The Blackmail Bride

Chapter 13

It's me! Crawling out of the hole they call adulthood.

Good day!

Answers

I had thought one thing when I dropped those words. It was simply to throw him off. Just to get him off my back.

And instead. We were thrust into this deepening silence. Those gunmetal eyes steeling the longer they stared at me.

Tears were still quietly slipping down my cheeks. And was it my imagination? His grip on my arms tightened, trapping me even more securely as if I'd previously had a chance.

But what scared me was his expression. How still he was suddenly being. His eyebrows twitched in the slightest. A muscle jumping on that angled jaw. And I knew, the wheels turned in that mind. Jace Black was wiser than he let the world know.

It was enough to know that whatever his next words would be, I had to dodge.

My hands lifted frantically, pushing against the solid wall of his chest for the nth time. Only to watch how inhuman it was that he did not budge. Not in the least. With his chiseled face blanked as he watched my futile attempts.

His words were slowly carved in the next statement. "I found your weakness, didn't I?"

My eyes widened at that. I snatched back my hands as if I was burned and pushed myself against the wall behind me.

This should not be happening.

The calculating gaze followed my movements. Two predatory gray eyes dilating at the tiniest actions. Before they flicked back to my ashen face.

"Got you."

Jace Black made it sound like a game. A contest. But my brain, it scrambled, went into survival mode. It took the position of a prey and went into the two base instincts it knew.

Fight or flight? Flight was not in the options.

I was suddenly feeling furious. Furious at myself for that irrational fear. Furious at my parents again for getting me into this situation. And mostly, just furious at this person in front of me. Jace Black wasn't someone I could understand no matter how I tried. He was just a feast of confusion that the world repeatedly served me. And I hated him the most right now.

I think he saw. The building anger I was suddenly harboring. And he responded with arching a single brow.

My hackles raised, the blood rushing to my head, "Why can't you just... leave me. The. Hell. Alone?!"

The answer I was given was something I would have never expected in a million years.

He smirked, humorless, "Why? Is that what your parents do?"

I wondered if he knew what he was doing. Or was it just rotten luck on my part that this person knew where to wedge the knife. So effortlessly at that.

Slap.

My palm stung. His face snapped to the side.

I had never done that in my entire life. A part of me found sick satisfaction at seeing blood at the corner of his lips. And it scared me that I thought of a few other people that would also have deserved it too. The feeling was slightly euphoric...

Until I heard the snickers coming from the man I just slapped. And that head turned back to me.

"So this little mouse could scratch."

My hand raised to hit him for a second time. But he was quick now. Snatching my wrist and pinning it to the wall beside my head.

His gray eyes were darker, angry.