Chapter 21
TARA
Exhaustion seeped into my bones as I chased the culprit on foot in the middle of the night on the streets of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The city was a selfish and heartless bitch and didn’t even give a fuck that a woman in a mask was running after a haggard-looking guy.
Instead, the few trespassers carefully made way for us as if this was a completely normal scenario for them.
I hated when we got runners for culprits.
Four guys raped a woman on her way back from a run and left her bruised body behind a tree.
Assholes didn’t notice the cameras on the street or the fact that the woman survived and now would become the judge, jury, and executioner of their pathetic, undeserving lives.
So here I was, chasing a fucker for the last fifteen minutes without losing him. Somewhere, on different streets, Samaira, Sloane, and Lena were busy chasing their targets.
“I got mine,” Lena panted in my ear.
“The moment I catch this fucker, I’m gonna break his legs before bringing him in,” Samaira growled between her pants.
“Got mine. Golden Lioness, please bring the van to Lexington Ave, 85th Street. I’m currently sitting on the fucker.” Sloane got her words out between bouts of heavy breathing.
My target was hardly twenty feet ahead of me, and I was getting sick of this running. I was going to torture this motherfucker myself for making me run so much. Every muscle in my legs burned as I pumped them faster. The longer I took, the more I’d have to run. And I was about done with this shit.
I prayed to every god above to make this sheer torture stop before I collapsed on my face. She must be in a giving mood because my target toppled over a homeless guy and crashed into the mail collection box on the street.
With that last sprint, I lunged at the perp and punched his face, knocking him out.
“You alright, sir?” I asked the homeless man looking at me.
His eyebrows rose as he took in my mask and shrugged. “Never better.”
“You didn’t see anything, did you?” I asked him, just in case he was going to blab something to some cops.
The man’s cracked lips gave a small twitch. “See what?”
“Exactly.” I gave him a quick salute and, just like Sloane, sat on the back of the unconscious fucker, and tapped the comms. “Got mine. I’m on Park Avenue, 82nd Street.”
“About time,” Lena said. “Be there in two.”
Once the four of us were back in the van, with our four targets lying unconscious at our feet, Lena asked Chloe to drive to our place, which was just three blocks down the avenue.
“What are you doing?” Sloane asked.
Lena looked at her and me. “You both are going home. You both have been working the streets to find the Russian hideouts for the last three nights. You need to sleep.”
“But…” I began.
“No arguments. Sami, Chloe, and I will deal with these fuckers.” She kicked one of them in the ribs as she said it, making Sami chuckle.
“Fuck yeah, we will.” And she, too, kicked the one by her foot in the ribs.
Well, if that was the new means of communication, I could only join the bandwagon. “Fine.” I kicked the fucker who made me run so much.
Why would Sloane stay left behind? She kicked the last dude in the stomach. “We’ll go sleep.”
I was bone tired and falling asleep on my feet when I walked to my door across from Sloane’s. “Good night, babe,” Sloane said, yawning, her mask clutched under her arm.
“Sleep tight.” I had my own mask under my arm as I stepped inside my place.
I’d left Shadow with Naomi tonight since he seemed to be getting too much exposure to Knox Steele.
I did not trust him after our last encounter.
It had been five days, and he hadn’t retaliated.
So it was better not to leave Shadow alone in the house.
It hurt not to have him welcome me home. I missed his little kisses and his aggressive jumping on me the moment I stepped foot inside the door. Tomorrow, I’d get him back first thing in the morning.
Once I’d placed the mask on my kitchen island, I grabbed a glass of water and looked around the living room while I drank it. There didn’t seem to be any new recording devices or glaring evidence of Knox’s presence. The house looked exactly like I’d left it.
Fuck him for making me paranoid once again. For making a thrill run down my spine at the thought of his presence in my place. I stomped inside my room and, without looking at the bed, walked into the shower. If I looked at my bed, I’d drop face-first into it. But I needed to wash the day off.
Once I was clean and in my pajamas, I threw the towel and my dirty clothes toward the laundry basket in my open walk-in closet and walked to my bed.
But before I could reach the bed, I was slammed into the back of my door with a large hand clutching my throat, stormy-blue eyes burning with fury as he took in my face.
My very maskless face.
His eyes moved over every inch of my scars, his gaze turning molten, his lips curling in a snarl. His eyes darkened with fury, and a delicious aura of utter darkness consumed the very air around him as Knox growled from between his clenched jaw, “Who the fuck did this to you?”
Horror and vanity reared their ugly heads. My heart pounded like a spooked wild beast caught in a trap, the vain part of my soul crushing into itself, mourning the fact that he’d seen my scarred side.
The tightening of his hand around my throat pulled me out of my spiraling horror. “Fucking tell me.”
The memories of that day, the bone-deep pain and anguish I’d suffered for months at the hands of a monster, the fight I’d put up against my very self to stand strong, helped me pull myself together.
It brought back the viciousness with which I’d dealt with my own thoughts, and I snarled at Knox, “A man.”
“Acid?”
I nodded, because that was all I could do.
“Name.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
He moved closer so his heaving chest brushed against mine. “Is he alive?”
My voice was a whisper at the raw fury in his question. “Do you want him to be?”
“Yes,” he whispered, as if he was worried that raising his voice above my own whispered question would scare me.
His answer surprised me. I thought he’d want him dead, like any normal person fucking would. “Why?” My voice came out louder, anger fueling my tone.
He bent his head lower so his lips were mere inches from mine. His eyes looked straight into my soul as he growled, “So I could do to him what he did to you. Only, I would do far, far worse.”
My heart hammered against his chest, and I was sure he could feel my pulse throbbing where he clutched my throat.
I could see it in his eyes that he meant every word.
That he would have tortured the monster who had committed the fucking atrocity against me.
It also shocked me to my core that he was willing to commit a crime for a criminal.
My voice was laced with disbelief and caution when I looked into his eyes. “And not put him behind bars?” I couldn’t help the twitch of my lips as I teased him. “That’s not a very cop-like thing to do.”
His lips curled in a hint of a smile, as if he couldn’t find any humor in the situation but couldn’t help but smile back at me. “Touché. Now, tell me his name.”
“Dead men don’t have names.”
His eyes were glued to my face, to the side of me that I’d kept hidden from him for weeks.
Nerves—fucking embarrassment—raced through my veins, making my skin break out in hives.
His gaze was so fucking intent, so penetrating and laced with wrath, I wanted to run and put my mask back on.
My hand itched with the agonizing need to cover my face.
To fucking punch his eyes for staring at me like that.
His words, though, once again, pulled me out of my approaching panic. “Did he suffer?”
My mind flashed to the days of torture I’d inflicted on that monster, the insistent drops of acid I’d poured over his body, the screams that had torn up his vocal cords until he couldn’t scream anymore, the endless pleas I’d heard from his mouth until Sami finally ended his pathetic existence from the face of the earth.
A smile slipped on my face at those memories when I looked at Knox. “Who is asking? A cop?”
Before he could respond, I bashed my head into his, pulling a grunt out of him as I used the wall behind to throw myself at him.
With a lunge, I had him flat on his back on the bed.
I climbed over his chest, my legs digging into his arms to stop him from moving.
Before he could turn us around, I grabbed the small axe from behind my headboard and jammed the blade at his throat, halting all his movements. “How the fuck did you get in?”
He smirked, his eyes lighting up with glee. “Through the door, like always.”
“It’s breaking and entering.”
He scoffed. “Call 911.”
Fucking asshole. A growl escaped my chest at how infuriating he was.
He moved his face up, dragging his throat along the blade, making me pull it back slightly. “Oh, you can’t. Isn’t that right, Wildcat? That’s what you call yourselves, isn’t it?”
Before I could snap back at him, he pushed his hands against my legs and turned us around so I was under him. His hands pushed mine toward my chest so the axe now pointed at my throat. Fucking hell. But he forgot to capture my other hand.
He moved his face closer to mine, staring at my face as if I were a statue in a museum.
His gaze seared my soul, jolted my heart, and froze my limbs.
That vanity reared its head once again, and pleasure unfurled in my chest at being the center of his penetrating and obsessive gaze.
Once again, my free hand itched to hide my face, but slowly, I moved it to the underside of my pillow.
I was afraid he would’ve removed the gun I’d placed there, but breathed a sigh of relief when my fingers brushed the cold metal.
I held still as he brushed his lips against the scarred side. My pulse skyrocketed, the blood in my veins burning with arousal at the sensation of his lips on my cheek. How long had it been since I’d last felt the soft brush of lips against my skin? Years.
His breath warmed my skin, and heat rushed through my body, pleasure sliding down my spine like a bubbling volcano.
I clenched my legs tighter to ease the ache building in my core.
My neck arched as he wrapped his fingers around my throat, the blade of my axe resting right over his fingers.
Yet his eyes. His fierce, unhinged eyes stared at my face as if he’d never seen me before.
Had never seen a woman with a scarred face.
As if he was relishing the scars I carried on my body every single day. As if they turned him on.
I gritted my teeth as I tightened my core and managed to stare back at him. “Stop fucking staring at my scars.”