“There was blood and glass all over you,” Jase says. “I didn’t look, I swear.”

I relax a little, detecting no animosity or suspicion in his voice. Then I hear a knock at the door and jump to my feet, the room whirling instantly around me. I grab the bedhead to steady myself, looking down at what I’m wearing. If Dornan sees me in his son’s underwear…

“Is that him?” I ask worriedly.

Jase sighs. “Sammi, for God’s sake, lay down, okay? It’s just the pizza guy bringing some dinner. Dornan’ll be back in a couple hours.” He points at the bed and waits for me to lie down again before he leaves the room. I smooth the covers over my lap as I wait, fiddling with a single loose thread of cotton. A whole day with Jase, and no Dornan. The thought makes me feel anxious, and delighted, and exhausted all at once..

He comes back in a few moments later, balancing boxes of pizza in one hand and a handful of dollar bills with the other. He shoves the money in his jeans pocket and brings the pizzas over to the bed, arranging the boxes on the empty side next to where I lay. The smell of tomato sauce and garlic invades my nostrils and I can feel my mouth watering.

“Pepperoni or cheese?” he asks me.

“Pepperoni, please,” I respond, and he hands me a napkin with a large slice of the best looking pizza I’ve ever laid eyes on resting on top. I take a massive bite and struggle to chew it, my mouth is so full. It tastes divine.

Jase eats slowly; he’s clearly eaten since breakfast. We don’t speak until I have downed four slices and am considering a fifth. Jase has finished and is sitting patiently in the chair beside me. I can feel him watching, waiting to broach something with me.

“What?” I ask him.

“What, what?” he responds, a look of amusement on his face. I smile, feeling a lot better after eating.

“You look like you have a burning question for me,” I say, looking around for some water.

“I have lots of burning questions for you,” Jase says, slouching down in his seat, his feet resting on the edge of the bed frame. “I just don’t think you’ll like any of them.”

I am feeling talkative, despite my secrets. “Go ahead. Ask me something.”

Ask me if my name is Juliette and I might say yes. Ask me to kiss you again and I’ll do it. Ask me to run away with you and I just might.

“Where are your family?” he asks, sitting up in the chair.

Predictable. “Dead,” I reply. Technically, it’s not a lie. Dad is dead. Mom might as well be.

“How?”

The easiest answer. “Car accident.”

He nods. “I’m sorry.”

I shrug. “Why? You didn’t kill them.”

He rolls his eyes. “I meant I’m sorry for your loss. My mother was killed as well.”

“Was killed,” I echo, even though I already know what happened. “Like, on purpose?”

His eyes cloud over and for a moment he’s somewhere else. Then, he blinks, and the cloud lifts. He nods. “On purpose.”

I eye him warily. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I say.

He shrugs. “I’m sure my dad will tell you eventually. When she found out she was pregnant with me, she left the club and went back to her family in Colorado. Somehow, Dornan found out about me when I was fifteen. I came home from school one day and she was dead in the bathtub.” He seems detached from his story as he is telling me, and I can only assume it is because he is numb after all of the horror of the past years. I can’t help but remember the shy, angry boy who showed up with the title of Dornan’s long-lost seventh son when I was thirteen and stole my heart.

I study his face, chewing on my lip as he surveys me wearily.

“What happened last night?” he repeats the same question he asked me when he found me last night, bleeding and naked.

I think for a moment before I respond. “Your father told me he thought I would be a good mother for another son. Or daughter,” I almost choke on the words, they’re so bitter. “I tried to say otherwise and he got mad. Plus, he’s suddenly realized that I remind him of his dead girlfriend.”

Jase pales. He doesn’t say anything for a little while.

“You look a lot like her,” he says finally. “It’s almost frightening. The eyes are different, but your hair, your face,” his eyes slide down to my chest and quickly back to my eyes. “It’s uncanny.”

“What happened to her?” I ask softly. I know she died, and I know what Dornan said about beheading her, but I don’t really know what happened. Why she and my father weren’t able to make their escape with us.

Why it all went so horribly wrong.

“She tried to leave him,” he says. “I think he would have let her go, if she’d just disappeared, but…“

“But what?” I press.

“But she tried to take me with her,” he says finally. “It’s my fault she died. It’s my fault they all died.” He looks defeated as he ends that sentence, his eyes tired and turned down at the edges, his teeth grinding on each other as he flexes his jaw.

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” I say. “It just seems that way to you because you were the one left behind to deal with it all.”

He shrugs. “Everyone I love, dies. So I live alone, and I keep to myself, mostly.”

Such a jaded way to be. “That’s so sad,” I say softly. “What about your father, though? Your brothers? They’re family, too.”

If looks could kill, I’d be diced into little pieces right now under Jase’s scathing gaze. “You mean, my father who stabbed you because you look like a dead woman? Or my brothers, who are animals?”

“Sorry,” I say.

“You don’t know anything about this family,” he says passionately, shaking his head. “You should’ve just stayed the hell away from all of us.”

“Well, it’s too late now,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “I may as well enjoy the ride.”

Jase just shakes his head, my pun clearly lost on him. I care so much, I want to fling myself open and tell him every dirty little secret my soul is keeping trapped behind a wall of fiery lies and deceit.

But I can’t. Not because I don’t trust him, because it’s clear to me now that he’s a reluctant prisoner in this family, even more than I am.

I can’t tell him because I can’t bear for him to know what I’ve done. I can’t bear to see the disgust on his face when he knows that the girl fucking his father and picking off his brothers one by one is the same girl sitting in front of him.

But more than those reasons, I can’t bear to tell him because I know what he will do. He will want to run away. He’s a lover, not a fighter, and he doesn’t have it in him to kill them all. He might hate them but he’s not a murderer.

I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.

And then, of course, there’s that tiny seed of doubt that lurks in the darkest corner of my mind. The possibility that he won’t understand.

The possibility that, once he finds out how I’ve deceived him and killed his brother, he’ll side with Dornan.

Nothing is more terrifying than that thought.

“Can I ask you a question now?” I ask, my heart beating faster at the thought.

Jase shrugs. “Sure. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer, though.”

I take a deep breath, my heart buzzing nervously in my ears. I can fuck Dornan’s brains out and feel nothing, yet whenever I’m around Jase, it’s like fireworks every single time.

“Why did you kiss me?” I ask boldly.

Jase laughs mirthlessly, cocking his head to one side as he considers my question.

“Why do most people kiss other people?” he asks.

I shake my head, a small smile playing on my lips. “That’s not fair,” I say, wriggling to the edge of the bed so that I am facing him squarely, our feet almost touching. “You can’t answer a question with a question.”

He shrugs, an amused smile dancing on his gorgeous lips. I can’t help it. I reach my hand out and cup his chin, brushing my thumb against his bottom lip. He stares at me, his expression unreadable, and I can’t help but feel like we’re falling into an abyss that neither of us will make it back out of. Not intact, anyway. I might have a new face but I still have the same heart. He might have lost me once but I’m still his, and he is still mine.