ANNASOPHIA
“Stop yelling,” Nicholas hisses stop in a low, poisonous tone that spews into my stomach and eats away the lining.
Do not throw up.
“Okay, okay.” Alexandra holds up both hands. “No yelling. I promise.”
“Your promises are worth shit.” His nostrils flare and his eyes narrow to slits. He makes a rude noise in the back of his throat—as if he’s about to hawk up something obscene. “You’re only saying you love me to protect your family.”
Eyes averted from Nicholas’s soulless gaze, Alexandra gnaws her bottom lip.
“Out of lies, Alexandra?” He snatches a handful of Magnus’s hair.
Magnus squeaks and squinches his eyes shut again. Tears pour down his cheeks. Anastaysa presses a fist against her mouth. I don’t dare move.
More to the truth? I can’t move. It’s as if I am paralyzed by Nicholas’s venom. Blood has drained from Anastaysa’s face. Will he shoot her if she faints? Will he shoot me if I do more than stand straighter? Staring at his steady hold on the gun, I lick my lips.
“Better lies than bullying someone half your size,” Alexandra snipes.
He flinches as if she has slapped him. My heart jumps, and I detect a small tremor in his right hand. He’s a split second away from shooting Alexandra.
“Nicholas,” I speak in the disappointed tone I use with Molly when she steals a piece of meat off the kitchen counter or chews off the heels on my favorite shoes. “Magnus is a little boy. None of this is his fault.”
“We agree, Mrs. R.” With a mean, nasty smile he yanks a smaller patch of Magnus’s hair and pinches his damp cheek. “Now shut up. Alexandra’s about to profess her undying love.”
“Profess or show?” she asks.
I inhale, hold my breath. Is she really oblivious to his hatred?
“If you want show, let’s get in your car and leave.”
His laugh carries no humor. “So your mother can call the cops?”
“We can gag and tie all three of them.”
“Which means I have to let you out of my sight to get gags and rope,” he drawls.
“Duct tape.” She smiles a just-between-us-two smile. “I know where AnnaSophia keeps it in the garage.”
“I still have to trust you. Which I don’t. Not even when you stand in front of my nose. So if I can’t see you …” He wiggles his eyebrows twice and smirks.
Her princess-smile evaporates, replaced by a princess-pout. “And I have to trust you not to shoot anyone for the minute and a half I’m gone.”
Teenage-predators, they stare at each other with a sudden spike of hormones fueling their primitive, reptile brains. My fight instinct slams into high gear.
Instantly, their stare-a-thon shifts focus. Their tunnel vision lasers in on me. They watch my pulse gyrate. They study the wild rise and fall of my chest. Tiny drops of sweat bead my upper lip and dot my forehead. I sit motionless.
Careful. Careful. Careful. They want me to make a kamikaze-move. To do something stupid. To give Nicholas an excuse to fire the gun pointed at the center of my belly.
His eyes are hot, but his hand remains steady.
My mind goes empty. I grit my teeth against the tremor stutter-stepping up my spine.