Page 67

"I will not live my life in fear of what might happen."

Her thumb extends, and this time her voice lowers. Not softer. Sharper.

"And you do not get to go behind my back and make decisions that affect my job, my income and my life because you're scared due to what happened to your sister."

The room goes so quiet I hear the refrigerator kick on in the kitchen.

But I can't stop looking at Violet. At the bruise still shadowing her mouth and cheek. The pain behind her eyes from the headache she won't acknowledge but took meds to ease. The tension in her shoulders. Her chin is jutted up like that hand, looking stubborn and battle ready.

"I was trying to keep you safe."

"I know."

Her eyes flash with pain, and somehow that makes it worse.

"And if you'd talked to me, I might have listened and agreed to change my hours for a few nights. I might have let Jas come help me with closing while Ty placed more guys at the door. But you didn't ask. You decided for me, and that is not okay."

Because asking her would've given her room to say no. And God help me, I know it.

Jasmine folds her arms. "She's not wrong."

I shoot her a look.

She lifts both hands. "Don't glare at me. I'm not the one who called her boss like she was a grounded teenager."

Violet's laugh is short and humorless. "Exactly."

Ty clears his throat. "For the record, I didn't fire you."

Violet turns that look on him next. "You let him think he decided for me when you didn't argue."

Ty winces. "Fair. But I was drugged and in the hospital. I would've agreed to just about anything right then."

"Vi—"

"No."

She cuts me off before I can say more. Try to soften what I did. Explain it. Excuse it. Because if she saw herself that night…

"You don't get to take the only thing that still feels normal away and call it protection. Things happen, Sully. People get robbed. Then life moves on."

The words land like a punch.

She's right. Life does move on. Slowly. Painfully. The loss growing every day my sister isn't here to experience the life she should've had. The one that could have been taken from Violet all too easily.

"I will not allow you or any man to dictate what I do with my life," she says in a firm voice belied by a trembling chin. "I will not be kept in a cage."

That shuts me up. Completely. Because there is no defense to that. To making her feel that way. Especially knowing her past. She makes me sound like the very thing I swore I'd never be—him. The so-called man who killed my sister—and Violet's pathetic ex.

All the jerks the world over who think because they are bigger and stronger or yell louder, they can do whatever they want.

I lost control and tried to dictate her life in a different way—just like them.

The air between us changes. Thins. She meets my gaze with one that says this is a take-it-or-leave-it moment. Take her as she is or end us before we even get a true beginning free from our pasts.

"We can make a plan," Ty says softly.

My silence is loud and troubled. I know it, but I can't bring myself to speak. Because if I agree, and something happens to her…