Chapter 40 #2
Another sip follows, and my tongue darts out to wet my lips.
“Are you thirsty?”
“You don’t know me,” I quip.
He smiles and takes another sip. “That’s not what I asked.”
I stare him down for a moment. “What do you want from me?”
“Are you thirsty or not?”
My nostrils flare as my eyes land on the cup of water he filled, and his eyes follow suit.
“Do you want the water?”
“Fine.”
He tilts his head. “Fine what?”
When I don’t answer, he reaches for the cup, but doesn’t give it to me.
“Ask for it.”
My eye begins to twitch.
He wants me to beg.
He smirks, pushing the cup a little closer. “Go on. You want it. All you gotta do is take it.”
I jerk on the chains that keep me down, and it only makes me more furious.
“If you ask nicely, I’ll give it to you.”
“Fuck you,” I spit back.
He pauses and licks his lips. “All you had to do was ask nicely.”
“Does asking nicely bring me the heads of the people who wronged me?”
“No. But you can’t do everything by yourself.”
“Yes, I can.”
“All right … Take the water then.”
I lunge forward again, but the cuffs hold me back.
Goddammit.
“What are you waiting for? Take the water. You’re thirsty, right?”
“You don’t want me to take it.”
“Yes, I do. I want you to have the water.” He swallows. “Desperately.”
For a moment, all we do is stare at each other, and I can feel the heat radiating off both of us. If he didn’t have me chained up here, I would’ve long choked the life out of him and then made him beg for my pussy.
But that’s exactly why I’m in this position to begin with.
He picks up the cup again. “Ask,” he says. “And I’ll help you.”
He wants me to be the one to beg.
“Please,” I grit.
The smile that forms on his face is insufferable. He leans over the table with the cup in his hands and grabs my chin to part my lips and dribble it into my mouth himself.
When he’s done, he gloats. “That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
I spit the water at his face.
All of it.
Droplets run down his neck, into his shirt so the fabric sticks to his abs, and my God, is it a sight to behold.
He throws the cup at the wall and grabs me by the throat. “You.”
I smirk. “How does it feel to be obsessed?”
His jaw tightens. “I am not—”
“You and I are the same,” I interject. “You just don’t want to admit it.”
“I’m not a fucking murderer,” he says.
“You let those men walk the earth, murdering innocents every damn day of the week,” I grit back. “They murder because you let them.”
His fingers tighten around my neck, but I’m not afraid, and I lean in. “You think you’re better than me, but you lie to yourself when you say you’re going to bring the criminals to justice. And deep down, you know damn well I’m right. Deep down, you wish you could’ve killed them yourself.”
“Admit it. You love the idea of the natural order of things being restored.”
“And you need to admit to me you murdered them,” he retorts. “You think they deserved it, but Bob had a family. What did Bob ever do to you?”
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But I will never throw my boys to the wolves. That’s not my style.
“You were just looking to hide your crimes. Now tell me you killed them.”
“And then what? Will you finally be happy? Is that when you can rest in peace?”
When he doesn’t reply, I add, “Because I will never rest in peace. Not as long as those fuckers walk on the same streets I do.”
His fingers slowly unlatch. “What did they do to you?”
“You’d love to know, wouldn’t you?”
He puts me back in my seat and leans back, breath wildly out of control.
“We raided your sorority room. I found every plan you had, down to the detail.”
I would fold my arms if I could. “And?”
“Your targets weren’t chosen nilly-willy.”
I love watching the little wheels spin in his head as he deciphers my actions. It’s sexy.
“You had a hit list. And it’s not all traffickers. There was a taxi driver.”
“Maybe he hung out with the wrong people.”
“You’re not some vigilante handing out justice to the Bones Brotherhood. You’re targeting specific people.”
I love his deduction skills.
“You missed one, didn’t you? His name is Samuel.”
My skin pricks with bubbling rage.
“Tell me why you killed the others.”
I merely stare him down.
“Sunny, I can help you,” he says. “But you need to give me something.”
“Why would I?”
He leans across the table. “So I can put those fuckers behind bars too.”
I laugh. “And you think that’s going to satisfy me?” I run my nails along the table. “I need payment in blood.”
“For what? What did they take from you?”
I’m grinding my teeth so hard I nearly chip a tooth.
He gets up from his seat and gets up close, sitting down on the edge of the table right in front of me.
“The cameras are off. No one is watching,” he says.
“It’s just you and me right now. You can tell me what happened, from the beginning, and I will listen.
I swear. I will bring the people you seek to justice. ”
I glare up at him from my seat. “My answer is still no.”
His face darkens too much to my liking. “Then you rot in jail for the rest of your life.”
“I might actually kill you for this,” I reply.
He snorts. “I’m impressed. After all this time, everything we did, you still want to erase me just to keep your plans safe.”
I smile when I catch him stealing a look at my boobs. “And you’re still obsessed with me.”
He puts his hand down on the table to lean in so close I can feel his breath on my skin. “You’re a criminal. You deserve this.”
“And you’re in love with a criminal.”
His hand reaches for my face, fingers gently picking the lost strands of hair off my face, and the sudden softness catches me off guard. “I could’ve given you the justice you seek, if you’d only trusted me from the beginning when I found you in the forest.”
Streaks of blood flash in front of my eyes.
A car.
A knife.
The two men in surgical masks.
The hazy sight of an operating table.
My arms, strapped.
My screams, filling the void.
No one will hear.
I blink. Once. Twice.
“Don’t.”
He curls the strand of hair around his finger. “Is that why you’re hunting them? Are those men who wronged you?”
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six faces.
One the worst of them all.
“Stop,” I hiss.
“What happened to you, Sunny? Who left you there all alone in that forest, bleeding to death?” he whispers near my ear.
“They deserved to die,” I hiss at him.
He stares at me from a hair’s breadth away. “So you killed them.”
What does it matter?
They’re gone. Erased from this world.
Except one.
A single tear rolls down my cheek, and he picks it up with his index finger and brings it to his mouth, sucking on the droplet like it turns him on.
“I know what you are.” He smiles and tips up my chin to make me look at him. His lips are so close, I can almost taste them. “And I would’ve taken them all down for you if you’d asked.”
Fuck. He’d do that for me?
When his lips brush against mine, I finally give him my answer, “Then take down the last one on my list.”
His eyes burst open. “You … trust me?”
I blink just once. “I trust your judgment.” I lean in as far as I can, so our lips briefly touch. “I fell for you for a reason, Atreus. Just like you fell for me.”
He sucks in the oxygen past his teeth. “I’m…”
“Obsessed,” I mutter at the same time as him.
He steals a single, poisonous kiss, groaning before pulling back. “I can’t.”
My nails scratch across the table as I lean back far enough for him to no longer be able to kiss me. “Then you should throw that badge in the garbage because it means nothing.”
His lip still twitches with greed for more. “I take down criminals the right way.”
“No. You just took out the cuckoo in the nest,” I growl. “Me.”
He slowly takes a few steps back as the unyielding darkness returns to his face, then barges off and slams the door shut behind him.
Just like he always does.
Close the door.
End the possibility.
Stop the poison from seeping deeper into the branches of his veins.
A devious smirk slowly forms on my face.
Too.
Fucking.
Late.