy? Or at least normal?!"I yelled, throwing my hands in the air. "Everything happens for a reason, and I pray for your reason to be worth what you're doing! I don't know what the hell you've been through, but letting it all blow on her is never the solution! It wi—"

"Shut up!" he shouted, his hands moved to grab something from his back. Seconds after, a gun with an attached silencer, was pointed to my forehead.

His hand was steady around it, and his finger was ready to push the trigger and shoot.

"Don't cross your limits," he said, his eyes never leaving mine. "I can end your life in a blink. One single blink, and you'll only be a dead body in my office."

I suppose I should have feared him. Sweat and shake from how much his gun terrified me.

But I wasn't intimidated.

Not one bit.

I looked at him, numbness overruling my body and expanding in my chest increasingly with the passing seconds. I couldn't feel anything. I don't know if I was breathing, or what I was thinking.

I only remember seeing his lips moving with whatever he was saying to me. I remember seeing his face redden with anger, and his eyes almost bulging when I didn't respond to his threats.

And I remember one more thing.

I remember Rose barging inside the room and standing in front of me, not very close...a technique I learned through the years.

She stood a step away from me, so that the gun's target can be hidden behind her enlarged presence in front of the shooter.

"What are you doing?" my tongue let the words out automatically.

She waved her hand dismissively, silencing me.

"Don't do this," she said to Jonathan, who stood there shocked with what she did. "He doesn't deserve that."