11. Lachlan #4
It's Gio. I know it is. The rage that floods through me is instant and overwhelming, a white-hot fury that makes my vision blur and my hand clench around the phone hard enough that I hear the screen crack.
He's taunting me, sending me pictures of what he did to her, how he violated her and controlled her and made her into something she never wanted to be.
I want to kill him. I want to get on a plane right now and fly to New York, put a bullet in his head and make him pay for every single thing he's done to her.
Another picture comes through.
This one is worse. Adriana is tugging the panties to one side, her other hand cupping her breast. I look away quickly.
I don't want my first view of her pussy in ten years to be a photo like this, but just the brief glimpse has my cock rock-hard, and I hiss through my teeth as I feel it throb against my fly, leaking pre-cum into my boxer briefs.
Another photo comes in, and then another, all of them her posing sexily in some way in that lingerie, showing slivers of flesh meant to turn Gio's men into slavering animals for her. I can only imagine what he might have promised them in the future for good behavior, when these photos were taken.
It makes me want to go and murder every man on his estate who might have ever thought about her.
Rip out every one of their eyeballs for ever looking at her.
The murderous rage thundering through me can barely be contained, because his family did this, him and his father.
If Adriana and I had been able to leave that night, none of this would have ever happened.
But now I'm seeing further proof of what Gio forced her to do, exactly how he used her and degraded her and broke her down over the years. I wonder if this was the extent of it before I came to get her, or if it got worse before I did.
I hope I got there in time. And even though she hates me for it, it seems, I can't regret it, seeing this.
It had to only have been a matter of time before he was going to give her to his men in person.
I'm so fucking angry, and so aroused that I feel like I can barely think. The two things war together, making me a blur of fury and lust, and I feel myself shaking with the force of it.
I text back: I'm going to kill you for this. I'm going to make you suffer for every single thing you did to her.
The response comes almost immediately: You're welcome to try.
But we both know how this ends, Gallagher.
You can't protect her. You couldn't protect her ten years ago, and you can't protect her now.
She's mine. And when I come for her, I'm going to make sure she understands exactly what it costs to run away from family.
Another picture. This one shows Adriana's face, zoomed in so I can't see where or when it was taken, tears streaming down her cheeks. There's something so broken in her expression that it makes me want to scream. The caption reads: She cried a lot at first. But she learned.
I'm going to be sick.
I toss the cracked phone aside, breathing hard. I want to kill Gio. I want to fucking get off and relieve the aching pressure in my cock. I want to kill, and fuck, and I feel like an animal, reduced to all my most primal instincts. And I can't satisfy any of them.
Well, I can satisfy one. For a little while.
I slide up the divider in the car so the driver can't see me, and pull out my aching erection.
It's hot and straining against my palm when I wrap my hand around it, and I'm not really fantasizing about any one thing as I start to stroke.
My mind is a blur of images—Adriana in the garden, Adriana against the wall earlier, her lips on mine, her on her back in the bed where I wanted her to be, naked and open and begging for me.
Gio on his knees with a gun to his head, begging too, but he's begging for his life.
Adriana's lips on mine, her arousal soaking my fingers, blood on my hands…
I come, spurting over my fingers, and I groan as I grab tissues to try to keep from making a mess as my cock keeps jetting cum. I feel like I'm going mad. Maybe I am. Maybe my obsession has finally made me snap, and there's nothing I can do but lose my mind to it.
The car rolls to a stop, and I shove the door open and stumble out onto the pavement, my stomach heaving.
I barely make it to the side of the building before I'm vomiting, my body rejecting everything—the violence I just committed, the images Gio sent me, the arousal I felt looking at them, the understanding that I'm exactly the kind of man Adriana should be afraid of.
When I'm done, I lean against the wall and try to breathe. My phone buzzes again, and I look down to see one final text from Gio: See you soon, brother.
I delete the messages and the pictures. But I can't shake the feeling that I'm just another monster. Just another man who takes what he wants and calls it love.
Maybe I'm just fooling myself into thinking I can save her—a man who claims to love her but who's just as violent, just as dangerous, just as willing to use force to get what he wants as every other man in her life has been.
I don't know how to be the man she needs me to be any longer. Not when I changed everything about myself to get her back.
And I'm terrified that by the time I figure it out, it'll be too late.