Chapter 16
Idon’t look at her, because if I do, I’m going to fucking lose my shit. She deliberately ignored me when I told her to stay in her office and wait for me. I would’ve taken her wherever she wanted to go. Instead, she fucking risks being hurt or being taken, and for what?
“Are you okay?” Her soft voice floats through the cabin as I clench my teeth to stop myself from exploding.
“I thought I told you to stay at the office,” I snap, my voice low.
She shifts in her seat, crossing her arms in my peripheral vision like she didn’t just almost get kidnapped.
“I didn’t think—”
“That’s fucking right. You didn’t think!” I pull into a dark alley, shut off the car, and when my eyes clash with her hazel ones, something moves beneath my chest again. It’s the slightest bit of movement, but I catch it…I notice it.
I raise my fist so it’s in line with her eyes, the blood still slick on the brass knuckles. “This could have been your blood.”
Her dark hair is wild around her face, her eyes wide and unflinching, filled with searing anger.
She shouldn’t have been there, and she knows it.
“Do you think this is some sort of TV show?” I growl. “Do you think because you have the Knight name that you’re fucking invincible!?”
“I have a gun,” she protests like it’s going to do her any good. “Do you think I got this far in my life by doing the right thing, or doing what I’m told? I’m not stupid.”
I chuckle out of frustration. “No, Isla, you’re fucking reckless.”
“Why are you so infuriated? Is it because I didn’t listen, or is it something else?” Her coat falls open, providing me with a view of her skin beneath her skirt, and it makes me livid thinking someone else might have been able to touch her.
“You’re right,” I admit, and her eyes grow large at my admission. “I’m fucking livid because you didn’t listen, and if I wasn’t there…” I take a breath, not wanting to say it out loud. “If you can’t listen to me, I’m not left with many choices.”
“Just because you throw punches for me doesn’t mean you can order me around.”
I look at her, really look at her, the audacity tugging on the corner of her mouth, her steady breath, the way her eyes dare me to touch her.
My hand cuts through the air between us, gripping her jaw, causing her lips to pout.
“I thought we’d already discussed this, Little Nycto,” I say, voice low. “I already know you like being told what to do.”
She expels a breath, glaring at me, and I take it as a challenge.
“And now, I’m going to make sure you remember it.” Slipping two fingers into her mouth, I guide her bottom jaw open. “Stick out that pretty fucking tongue.”
When she doesn’t comply, I press down. “I see. You want to be persuaded.”
She gasps as I smear a little blood on her cheek, sweeping the knuckle busters down her jaw to her neck.
“Would you prefer I had my belt around your throat again?” I ask, and she presses her thighs together. “Or maybe you prefer a muzzle instead.”
“I’ll stick out my tongue when you tell me you were worried about me.”
She wants what she can’t have.
Two souls lusting over the impending heartbreak we’re preparing ourselves for. But will it still be considered a heartbreak if one of our hearts no longer beats?
“Do you really need to hear me say the words, Isla? Do my actions not speak loud enough?” I ask through gritted teeth, prying her mouth open. “If you don’t comply, I’ll muzzle you.”
I swear I almost see a sparkle in her eyes, and my cock hardens at the sight of her arousal. She tries to speak, but her words come out garbled as my fingers hold her jaw down.
“Tongue.”
She abides, her tongue falling out nice and flat, and it does something to me, the way she fights, then crumbles because she knows she can’t withstand me.
“Let this be an everlasting reminder of what happens to someone if they touch you.” I lean forward, sliding the brass knuckles over her tongue, her eyes now enormous, her grip on my wrist tightening as she tries to push me away.
“Next time, I’ll tear open their chest, reach in and take out their heart to serve it to you. ”
I release her jaw, and she closes her mouth in shock.
“He could have diseases!” she complains.
“He doesn’t.”
“How the fuck would you know that!?”
“Because he’s one of Benedict’s hired muscle. They’re vetted. Even their blood is tested.”
She pauses, her eyes widening in shock.
“Benedict?” She inhales sharply like she’s finally connected a small piece of the puzzle.
I’ll admit, I don’t have all the pieces yet either.
“Why would Benedict ask to meet me at Eel Pie Island?”
That’s a question I can’t answer yet, but it likely has something to do with her involvement with the Casella family.
“We’re not talking about Eel Pie Island, or Benedict right now, we’re talking about you listening.”
“I’m your goddamn lawyer, Malik, you can’t just—”
I stop her again, this time with my hand curled around her delicate neck, her hazel eyes on mine.
“If you can’t learn this simple thing”—I lean in closer, my lips brushing hers as I speak—“I’ll muzzle you, put a toy in your ass, wrap my belt around my favourite part of your body, and keep you caged until you do. ”
It took everything in me not to pull Isla on top of my lap and sink my cock inside her. Maybe it might have finally made her listen. Instead, I drove her to my hotel.
I know she’s been here before because I know everything that happens here, so it wasn’t a shock to me that she knew her way around.
“I don’t think I can be comfortable here,” she says, picking up a fluffy white towel and wiping off the blood I’d smeared onto her cheek earlier.
“Did you have to do that on a white towel?” I ask, and she does it again, exaggerating her movements, then drops the towel onto the floor.
“I’ll take the dry cleaning fee off your final invoice, Mr Faris,” she says in a sarcastic tone.
I fight a smirk and reach into my pocket to hand her a container of pills. “If they’re not the right ones, I’ll have someone go out to find the correct brand.”
She eyes the container, then furrows her brows as she glares at me. I wait for her to take them, but she doesn’t.
“For your headaches.” I step closer to her, extending the pills.
Her fingers brush mine as she takes them. “When did you have time to get these?”
“You think I personally got them?”
I did, but she doesn’t need to know I stood above the dispenser and counted the pills, watching them hit the bottom of the container, making sure they weren’t laced or altered in any way.
“Of course not.” She rolls her eyes.
If only you knew just how much my obsession with you is growing, you wouldn’t roll your eyes like that at me, Little Nycto.
“I need to take care of some things.”
She scowls at me. “Illegal things?”
“Plausible deniability, Isla.” I give her a sly smile and turn to leave. If I don’t step out of this door right now, I’ll end up inside her, and that will be fucking horrendous for her career and even worse for my mental state.
Luckily, I’m about to let off some steam, but no amount of violence is going to be enough to forget the way she screamed my name when my tongue was inside her.
Nothing is going to feel as phenomenal as her mouth did around my cock.
And as these thoughts surface, the guilt begins to amplify.
Had I forgotten about her?
Were all those years spent in prison wasted?
Don’t think about that right now.
The private elevator in my penthouse suite goes all the way down to beneath the building’s car park and into the multi-storey basements.
No one else has access to them but me, my men, and Ezra’s.
It’s changed over time from holding cells to torture chambers, and currently, it remains an open space in case we feel like someone isn’t cooperating.
The minute I walk into the clammy room, Emmett has the man in a chokehold, his bloodied face split and torn in the places I hit him.
“I’m not in the mood today. I want to get this over with quickly.” The clatter of the brass knuckles echoes in the near-empty space when I throw them as the man’s body hits the floor. “You already know the spiel. Talk.”
He spits, the stringy saliva mixed with his blood now covering his hands. “If I talk, I want something in return.”
“Fuck, this isn’t a negotiation, man.” Emmett strikes him in the ribs with his boot, and he topples over on his back, groaning in obvious pain. “I have a party that starts at nine and I’d like to be done way before then, so fucking talk.”
“Not without money.”
I’m growing frustrated as the seconds pass and he’s not hearing the demands.
“What do they want with Isla Knight?” I ask, removing my coat and placing it on the chair by the door.
“You think they tell me shit?” He laughs, the disgusting sound like a screech. “I’m the muscle. No one tells the muscle more than they need to know to get the job done, you know that.”
“What I also know is you’ve been with Benedict the longest. It’s been what, ten years now?
Better start moving that jaw, or your long service is about to be served at the bottom of a fucking lake.
” My voice is hard, and if I don’t get an answer soon, I might just stuff a grenade down his throat so I can see his insides.
“Just give me a fucking break, man. You broke my fucking nose.”
I hook my fist and swing it hard, hitting him beneath his jaw, snapping it shut. His teeth seem to have caught part of his tongue as he wails about on the floor.
“Emmett, get me the fucking blowtorch.”
“No, no, fuck…” He’s on his knees now, his right eye swollen and purple. “Purileen. That is all I know, okay? I heard them talk about it years ago and then again a few weeks ago.”
Emmett hands me the blowtorch, and a haze of black encases my vision as I clench his jaw in my hand, craning his neck up. The click is followed by his screams as he tries to claw me off, the blue flame centred on his swollen eye, the flesh burning to a crisp.
“Fuuucckkk! I don’t know anymore!” he yells, and I stop. Throwing him to the floor isn’t enough. I want him to burn.
“Keep him alive,” I say as I throw the blowtorch toward one of the guards. Emmett falls in step with me as I head for the elevator.
“What is it?” he asks, checking his watch.
“Purileen? No fucking clue, and I’m not going to Ezra without all the fucking answers. Get the whiz kid involved, see what she can find on his phone.”
“Hey.” He stops me with a hand on my shoulder. “Remember what I said.”
“Like you’d ever let me forget it, Emmett.”
He smiles, lightly tapping me on the cheek with his palm. “She’s a good distraction. Just keep the devil in your trousers. She’s also your lawyer.”
I huff a laugh. “Worry about your own distractions and don’t fucking come back to the hotel. This is a classy place.”
“Are you discriminating against sex workers, Malik?” He acts like he’s hurt, but I know he enjoys it.
“No. Just against you.”
He barks a laugh, his palm hitting his chest.
“Isn’t blood money enough for you? What do you get out of it?” I ask, and he grins.
The dark leather jacket he slides into is his favourite. It’s the first thing he bought when he had enough money, and he’s never replaced it because he believes it’s a constant reminder of where he came from.
“Because I fucking can. Women love me. Why not make them pay me for my time, too?”
I shake my head and press the button on the elevator. “I don’t want to be disturbed tonight. Tell the others to find me in the morning.”
I step into the elevator, and Emmett pulls out his phone from the other side of the closing doors. “Don’t forget to wear protection,” he calls out just as the doors close.
Protection is the last thing on my mind.
I want to feel her raw.