Chapter 75 Chapter 75
Violet
I didn’t give an answer to that.
Instead, I stepped around him, intent on leaving the corridor altogether. He moved with me, staying too close, his presence pressing in from the side.
“Please,” he said, and there it was. That tone and the smile that used to make me gush over him when I was an idiotic teenager.
The one that made him sound patient, reasonable. The one people believed. “Just let me make sure you’re safe.”
I stopped abruptly and turned on him.
“Why do you care so much?” I demanded. “Since when?”
His smile faltered for just a second.
“I’ve always cared,” he said smoothly. “We didn’t end on good terms, but that doesn’t mean I want anything bad to happen to you.”
“You mean when you threw me out of the home we built based on hearsay. Should I also remind you that you walked in this manor with your girlfriend?”
He signed dramatically. “I can explain, Violet.”
“Funny,” I muttered. “You never cared this much when it actually mattered.”
He exhaled slowly, like I was the difficult one here. “That’s not fair. I am trying to be nice.”
I laughed, sharp and humorless. “No. What’s not fair is you pretending you get to play the concerned friend now. After literally threatening me with that fakeass video to get your work reports done.”
His jaw tightened. “You’re being defensive for no reason.” He completely ignored that last line.
“For no reason?” My voice rose despite myself. “You don’t get to touch me. You don’t get to follow me around. And you definitely don’t get to decide what I need.”
“I’m not deciding,” he insisted, stepping closer again. “I’m offering.”
“Stop offering.”
“Violet, please..”
“Back off.”
The words echoed down the corridor.
For a moment, neither of us moved. His eyes searched my face, irritation flickering beneath the concern, like something sharp trying to break through the surface.
Then a third voice cut in, low and dangerous.
“That’s enough.”
Elijah stepped out of the shadows at the far end of the corridor, his presence immediate and heavy, like the air itself had shifted to accommodate him.
His hair was damp, shirt hastily buttoned wrong at the collar, as if he’d come looking for me without stopping to fully dress.
His gaze went straight to Nate’s hand, which had drifted back toward my arm without me noticing.
“It's late, you should sleep,” Elijah said calmly.
Nate turned slowly, straightening to his full height. Surprise flashed across his face, quickly replaced by something closer to annoyance.
“We’re fine,” he said easily. “She just got dizzy.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Elijah replied.
I felt it then, the way Nate subtly positioned himself between us, as if shielding me from Elijah. The audacity of it made my stomach twist.
“I’m taking you to your room,” Nate continued, addressing me directly, completely ignoring Elijah’s presence. “You should rest.”
Elijah took a step forward.
“She said no.”
Nate chuckled under his breath. “Relax. I’ve got this.”
Something dark flickered across Elijah’s expression.
“I said,” he repeated, more sharply now, “leave her alone.”
Nate finally looked at him properly, eyes narrowing as he took in Elijah from head to toe. Then he gave him a slow, condescending smile.
“Wow,” he said. “Didn’t realize Ironcrest had a curfew enforced by… what are you, Elijah? Sixty? Sixty-five?”
My jaw clenched.
Elijah didn’t react outwardly, but I felt the tension roll off him like heat. “Walk away.”
Nate laughed lightly. “You’re really worked up for someone who isn’t even involved.”
He turned back to me again, pointedly excluding Elijah. “Violet, you don’t have to listen to him. He’s…”
“Old?” Elijah cut in coldly. “Is that what you were going to say?”
Nate shrugged. “Grumpy. Overprotective. Kind of creepy, honestly to get between friends”
I sucked in a sharp breath. We were anything but friends.
“Watch your mouth,” Elijah warned.
Nate tilted his head, studying him. “You know, it’s actually a little concerning how interested you seem in her. I mean aren’t there grannies your age back in the city? You should try to mingle with them. Don’t you think, Violet?”
My stomach dropped.
He leaned closer, lowering his voice as if sharing a secret. “You should be careful around men like that. Older. Bitter. The kind who hang around girls way younger than them. Most of them are pedophiles.”
Elijah didn’t say a word but I couldn’t stop the words tumbling out of my mouth.
“And they should hang around with you? A serial cheater who can't read a graph even if his life depended on it.”
My breathing was ragged but I saw Nate’s ears grow red.
“Come on, Violet. We have to talk. Alone preferably.”
He reached for my hand but that was the moment my brain decided it was done with his bullshit.
Before I consciously decided to move, my hand was already swinging.
The sound was sharp. And it cracked through the corridor like a gunshot.
Nate’s head snapped to the side.
What followed next was a thick, and stunned silence broken only by the echo of the slap reverberating off his cheek. And even if I had slapped him, it didn’t satisfy me in the least.
My palm burned and my heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears.
“How dare you?” I shouted, my voice shaking with fury. “You don’t get to talk about him. Or me. Or anything.”
Nate stared at me, shock giving way to anger in his eyes.
“Did you just slap me?”
He looked genuinely confused like even the idea of me choosing violence was beyond his understanding.
“Elijah,” he said slowly, never looking away from me, “This is all him, right? I told you to stay away from this asshole. Look what he is turning you into!”
Elijah grabbed him by the collar and slammed him back against the wall.
The impact rattled the sconce beside them.
“You will not speak to her like that,” Elijah growled, his voice low and lethal. “Ever.”
For a heartbeat, I thought Nate might actually swing back.
Instead, his gaze flicked past Elijah and softened instantly as we heard somebody approaching us hurriedly.
“Hey,” he said, voice lightening as footsteps approached. “Everything’s fine.”
Nicole appeared at the end of the corridor, her expression concerned, eyes darting between the three of us.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Nate gently pried Elijah’s hand off his collar and smoothed his shirt as if nothing had happened. “Nothing. Violet got dizzy. I was just helping her.”
His eyes cut to Elijah, sharp and warning. “Right?”
Elijah didn’t answer.
Nate smiled at Nicole. “We should get some rest. Big days ahead.”
I couldn’t care less if he planned to run as president.
But as Nicole stepped closer, Nate leaned in just enough for Elijah to hear him and murmured, “Keep your hands off girls who aren’t your age, you pervert.”