Chapter 13. Standing on My Own

BELLE

He’d got me a phone only a few days after I met him. His and Laila’s numbers were programmed into the contacts the moment he’d handed it over to me.

I tried to deny the expensive gift, but he continued to insist, so I eventually begrudgingly accepted it.

And now that he couldn’t keep an eye on me from his apartment, he required that I text him whenever I went anywhere.

I didn’t look at him as I continued to fill the ketchup bottles. “I can handle myself, Liam. I don’t need a babysitter. I’m not a child.”

“I don’t think you’re a child. I just prefer you in one piece rather than stabbed or beheaded. Or with your body lying in a dumpster somewhere because some demented asshole thought it might be fun to murder you while you were walking home alone.”

I looked up at him then, my expression shocked and a little disturbed. “I think you might be the demented one. That was seriously dark. I can promise you I was perfectly fine walking on my own this