“Is it true you picked the victims for your father?”

“Why have you come to questioning?”

“Is it true that you escaped the Witness Protection Program to join an extremist jihadist group?”

“What’s your comment on your father’s accusations?”

“Will you stick to your initial statement or are you going to change it?”

“Were you diagnosed with an antisocial disorder when you were young?”

Their words muffle into each other, and it takes everything in me to stay in the present. The flashing of cameras keep throwing me back to eleven years ago.

“Murderer! Murderer!” A group of people protest at the side of the road. They’re holding pictures of the women who lost their lives because of Dad.

I recognise their faces, even though it’s been a long time ago. The families. The people left behind.

Sarah stands with them, carrying the toddler I saw her with at the charity event. She’s glaring at me and screaming with the others. “Murderer! We want justice!”

One of them throws rotten tomatoes at me and I close my eyes, letting them hit my face. I retrieve a napkin from my bag and try to wipe it away, but they hit me with another one.

Tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to let them out and I force myself to remain completely still.

I force myself into a numb state. That’s the only way to get through such scenes.

On the third tomato, a few buff men dressed in black surround me and Alan. We’re in such a small circle that their heights and developed physiques block the press and the victims’ families.

They block everything.

I stare with a stunned expression as Jonathan strides to my side with that innate confidence of his. Relief as I’ve never felt before engulfs me as he wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me into the crook of his body. I inhale his woodsy scent, using him as an anchor to dissociate from the hell surrounding us.

Jonathan faces the press and says in a loud voice that everyone can hear, “This is my first and final warning. If anyone harasses my fiancée again, I’ll sue and destroy them in court.”

He then leads me towards an awaiting car. My legs barely carry me and he has to half-lift me. Only one word stays stuck in my head.

I’m not becoming deaf, right? Because I think Jonathan just called me his fiancée in front of the entire world.

24

Aurora

My fiancée.

My fiancée…

My. Fiancée.

Maybe if I say those words once more in my head, they’ll somehow make sense. But will they really?

I can’t stop staring at Jonathan as he uses the wet napkins Moses passes him to wipe my face and my clothes.

His jaw is set and he seems angry. It’s not even directed towards me, but I somehow feel it in my bones.

“Aurora!”

“W-what?” Was he talking?

“I asked you if you’re okay.” He’s studying me intently, as if that will manage to snap me out of my daze.

It doesn’t.

Since there’s no way I’ll be able to speak, I nod.

“I need words, wild one.”

“I-I’m fine.” But am I? I don’t think so. Not after the bomb he’s just dropped out there for the entire press to hear.

“Why the fuck did you even go in there? Why didn’t you tell me first?”

Because I thought he would pull something like this. I mean, not exactly, but yeah, something similar.

I’ve read about Jonathan’s brutal ways with the media. He shows them no mercy when they overstep their boundaries or try to get their noses in his private life — or his family’s. The more he blocks them, the more they become obsessed with him, though.

He wraps a hand around my throat and pushes me so my back is pinned to the leather seat. His woodsy scent rushes into my lungs and it’s all I can breathe. His presence is all I can see. His touch is all I can feel.

I love it when he does that.

“I’m waiting for an answer,” he insists, and I know his soft phase is coming to an end. Jonathan might be protective, but he also has a no-nonsense, ruthless streak that demands to be obeyed.

“I’m done running away,” I murmur. “I have no reason to hide. I’m not him. I’m not my father.”

His lips pull at the corners in what I assume is approval. “Still, you do not go behind my fucking back ever again. If Alan didn’t have acquaintances in the office, we might not have gotten here on time. Do you know what that means, Aurora? You could’ve been attacked.”

I gulp. “It wouldn’t have been the first time.”

“Fuck.” He hits the side of the seat. “It won’t happen under my watch. Never. Is that understood?”

I believe him.

No idea why, but I believe the words coming out of his mouth as strongly as Layla believes in her religion. He is my religion.

When he showed up earlier, all I could think about was safety. It’s weird, isn’t it? That the man I call my tyrant is also my safest place.

“I said, is that fucking understood, Aurora?”

I nod.

“There will be no more putting yourself down for others, whether it’s victims’ families or what-the-fuck-ever. They’re not your victims and you will not take their shit.”

“Okay.”

“No one hurts a fucking hair on your head, Aurora. No one touches you but me. Do you hear me? I’ll burn them all down before they put you through the hell from eleven years ago again.”

“Jonathan, don’t hurt them. They’re just in pain.” I have no doubt that he’ll crush them under his shoes if he chooses to.

“How about you? Aren’t you in pain? Weren’t you in pain eleven years ago? You were sixteen, for fuck’s sake. They had no right to blame you for Maxim’s crimes, and if they continue to do so, I will show no mercy. I’ll burn them until no one is left.”

“Jonathan…”

“That’s final, Aurora. You might’ve tolerated that and gotten fucking stabbed for it, but I’ll never let it happen. I will protect you.”

My heart warms at his words, at the force behind them, because I have no doubt he’ll do as he says. But I need to get a point straight, “You don’t have to protect me. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t protect myself.”

“I’m not protecting you because you’re a woman. I’m protecting you because you’re my woman.”

Holy. Shit.

My mouth hangs open for the second time today, but this time, my heart is about to go into overdrive. Jonathan just called me his woman.

His. Woman.

That should offend me in a way, but that’s the last emotion gripping my heart.

The car comes to a stop in front of the mansion before I can say anything. Jonathan releases my throat, only so he can carry me in his arms out of the vehicle.

I grip his shoulder. “I can walk.”

“And I can carry you.”

This man is a serious tyrant.

We pass by Margot and she watches us for a second, probably because of the tomato stains on my jacket. “May I get you anything, sir?”