Chapter 6
KNOX
It had been a week since I installed the cameras in Dominic’s parking garage. A week of nothing.
Until tonight. I was done with work and, like every night of the week, was at the precinct, looking at the live feed on my phone. I was practically dozing off with sheer boredom when I finally hit the jackpot.
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head when the feed from the last level flickered with movement.
What I’d assumed was a smaller parking lot actually had a fake wall.
Right in front of my eyes, a massive section of wall slid open, and two large vans and a motorcycle made their way out of the parking garage.
I bolted out of the precinct like my ass was on fire. The only place I’d installed the cameras was inside the building. Once they hit the street, they’d be gone. I had to intercept them.
The moment I hit the sidewalk, I sprinted to my bike parked right outside. I slid my helmet on, hooked my phone in the handlebar mount, and gunned the motorcycle. I kept one eye on the live feed while I sped through the streets, watching the vans and the motorcycle make their way onto the avenue.
Noting the direction they went, I blew through every traffic signal until I caught the tail end of the vans a few hundred yards ahead. From that point on, I kept a steady distance. My instinct to hunt flared to life, making my blood sing.
For some reason, I did not take any of my detectives with me. This felt personal.
I watched from afar as the vans parked along an unknown street, and not one, but four masked women jumped out from the back door.
The vigilante, who I always assumed to be a man, was actually a group of women.
How the fuck did I never think that? Of course it was women.
What man would fight for women’s justice and safety? Fuck.
The shock and disbelief coursing through my mind almost made me miss out on the women currently breaking into a basement of an apartment.
As soon as they broke into the window of the basement and jumped in, I made my way to the entrance of the building and went in.
I ran down to the basement floor and broke into the apartment.
The building’s soundproofing was pretty decent.
I could barely hear the grunting and the screaming from outside.
The moment I stepped foot into the dingy apartment, the reek of blood and violence engulfed me in its dark embrace. The beast inside me stretched its limbs and rolled its shoulders, desperate to hunt, to prey, to feed.
I hung back in the shadows as I watched the chaos.
A large, muscular woman in a tiger mask was beating the ever-loving shit out of a guy. Two others in identical cat masks were taking turns to subdue a large dude, who was screaming and trying to scramble away from them, but failing miserably.
Then there was the tiny woman in a panther mask.
The little fucking criminal beat up a guy twice her size, slamming him to the ground and banging her masked head to the whimpering guy’s forehead, knocking him unconscious.
The sheer violence emanating from her lithe, little body had me attuned to every minuscule movement of her fight.
The blood in my veins pulsed with the ferocity of my beast. It sang the tune of the violence that it craved and relished in, that it fucking lived for.
These were the fucking “vigilantes” hunting and preying on the men, playing in their little lawless world, having the time of their lives. I was sure these men weren’t innocent. I didn’t give a fuck about them.
But if they were criminals, I was the cop. I was the rightful judge and jury of their lives. I had the right to their blood. These fucking masked women were stealing them from me.
This ended right here.
With that fucking thought in my head, I made my move, my eyes zeroing in on the little criminal who’d just knocked out the guy she was beating earlier.
I charged out of my hiding spot and lunged at her.
Her movements were quick. Her arms shot out, and a knife flew at me.
I didn’t even have the time to dodge it, but the blade passed right by my ear in a sharp whoosh.
I quickly whirled around, only to find a hammer poised just an inch from my eye.
The motherfucker holding the hammer had the knife lodged in his skull, his eyes frozen wide in shock as the hammer slowly dropped from his falling body.
I hadn’t even noticed the fucker. My entire focus had been on my little criminal.
The one who had just saved my life.
Biggest fucking mistake of her life.
I turned back around and took in the woman. Decked in tight black tactical gear, no taller than five-three, curves and muscles in all the right places, with a black panther mask hiding the face responsible for the death of hundreds of men.
I was going to ruin these women, starting with the little panther.
With a barely contained smile at her, I lunged.
My beast roared. My heart thrashed in its cage, but as I neared her, my feet froze in their tracks. They fucking froze.
And the little fucking criminal noticed.
The vision of her saving me slammed into my mind, and I tamped down that inkling of guilt trying to worm its way into my gut.
With a war cry, she yelled, “Everyone, take the bodies and go. Go. Go. Go.”
Her voice broke the paralytic hold my mind had on my body.
The large woman with the red tiger mask took the orthodox fighting stance—left foot forward, fists raised to her chin, elbows tucked—right beside her as the remaining two women dragged the now-unconscious giant through the main door of the house. She shook her head, not speaking a word.
A frustrated growl escaped the panther, and she jabbed an elbow into the tiger. “Leave. The mission comes first. I’ll deal with this and meet you at the safe house.”
The only reason I let them have their little conversation was to see if I could get more intel on them. Like the existence of a fucking safe house, which could be anywhere in and around the city.
But enough of the chitchat.
Shutting down the vehement rejection screaming from somewhere deep inside me, I ran toward the panther. In my periphery, I saw the tigress hoisting a man over her shoulder and running to the open window.
Not on my fucking watch.
I immediately shifted my direction, lunging at the tigress instead.
But a solid block of muscle jumped onto my back, a band of steel holding my neck hostage.
I turned my head, only to meet the eyes of the little panther.
“You’re mine,” she purred in my ears, then threw her entire body backward, dragging me away from the tigress.
That little fucker.
My steps faltered as I watched the tigress throw the unconscious man out the window from the corner of my eye. She gathered the other two men and hoisted them on her back, running out of the main door.
My eyes landed on the last unconscious man lying on the floor.
I didn’t have a lot of time.
With the fucking panther clinging to my back, I whirled around and pushed my weight back, slamming her into the wall.
A breathy grunt escaped her as she kept a tight hold across my throat.
I jabbed my elbow into her stomach, but she quickly pivoted.
She unwrapped her legs from my waist and, with a massive push from the wall, slammed me face-first into the opposite wall.
It was pure reflex that had me jamming my fist into the wall to stop my nose from being crushed into the concrete.
“You fucking…” I gritted out and grabbed the back of the little fucker’s neck, pulling her hard, breaking her tight hold from around my throat, and slamming her to the ground.
A whoosh escaped her lips, and I swiped my hand at her face to unveil her mask. I needed a fucking face.
She flung my hand to the side with a brutal roundhouse kick and arched her body in a spin to land right on her feet before driving her knee straight under my chin.
My head snapped back, the sharp, metallic taste of blood flooding my mouth. Pain reverberated through my face, my vision blurring for a second.
I shook my head to find two women rushing into the house, grabbing the last already-dead man, and sprinting out the door.
Anger seared my throat. My heart thundered, and every vein in my body rushed with adrenaline. The violence and blood that the deepest part of my soul craved unraveled and stretched its neck. It swiped its tongue across my lips and tasted the thick iron of my blood.
Soft tendrils of euphoria flooded my senses, and I smiled.
My fingers tightened into a fist, and I slammed it into my little fucker’s gut, only for her to twist to the side and jump onto my back again, her arm blocking my throat as she gritted in my ear, “Who the fuck are you? You’re fighting the wrong fucking person.”
I grabbed the thigh she had locked around my waist and yanked hard, loosening her grip. I clutched the little woman in my arms and slammed her hard against the wall, pinning her up by her throat. I leaned closer to the panther. “I’m a motherfucking cop, and your game is over.”
She drove her knee up, aiming for my groin, but unfortunately for her, I pivoted to the side and threw her to the ground.
I tried to climb on top of her, but a swift kick landed in my stomach, throwing me off her.
She sprang to her feet and started circling me.
“If you're a cop, you're definitely fighting the wrong person.”
I threw her a five-punch combo—that she easily blocked—and tried to push her into a corner. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I not fighting a wannabe vigilante, killing off hundreds of men from the street?”
She didn’t answer me. She simply blocked the punches I rained on her, eventually landing one of her own right across my cheek. My breath whooshed out of me, my heart thudding like a wild horse galloping in my chest. The need to squash this little she-devil wreaked havoc in my blood.
I faked a punch, and the moment she raised her arm to block it, I found the opening and tore through half her mask.
My heart stopped. The lust for violence and blood, tearing through my veins like a raging wildfire, froze me in place. All the blood in my body rushed south so fast, I went dizzy.
Because looking at me with hazel eyes, burning with a violent storm of determination, was the most breathtaking woman I’d ever seen in my life. Perfectly bow-shaped lips and olive skin so smooth, I was tempted to cut it and see if she was made of glass.
My eyes dragged over every inch of her sinful face, the psychotic beast inside me thrashing against my skin, pressing me, pushing me to cage the little devil in the corner and lick her from the sharp line of her jaw to the gentle curve of her hairline.
I was frozen and mesmerized, obsessed and shockingly confused. I was caught up in a storm of threateningly contradictory feelings, drowning me—trapping me—in my own body.
A sharp kick to my head snapped me back to reality. My stunning little criminal woke me up and fired up my dark soul.
I lunged at her face to remove the other half of her mask, my heart hammering, the need to see her entire face burning me up from the inside out.
But she was too quick. Unlike me, she was in complete sync with her mind, body, and instinct.
She used my own body weight against me, grabbing my outstretched arm, meeting her fiery hazel eyes with mine, lips curled in a snarl, and threw me across the room.
I stumbled over my feet and barely caught myself, but that was all she needed to fling herself out of the open window like a cat. The opening was too fucking small for my shoulders to follow.
Fuck.
I refused to let her escape. Not before I had her entire face imprinted in my mind.
I sprinted out of the basement apartment, up the winding staircase, and burst out of the building, only to see the taillight of her motorcycle zooming down the street.
Without a pause, I jumped on my motorcycle and gunned it behind her.
The little criminal was mine.
Wind slapped against my face as I zipped through the street, following the sound of her bike ahead of me. My eyes refused to see the road. Refused to read the traffic signs. Refused to look at anything but her face in my mind.
I pushed my motorcycle, turning up the full fucking throttle. I could see the fucking little criminal hunched over her bike up ahead, her hair whipping against her shoulders as she weaved through the traffic.
This.
This was what I missed.
This was what I craved.
The chase.
The hunt.
The fucking euphoria that came with knowing that someone was terrified of you, that your mere existence was a source of threat to theirs, and they knew—they knew—that if they didn’t run, they’d die.
This power made me high. Made my cock throb in my pants. And with my little criminal, it made my teeth ache with the need to bite. With the need to make her submit.
I went full throttle, the wind lashing against my cheeks, my gaze locked on her.
Her face turned, and her eyes met mine. They were fire and frustration, burning with the same kind of challenge and fearlessness that I saw in the mirror.
A jolt of electricity and adrenaline punched through my heart, waking up every subdued, obsessive, psychotic, sinfully dark part of my very core.
She didn’t even know what she was doing to me.
The foolish, fearless little criminal raised her hand from the handlebars of the motorcycle and flipped me off like a deranged animal with no sense of self-preservation.
My lips stretched into a fucking smile—a smile that came from the hunter who knew he had found his prey—and flipped her right back with both of my hands, leaving them off the handlebars for a good three seconds.
Her eyes glinted with challenge as she turned back around and gunned it hard. I followed her with a singular focus before she flipped a switch on the handlebar. The noise from her motorcycle turned into a roar, and her ride turned into a rocket.
Before I knew it, she was a speck on the horizon, leaving me in the dust like a starved fucking animal.
My motorcycle skidded to a halt in the middle of the empty street.
I fucking roared.
She was gone now, but I knew she’d be back at her fucking headquarters. I knew where to find her. There was no point in chasing her down since the rest of the women had already grabbed their targets.
I needed to catch them in the act.
The beautiful little criminal was mine.
The next time I saw her—and I would see her again—I was going to put a bullet through her skull.
“Then why didn’t you when you had the chance?” asked the sane part of my mind, the part that played the role of the most righteous cop. The part that was perfectly aware of the gun in my holster, and the fact that not once did I consider using it on the little criminal.
Now, time to hunt.