Chapter 28
Sunny
Atreus steps out of the car and opens my door.
“Why are w—”
Before I can finish my sentence, he’s already undone my seat belt and hauled me out by my arm. “Hey, get your hands off me.”
He drags me with him into the warehouse and slams the door shut behind him, while my eyes dart around, amazed at the lack of a single trace of evidence from my killing spree here.
“This isn’t how the police question people,” I growl. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
He swings me against the wall right next to an old metal pipe and pulls a set of cuffs from his pocket, twisting them around my wrists and sealing me in place next to the pipe within mere seconds.
The vicious smile on his face makes even me feel at odds.
“What the f—”
He grips my chin, nails digging into my skin. “Bunnies don’t like being trapped, do they?”
I jerk on the cuffs, but no matter how hard I try, they won’t come loose.
He leans in so close I can feel his breath on my skin, teeth barely separating as he hisses, “How does it feel?”
I spit on his face. “Fuck you.”
His hand slowly rises to wipe it off while the fingers that clench around my chin tighten until my jaw is forced open.
“You’re a fucking brat who needs to be tamed,” he growls, stuffing his fingers inside to swipe my own spit right back on my tongue. “Keep your goddamn spit where it belongs.”
I try to lower my teeth to bite into his index finger, but his powerful grip on my jaw won’t let me.
“No fucking biting, bunny.”
“Fuck. You,” I say.
But it only makes him laugh.
Finally, he releases me and steps back to marvel at his trap like he’s proud of it.
“You … you’re a goddamn elusive woman, you know that?” he mutters, pulling out a packet of cigarettes. “Stalking me. Texting me. Sneaking into my office, my house … and for what? A dick to fuck?”
He sticks it up and lights it on fire, blowing the smoke in my face, but I don’t even flinch.
“You have boys fawning all over you. You’re a maneater.”
“Excuse you,” I say, tilting my head.
“Point stands,” he retorts, flexing his muscles in that tight black shirt of his.
“They worship me.”
“They shouldn’t. You’re a criminal.”
I smile. “And your dick gets hard from fucking one.”
His brow twitches, and he takes another drag.
Clearly, I hit a nerve. Good.
I jerk on the cuffs again out of sheer annoyance that he tied me up like this. I never let anyone tie me up, especially not a man, and especially not one like him.
He snorts. “That won’t help you.”
“I never expected you to stoop to my level, Foley,” I snarl.
He smirks in an obnoxiously handsome manner. “You thought you were the only one capable of deceit?”
He’s trying to one-up me?
“You’re a goddamn cop. You can’t do this.”
He takes another puff and blows the smoke into my face. “And what are you going to do about it?”
That … “Motherfucker,” I hiss, jerking the cuffs again.
“I can do whatever the fuck I want here. No one is watching. No one knows you’re here … except me.” When the smoke clears, his chiseled face is hard to look away from. “You’re entirely at my mercy.”
Well, I’ll be damned.
Foley has a twisted side to him that I wasn’t aware of.
“Do you even know why I brought you here?” he asks.
“Enlighten me.”
He sucks in a deep breath through his nose. “Behind me, a man was found cut into little pieces. Just like each of the bodies we’ve found as of late. Bodies left in the same manner … left for us to find.”
“I don’t see how this has anything to do with me.”
He slams his hands into the concrete wall beside me, his face mere inches away from mine.
“You broke into my fucking office and my house. What were you looking for? Was it evidence?”
I bite my lip, taunting him. “I plead the Fifth, Officer.”
His left eye twitches. “You had the nerve to break into my apartment and force me to fuck you, and you can’t even admit you had an ulterior motive?”
“Why? Are you looking for one? Do you think I need an excuse to want to fuck a delectable man such as yourself?” I muse, licking my lips. “You’re so sexy when you’re angry.”
He slams the wall behind me. “Answer me, woman!”
“I came looking for you,” I respond. “That’s all you need to know.”
He grabs my throat. “You promised me information. You know the killer. I fucking know you’re involved.”
I just laugh in his face. Even when he squeezes harder and harder, it only turns me on.
When his fingers unravel, he adds, “Tell me who the killer is.”
“Why do you think I have that information? I’m just a silly little bunny,” I jest.
“Don’t play games with me.”
I giggle. “Why not? I thought you liked games.”
He takes another drag of his cig while his fist rests on the wall beside my head, the muscles beneath his shirt twitching with unkempt rage over an unsolved criminal case he just can’t seem to piece together.
God, this man is deliciously unhinged.
“It’s no use protecting them,” he says. “One way or another, I will bring them down.”
“Them?” I quip.
He stuffs the cigarette into my mouth and watches me incessantly. “You didn’t think I didn’t know all about your two little lovers, did you?”
My eyes widen, and the arrogant smirk on his face grows more agitated by the second.
“How?”
“You’re not the only one who knows how to track people down,” he retorts.
Arrogant son of a bitch.
“Your boy toys messed up when they snatched one of my cops.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I scoff.
“Two people attending the Tartarus House party saw a car racing off right after Bob went missing. I know it was them.”
I grimace. “Then show me the proof.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“You’ve got nothing. Admit it.”
He grips my chin again, forcing me to look at him. “I will arrest all of your goddamn boyfriends and your entire fucking family if you don’t come clean and tell me everything you know.”
“My family has nothing to do with whatever you’re looking for.”
“I don’t fucking care,” he hisses. “The Torres, Reed, Rivera, and Caruso families have terrorized this city for far too long, and I’m done letting them have their way.”
“So this is all about your personal vendetta.”
“No,” he growls, pointing the cigarette at me like it’s an additional finger. “You’re the worst one of them all, sneaking into my house, fucking that dildo on my goddamn furniture like you own the place.”
“And you liked every second of that filth,” I taunt. “I bet you loved tasting me on that dildo.”
His nostrils flare. “You think you’re so smart, with that mask. You actually think you’re untouchable. That you’re on top of the fucking world.” He stubs out the cigarette against the wall behind me. “But I’m here to fucking remind you even killers have a weakness.”
“I could kill you right where you stand if I wanted to.”
His glimmering eyes connect with mine in the dark. “Try me. I fucking dare you. See how it ends for you.”
A challenge? Oh fuck.
I’m so goddamn wet at the thought of simply kicking him in the balls until he croaked and knocking my forehead into his, then stomping on his heart until it stopped beating.
But that would be too easy.
Too … unsatisfying.
“Go on, I’m waiting,” he says with a deep voice.
I’m contemplating whether I should, but then I’d lose out on all that amazing dick. Then again, not a single inch of him wants me the way I want him, and it’s pissing me off.
Doesn’t he know how good we could be together? We’re a match made in heaven. He should be all over me.
“You can’t kill me.” A wretched smile forms on his lips. “Because you don’t want to. And it will be your fucking downfall.”
“You want to arrest me so damn badly? Then arrest me like a goddamn man,” I retort, jerking on the cuffs again.
“And give your family all the ammo they need to absolve you? I think not. I’m going to take my time taking all of you down, one by one. And I think I know right where to start.”
My pupils dilate.
Orion. Xavier.
He’s going to try to pin this on them.
“Stay the fuck away from them. Do you hear me?”
No, fuck that. I can’t let them take the fall for me.
“Oh, so I finally found it, huh?” he muses. “Your weakness.”
Grinding my teeth, I jerk the cuffs again, but it only makes him laugh as he backs away slowly.
“Do not fucking touch them, do you hear me?” I growl.
“It’s clear to me now why you’re protecting those killers,” he hums as he grabs a metal chair from the wall and drags it—screeching legs and all—back to me.
He positions it right in front of me, spun in the wrong direction, with the backrest barely out of reach, then sits down with his arms resting on the top of the backrest just to stare at me.
“You’re smitten with the idea of owning someone, of having those boys bend to your will.”
I lift my foot and place it on the stool, but he knocks it off with ease.
“I’m not one of your college boys,” he rasps.
“No, Detective Foley, you’re so much more than that,” I say, trying to play on his emotions as I lift my foot again. “You’re strong and handsome.” I caress his arm with my foot. “And so fucking righteous.”
He grabs my ankle, fingers digging into my flesh.
“You’re a hedonist who only seeks pleasure.
” He grabs my boot and zips it down, pulling it off my foot along with my sock.
The knife that’s inside clatters to the ground, and he knocks it away with a simple swipe.
All that’s left is my bare foot and his lips grazing my skin.
“A vixen who craves control above all else. But you will not fucking control me.”
The single kiss he leaves on my ankle has my other knee weak.
Fuck.
I don’t ever become affected, not by anyone, let alone a cop.
Yet from the moment I laid my eyes on him, I can’t stop fucking imagining making him my favorite toy.
“Tell me who the killer is,” he says, his tongue darting out to lick my skin farther up. “Or I will arrest every one of your loved ones. One.” Lick. “By.” Lick. “One.”
“Is this what good cops do? Extort their suspects?”
“You disillusioned yourself,” he says, eyes flickering up to mine as he bares his teeth. “I’m not a good cop. I will take every measure I need to take to get the job done.”