ᴀᴘʜʀᴏᴅɪᴛᴇ // $ᴜɪᴄɪᴅᴇʙᴏʏ$

Chapter Thirty Three

APHRODITE

The next afternoon, I was fighting with my hair, trying to make it look more like clean, natural waves than the coarse rat's nest it had turned into after a few days of not washing it. I only washed my hair three times a week; otherwise it would begin to slowly fall out strand by strand and thin.

I sighed at my reflection and gave up. I wished I could go to the salon and get my hair done, just like I used to sometimes when Aristos would leave the house before Scott took me away. I wanted to get my hair washed, wanted to get my eyebrows done, and go to the lady who always waxed me. I wanted to do all those girly things I never got to do under my mom's rule growing up, because I was simply not allowed to seem more attractive than her, not allowed to participate in what the beauty industry had to offer women. I knew that I was somewhat obsessed with that world because of my deprivation of it while living with my mom. But I didn't care. I'd found that I loved it and fit in perfectly.

If I had chosen a different career, I would have chosen something involving the beauty world I loved. Maybe, in another life, I would have been an esthetician or a fancy make-up artist. Or maybe I would have been a great hair stylist.

I stared at my own hair in the mirror and decided maybe that wasn't the road for me. But if I had chosen the beauty field, maybe I would have moved to a different state and I wouldn't be where I was now, locked away with a man my state was hunting, a man who ruthlessly killed. A man who, even knowing all of that, would sneak his way into my thoughts all throughout the day.

If I had decided to join the beauty industry, would I be doing something completely different right now? Or would fate somehow have handed me the same deck of cards that had brought Aristos and Scott to me, and seal my place with them? Would I still be standing here, thinking of them, if I hadn't stayed in Louisiana?

But, I told myself, it was useless to think of the what-could-have-beens. There was no room in my mind for contemplations of that nature. The cards had been dealt and the decisions had been made. The only thing left to do was to somehow make life work.

How could I make this new life of mine work when there were so many problems with it? I stared into my green eyes in the mirror. I dressed myself earlier in a pair of black skinny jeans with my boots, my torso covered in a tight navy blue long-sleeved shirt. My lips were dark red, painted so that the chill wouldn't chap them. I may not have been able to help how my hair behaved, but I would be damned if I got chapped lips. I shook my waves a little to fluff them, made them look somewhat presentable, just as Jerry entered my broken doorway, and I noticed a gun at his hip. I was surprised at his sudden presence.

I found myself eyeing him slightly; wondering if this was the man who snuck into my bedroom to leave the threatening note. I hadn't received any others after the last one. And because I knew that my mysterious messenger was someone inside Scott's group, I found that I was acting suspicious around them now instead of indifferently like I used to.

But, in this world, no one could be trusted.

Just like I did every time I came across one of Scott's men for whatever reason, I stood fearless before them, showing them that I wouldn't cower just because they were armed and stronger than I was. There were bigger and scarier things to fear than a simple man. "Does he want me?" I asked Jerry.

He nodded and stepped back from the door so that I could pass him. I knew that Scott wanted me to remain untouched by any of them. None of them had ever harassed me before because Scott told them what would become of them if I were to be harmed, simply because I was valuable to him at the moment, whatever he meant by that. And they listened to him.

I walked down the small hallway from the bedroom leading to the weapon room and common room of the warehouse, my black boots tapping along the concrete as I made my way to the door that lead outside.