Haunting-Adeline

We’ve been doing this all week. Now that Mark has set his eyes on me,
Zade is paranoid that I will go missing in the dead of night.
I’ve seen his eyes crease with worry when he explains the possible
threat looming over my head. A threat far more serious than Max and his
cronies.
Zade’s men have been lingering outside my place, and I get the feeling
they’ve been there since the moment I walked out of Mark’s house. I
hadn’t no ced them un l a few days ago, and my lack of awareness did
knock some sense into me.
The frustra on of my situa on mounts as I fail once more at breaking
free of Zade’s chokehold. I wouldn’t need to know any of this shit if Zade
would’ve just le me alone. Let me live my life in peace and blissful
ignorance of the terrors of the world surrounding me.
I was happy. Bored, but happy.
And now my very own stalker is teaching me self-defense moves. Not
against himself, but his enemies. The irony is not lost on me, unlike my
success in not ge ng choked to death.
“This is all your fault, you know,” I hiss, a bead of sweat dripping into my
eye. The burn is minuscule compared to the fire raging in my chest.
Zade s lls, and his eyes study me closely. “Is it?” he counters.
“You pretend like you care about me, or whatever you convince yourself
that you feel for me, but I’ve been in danger because of you. You do know
that, right? Max would’ve never came a —”
He steps into me, and my mouth involuntarily snaps shut. His presence is
powerful and invokes my will to bend to him. Whether I want it to or not.
“Don’t pretend like fucking Archie would’ve been the end of it. The man
would’ve dragged you into a life full of pain and suffering, and Max and the
rest of them would’ve stood idly by while Archie destroyed you from the
inside out. I saved you from that life.”
I snarl. "But he wouldn't have come a er me if you didn't kill Arch."
"You're right, and that was my mistake to not take out Max when I took
down the rest of Archie’s family. But I'm not going to apologize for what I
did. Had I le you and Archie alone, you would've been hurt and
trauma zed, and I would've ended up killing him anyway. If I hadn't killed
him for touching what's mine, I would've for hur ng you instead. Archie's
fate was sealed the moment he led you up those stairs."