Chapter 19
It’s pointless trying to deny something that continues to gnaw at you. Sooner or later, you’ll cave and give in. It’s tried, tested, and true.
It’s human.
The more we lie to ourselves, the bigger that lie gets, like a balloon, stretching and growing until the force is too much, then boom. It explodes.
That’s exactly how I’ve found myself in this cage, naked.
I couldn’t cope with the desire to have Malik, and I don’t want to anymore.
I’ve already had a small taste, and now, I can’t think of anything else.
It doesn’t matter what happens after because when I’m with him, I’m the most powerful I’ve ever been.
The way he looks at me—no, the way he devours me—is unlike any other man’s attention I’ve held before.
It’s thrilling, breathtaking, and oh so dangerous.
But I wish that were it. I wish he didn’t rattle my mind and unscrew all the shields I seemed to have placed in my memory. Because when I’m with him, I remember things I thought would stay blurred forever.
When I’m with him, it’s like another part of my life, one I forgot that I’ve lived, emerges from the depths my mind has entombed.
I wish it were easy to say no to him, to deny the pull between us like kismet. But here I am, trapped in his vortex.
Imprisoned behind the bars he tries to conceal himself with.
Rounding the cage, he asks me to stand, and he glides his hand through the bars, gripping the bottom of my jaw, forcing my neck back.
The metal bar’s cool against the back of my head.
I feel his cock behind me, spreading me open once again as he thrusts himself inside me.
I can’t talk, I can’t breathe, I can only focus on gripping the bars in front of me as he has his way with me.
His crown rubs against the sensitive spot inside me, pushing through the wetness now coating him and spreading to my thighs.
“I told myself I could ignore it,” he hisses against my ear, the shove of his hips hitting the cage, sinking himself inside me. “But I don’t think I can, Isla.”
“We’re still strangers,” I say, gripping the bars harder as his other hand presses on my clit.
“The fuck we are.” His hand tightens around my throat, the pressure building in my eyes as he speaks through gritted teeth. “I’ve had my tongue, fingers, and cock inside you.”
I moan as he continues fucking me, denying me air.
“I know how to make you scream my name like it’s the only divine entity you know.” His voice drops as I struggle to breathe.
I bring my lips together to speak, my vision pulsing as the bars blur.
“Only I can take you to that place. Only I can command your body like this, so it responds by pleading for more.”
I’m about to pass out. The tension rolls through my shoulders and thighs, building to the middle and finally erupting.
The rush of air into my lungs as he releases his grip on my neck syncopates with the pulsing between my legs.
He thrusts into me hard, and I shudder through a throat-tearing cry of release.
I barely hear his chuckle through the ringing in my ears when he holds me against the bars, my body too spent for more.
“Malik,” I say weakly, my eyes closing as he chases his release.
“That’s all I want to hear you say, Little Nycto—my Little Nycto,” he groans, and I whimper from the soreness between my legs. “Fuck, you’re perfect. Every goddamn inch of you.”
His guttural groans are as erotic as any other part of him as he forces himself inside me as far as he can go, the warm streams of his cum filling me. When he slides out, I feel his release run down my thigh, mixing with mine.
My mind is foggy, my brain dizzy, barely registering much as he helps me out of the cage, holding me against his chest. All I can smell is his sinful cologne mixed with the ecstasy of him.
I’m weightless, and I almost believe it’s because of the pills I’ve taken, but it’s Malik, hugging my body to his.
I don’t know when he put his clothes back on, or covered me with mine, but I’m grateful for the warmth as the music grows louder, then disappears.
From the sounds of the elevator to the running water, I wince when he lowers us both into the hot bath. I settle on his chest, taking a deep breath. I’m exhausted, but I want to know. I have so many questions that I’m afraid to ask, but I can’t go further without some answers.
I can sense myself falling, and I can’t plummet into this black hole without all the answers.
“Malik,” I whisper, the water sloshing as his hand moves to brush the wet hair from my temple.
“You should be resting.”
“Who was Emmett talking about…back at your apartment?”
There’s a pause, and this time, it’s uncomfortable, like I’ve somehow stepped on a nerve.
“A ghost.” His answer is clipped and cryptic.
“Did you…Was she the reason you went to juvie?”
I hold my breath, already knowing the answer.
“Yes.”
I’m not surprised, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
He must have loved her so much. Enough to give up his freedom, and it makes me jealous, so irrationally jealous of the type of love I’ve never come across all my life.
“I’ve searched for her for thirteen years,” he admits, and I turn to meet his gaze, resting my chin on my hands on top of his wet chest. I wish I hadn’t.
I wish I couldn’t see the pain and yearning in his eyes that aren’t for me.
“I lost a brother because of my selfishness.” The backs of his fingers caress my cheek. “And now, part of me begs to banish the ghost that haunts me before I lose something else.”
This is it. I’m finally going to get her back. I’m finally going to make her mine. All the nights I spent between the cold walls of my cell are about to feel like a memory. But what if she doesn’t want me?
What if she can’t stomach the person I have become?
I’ve made myself sick to my stomach countless nights thinking about this moment, and now that it’s here, I can’t stop thinking about all the what-ifs.
“Hey! Focus, Malik. We’re quite literally on the doorstep of the devil,” Evren signs, his black gloves moving in my face aggressively.
I nod. “I’m nervous,” I admit out loud, and he laughs.
“Good, because if we’re wrong, this can all turn to shit real fucking quick,” he signs, pulling his mask over his face. “We’ll go on three.”
“Fuck, I should’ve taken a piss before this.” Emmett squirms, holding his gun down toward the floor.
It’s pitch fucking black. Even the moon is nowhere to be seen, only a small sliver in the sky.
I’m barely holding myself back from storming the place.
The only thing stopping me is Emmett and Evren.
I promised them I would stick to the plan, and although I want to, the blood in my veins rushes at a pace all too familiar to when I took a life for the first time.
“I don’t think she’s here, man. This is a fancy place,” Emmett whispers.
I can’t blame him for losing all hope because anyone else would. Everyone else would have given up within a year of searching.
Not me.
“Who gave you this info again?” Evren signs, crouching behind the car next to me.
I pull out my phone and bring up the image one of my investigators took of a woman wearing a gold mask, her dark hair tightly secured in a bun with the tattoo on the back of her neck on full display.
The tattoo Evren, Emmett, and I share.
One that was given to us as a right of passage at Ophidian.
Roman numerals in the form of the date you arrived, a memory permanently etched into your skin.
Hers matched the date of the woman in the picture.
“It’s legitimate,” I say, showing him the photo, and he nods.
“I guess it’s hard to argue with that,” he signs back. “But what are you going to tell her after we take her? Hey, sorry I kidnapped you, but I’ve loved you since I was fourteen?”
To be honest, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
The doors to the club open, shattering our plan of breaking through the crowd. And when a large man steps outside with the woman I’m meant to steal for myself, I catch a glimpse of her lips before he shoves a bag over her head. I rest the gun on the bonnet of the car, aiming it at him.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Who the fuck is he?
“What the fuck!?” Emmett yells as bullets fly in our direction. “Who the fuck knew about us!?”
He fires back at them, and I aim at the man holding my lifeline in his hands, but I can’t bring myself to pull the trigger at the risk of hitting her. Before I can yell out to him, Evren abandons the shield of the car and advances towards them.
“What the fuck is he doing!?” Emmett screams, going after him.
“Emmett!”
My fingers remain slick around my gun, my breathing slow and deliberate, in stark contrast to the rapid beating inside my chest.
“Move!” I yell as the man raises his arm in slow motion, aimed directly at Evren. Others emerge from all around us, closing us in. He fires, the street growing quiet as I watch Evren’s body hit the floor.
The blood drains from my face as my heart is pulled in two directions. One toward her and the other toward my brother.
We shouldn’t have come.
Soft droplets of rain fall onto my cheek as their voices echo around me.
“Go! Go! Get them in the car!” someone says as my muscles work to drag Evren around the corner into a dark, closed-off street.
“Fuck! Is he going to be okay?” The desperation in Emmett’s voice echoes the feeling lodged in my throat.
The blood seeps out of Evren’s wound on his stomach, covering my black gloves.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I press firmly, his eyes meeting mine, wide and confused. His mouth opens, and I think he might talk, even though he hasn’t since he was six. But he doesn’t.
His blood mixes with the rain until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. Emmett removes his jacket and hands it to me, but as I press it down, I know it’s not enough.
And so does Evren.
His hands move shakily, trying to sign something.
“D-don’t give up.” His body shakes as he continues to sign. “Like you never gave up on me.”
“Never.” My voice shakes as his arms hit the concrete, his eyes still locked on mine as the light begins to dim inside them.
“Fuckkkkkk!” Emmett roars, dropping to his knees, burying his face in his hands as his body shakes with sobs.
I hold our brother in my arms, soaked in his blood, wishing I could take it all back. Wishing I never asked him to come with me.
Wishing that the world would stop spinning for one fucking second.
But it didn’t.
How can someone who has seen no compassion show so much of it to me? How can one person endure this much pain in life and still want to live? I see myself in Malik, and I’m afraid to admit it. Does it mean I crave the ability to take a life?
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper into his skin, resting my cheek on his chest as he lathers my body with soap.
“It’s no use being sorry about the past.”
I squeeze my eyes shut at the plunge in my heart when I think about him belonging to someone else. I need to leave before he can hurt me. I knew I should have kept this professional.
I should never have come here.
The water moves as I sit up, and his hand clasps around my wrist.
“Don’t leave,” he implores, deepening the crack in my chest.
I turn to face him, his devastatingly striking face the highlight of my dreams. “You don’t have any room left for me, Malik.”
“I won’t let you go.” He stands, the water streaking down his strong, beautiful body as he pulls me up with him. “Don’t make me the villain like everyone else does.”
His tongue sweeps his bottom lip, collecting the droplets of water, the ball in my throat forming slowly as I take him in. Like a devil sent in its most heart-stopping form, he stares back at me.
I take a breath before I speak, centring myself and steadying my voice. “What’s the use in two broken hearts holding on, when neither remembers how to beat?”
“They might have forgotten how to beat,” he murmurs, interlacing his fingers with mine, pulling me into him. “But they ache all the same.”
“I don’t belong here, with you, in the twisted barbs that hide you from me.”
His jaw ticks, his bare skin against mine. “What do you want me to do?”
How can I say I want him to be mine? How can I ask him to free the space he holds for someone else, for me?
In what world would we ever belong together?
We don’t.
And we never will.
“I need to leave, and this needs to stay professional before—”
His grip tightens, my fingers trapped in his bruising hold as his gaze grows darker. “If you leave, I’ll follow you. I’ll do everything you don’t want me to do because that’s all I know.”
“Malik…” I bring our hands between us, placing my lips on his knuckles. “I can’t be her. You won’t ever let me take her place.” I fight the sting in my eyes, holding them back behind the Perspex glass I’ve placed around my heart, shielding myself. “And I can’t live as I die trying.”