Chapter 31: Zayna

Chapter Thirty-One

Zayna

Two Weeks Later

Ruger’s Cabin

S omething is wrong with Ruger. The more we sleep together, the harder it gets for him to hide his feelings from me, and he hates it. Ever since we got Eden back from Gideon and Tamiya, then arrived back at the cabin from Boston, he has barely said a word to me. He’s said more to Zeus than he’s said to me.

For two weeks. How can he possibly think I won’t notice that? He hasn’t kept his hands off me in the bedroom, but when I try to talk, he either eats me out or asks me to cuddle. How can I stay focused when he has all the perfect weapons to manipulate me to his dark will…

But I know him and tonight, after I put Eden down to bed and get Zeus curled up in his dog bed with his cow knuckle, I’ll confront him. I’ll use a knife if I have to do it. He hasn’t brought up killing Grant, which doesn’t surprise me because he didn’t go to college. I don’t have a clue where he is, but I suspect Ruger does.

He can’t expect me to live with him forever and always keep his emotions up behind a wall. Our mothers and grandmothers put up with mean ass men who did just that – hid from every feeling that crossed their hearts – and they most certainly don’t want our generation to put up with the same thing. If Ruger wants me to stay with him peacefully, he’ll have to learn.

I have weapons of my own. Closing my legs… for example. It’s hard to say ‘no’ to his tongue, but I can do all things through… Actually, that might not be exactly what Christ is strengthening me for. But I can at least strengthen myself. I can focus on his problematic and racist behaviors instead of his body.

Because that worked so well the first time, Zayna…

He storms in from wherever the hell he goes every day, visibly fuming just like I expected. He slams his helmet on the counter, grabs a beer from the fridge and disappears into the bedroom – slamming the door. Um… Hello? Eden is sleeping, first of all, so I don’t need him slamming shit all over the place.

Plus, I cooked dinner for this ungrateful man and he can most certainly smell it. I can’t let this slide. Not when I replicated the beef stew flavor concept Ruger muttered into my ear before bed last night exactly to his specifications. I did not chop all that celery to receive this disrespect. I pull the largest knife I can find out of the drawer and storm over to the bedroom.

He locked it.

Ruger has never locked a door on me. I pound on the wooden door with my fists.

“I’m busy.”

The audacity.

“Ruger, get out here. I cooked dinner.”

No response. I start pounding out a beat on the door, getting really annoying like my high school students would when I needed them to quiet down. Ruger flings the door open, but he doesn’t look angry. He looks… sad.

“What do you want, Zayna?” he asks in the most defeated voice.

“I want your stubborn ass to get out here and eat some dinner.”

I’ve never seen Ruger looking like this and it scares the crap out of me. His other emotions I understand. But sadness… that one is new.

He frowns a little and touches my lower lip. “I’ll come eat.”

Then he kisses me. If I didn’t know better, I would say that Ruger is trying to break up with me or something. I know his ass doesn’t plan on doing that now . I got a tattoo for this man. We promised each other…

The man is more handsome than he deserves to be. He has rippling muscles everywhere. Ruger’s arms are my favorite. They’re big. Long. They feel so protective wrapped around me. His lips are undeniably perfect. Visually, they don’t seem particularly impressive. They’re nice, but normal. They feel entirely different. Ruger’s lips know exactly how to touch my skin. What I feel with him is nothing short of perfect bliss. I’ve never felt like this with anyone else.

Everything I feel with Ruger is undeniably wrong. I knew exactly who he was from the moment I met him. He wore his demons right there out in the open for everyone to see with those damn bloody hands. I want to keep pushing him for answers.

Ruger's silent rage makes me far more uneasy than any outburst he might be capable of. I can feel the anger pulsing off him. His body is tense when he sits and he can't help but cast a painfully cruel sidelong glance in my direction. What the hell is his problem?

Is this why he's been quiet about the Grant situation for two weeks? Whatever the hell is going on in his crazy ass head?

"Good food," Ruger grunts, his body language softening after a couple bites. He's still enough of an animal that food tames him effectively. I like watching him eat. It's sexy as fuck when a man has an appetite and gets sauces and meat juices all over his face and beard.

I eat as much as I can while Ruger forgets himself and starts chowing down. Men. He storms around creating all that fuss just to quiet down once you put a plate of food in front of him. They call it "manipulation", but it's not like communication works on their asses.

"So," I venture after Ruger eats more than enough for dinner. He enjoys his second and third helpings, so once he has enough food to calm down his sour ass mood, I need to pounce on the opportunity to ask him... what the hell is wrong with you?

"What pissed you off so much?"

Even Zeus spent the afternoon avoiding Ruger and he is downright thirsty for his toxic ass.

Ruger's gaze flickers towards me. Ice.

"What's the point?" he snaps. "I already know the answer and when I hear what I don't want to hear... it's over between us."

The voices in Ruger's head clearly picked up a few instruments and started a band.

"What are you talking about?" I ask, trying to stay calm so I don't rile the beast. There's a small part of me that enjoys getting a rise out of Ruger, but Ruger isn’t starting up a play fight. He's serious. He can't hide the red flush in his cheeks.

He also can't hide the fact that his normal excessive eye contact has been reduced to the occasional disdainful glance. He never looked at me with this much derision before and the growing knot in my stomach just heightens my current need for his approval.

This is how it always starts with men. An angry look. Concern that I haven't pleased them enough. Too many men get off on the power they have over women emotionally. I never thought Ruger was the type but now, I'm not so sure.

I was just starting to feel safe having feelings for him. I didn't even know what these feelings were but for a brief series of days, I held some strange delusion that we could make this work after just one more death. I held my breath for two weeks, obsessively tracking the news. Both deaths reported as suicides. Neither of the families nor the police were suspicious of a thing.

Ruger made my world a little safer and now, everything about his snarling tone tells me he's going to make it all fall apart.

"I need..."

His reddening intensifies.

"To kill your ex-boyfriend."

The color vanishes from his face so quickly I feel sure I imagined the build-up of tension so visible across his sharp facial features. His brows pinch together so tightly that his face looks more like an eagle's than man's. His eyes look almost dark as he punctures me across the table with an accusatory gaze.

But accusing me of what?

I haven't thought about my ex-boyfriend Curtis in... years. He left before I got attacked. I tried to make it on my own. The attack happened. He continued painting a picture for the world on social media that his life was a total dream. Maybe it still is. I gave up on doom scrolling ex-boyfriend's profiles a long time ago.

There are more than enough circumstances in this world to feel terrible about. Nobody needs to see their ex-boyfriend winning at life when they're at their lowest.

"Why do you want to do that?"

"Fuck this," Ruger mutters and he shoves half a potato into his mouth. Men will do the dumbest shit out of anger. I calmly lay my fork on the side of my plate. I can't imagine the hell this man raised during the limited time he spent in a classroom.

I never realized my classroom management skills would do more for me in the real world than they ever did in the classroom.

"I need everyone who touched you dead."

"We broke up years before that happened."

"Fucking Christ, Zayna. Just tell me that you're still in love with him and you won't let me kill him. Be fucking honest."

I slide one of my hands under the table so I can grip the side of the teak dining chair Ruger hand carved and calm myself down enough not to lose my shit with a death grip on some wood.

"I don't love him, Ruger. I haven't seen that man in almost three years, and I don't want to see him. Ever."

Ruger glares and shoves the other half of the potato into his mouth. Does he think angrily chewing a potato at me is going to change my mind? His glaring intensifies as he tries to work out his opinion of my logic which is surely going to be wrong.

It's getting harder to be sane about this whole thing too because he clearly wants an answer and not just that... if Ruger doesn't get the answer he wants, I have no way of stopping him from ending that man's life.

His silence is intentional and his fury palpable enough that Zeus whines and runs to curl up on the dog bed in the bedroom. I hear her nails clicking against the wooden floorboards as he makes the escape that I wish I could get away with myself.

Lucky dog.

"I love you, Ruger."

He looks up at me.

"Don't say that shit to me unless you mean it. I want his life."

He gets up and storms off to the bedroom. Meat on the plate. No seconds. This man is out of his mind…

Does he think it was easy for me to say that?