Chapter 23
Alani
The only reason I hesitate in picking up the knife is because of the blood coating it.
Donavan didn’t seem to have an issue with the man’s blood coating his own skin, but I’m the type of person who wears disposable gloves while handling raw meat. The idea of the bacteria on it getting on my skin makes my stomach turn for some reason.
A quick look around the empty room tells me that there are no gloves to be had. Honestly, if I’m going to do any of the things my head is urging me to do, then I really need to get over the sense of ickiness caused by the thought of his blood touching me.
“Please,” he begs. “If you let me go, I’ll let Raul know and he’ll never go after you again.”
I pick up the knife, my rage barely controlled.
“You think he’ll listen?” I ask, circling around him and standing at his back so he can’t see me.
He does his best to turn his head, but the movement makes the wound on his shoulder start to bleed again.
“You’ll be safe,” he promises, even though we both know that’s not his promise to make.
“Okay,” I say, relishing in the whimper of relief that escapes his mouth. “On one condition.”
“Anything,” he vows. “I’ll do anything.”
“I want you to take away all the times Raul Cortez and his men raped my sister.”
A sob bubbles from his mouth.
I twist the tip of the knife into a spot on his back that Donavan has cut, watching as blood blooms with the minor penetration.
“Can you do that for me?”
His shoulders shake, his head held down. “You know I can’t.”
“Well,” I say, pausing for dramatics but also to take a deep breath.
This should be harder than it feels to hurt someone, but it seems to come easy for me, probably because it was so easy for me to put myself in danger all those times.
“Those are my terms.”
He screams when I slice at his skin, and the noise makes my heart rate double. It isn’t fear that pulls that from me but exhilaration.
I know how fucking demented it is to feel joy while hurting someone else, but that doesn’t make the emotion any less real.
“Alani?”
I jerk my head up, pulling my eyes from the wound I caused, at the sound of my sister’s voice.
I was so lost in what I was doing, I didn’t notice the crowd that has gathered in the doorway.
Donavan stands to the side, casually leaning against the wall, but his body position does nothing to detract from the look of hunger in his eyes. It turns him on to watch me hurt someone else, and I’d be lying if my need for him didn’t feed off of it too.
“Alani?” Ayla says again. “What’s going on?”
I shrug, dropping the knife back on the small table and taking a step away from the man.
“Why the fuck is she even here?” Nash snaps, taking a step in front of Ayla, as if the bleeding man poses some form of threat to his woman.
I see it then, the connection, the way this man is willing to burn down the world for my sister, and it all makes perfect sense why she stays with him. The dedication in his eyes and the way I can tell he’d do literally anything to keep her safe speaks volumes right now.
“Cortez sent him after Alani,” Donavan explains.
Ayla watches my hand as I lift it to my neck.
“Your hands are bloody, babe,” Donavan says, stopping me before I inadvertently get more of it on my skin.
“Babe?” Ayla says, confusion tainting her voice.
Donavan shrugs when she looks over at him.
Warmth swims inside of me. I’m not foolish enough to let the part of my brain that’s desperate for him get lost in the sentiment.
“I followed him from that location we were sitting on in Mexico City,” he continues. “He came right here. Stuck her with a needle before I could stop him.”
I narrow my eyes at him, the glint telling me that part of that is a lie.
If I had to guess, I’d say he let the man drug me then stepped in.
I saw the surprise on his face when I almost took the knife from him earlier.
Maybe he did it so he could deal with this man before I woke up, thinking I’d freak out at the sight of him torturing someone.
Honestly, I should be freaked. I should be at the police station recalling all the gruesome things he’s done, but the inclination isn’t there.
“You killed that man in Austin, didn’t you?”
I had somehow convinced myself it was a hallucination. I’d never taken ecstasy before, so I didn’t know what kind of effects they’d have. I was certain he wouldn’t just stab a man without so much as a grunt of effort.
He winks at me, proving that it wasn’t my imagination that created that scenario.
For some reason, that affects me in a way that makes me lick my lips.
He was willing to kill someone to keep me safe?
Maybe it was anger, because I remember taunting him by mentioning I’d fuck them both at the same time.
Fuck my life. If it was jealousy that made him do it, I might melt right here on the spot.
Donavan’s eyes are slow to lift from my lips back up to meet my gaze.
“Are you sure?” Nash asks, pulling my attention away from Donavan.
Ayla looks from me to the man before she locks eyes with her man again.
“I’m sure,” she says, holding her head a little higher as if to compensate for the waver in her voice.
“You want to do it?” he asks, and I want to take a step forward and argue.
I stop short, thinking maybe this man is one of the ones who hurt her in Mexico. If that’s the case, then she deserves to be the one to seek the revenge.
She shakes her head, her throat working on a rough swallow.
“I can’t.”
A thrill of opportunity seeps inside of me.
“Down, tiger,” Donavan says, but there’s a hint of humor in his voice that sinks inside of me in an unexplained way.
My sister turns and leaves the room, and I feel obligated to follow her. I walk past her when she stops in the middle of the living room, and head to the kitchen sink, washing my hands the way Donavan did earlier before rejoining them.
“We were getting ready to go look for you,” Ayla says. “I was freaked out when you didn’t come home.”
“I appreciate your concern,” I tell her, knowing my tone makes me sound completely ungrateful, but I feel like they’re here interrupting something.
I know what comes next. She’s going to insist I come home with them, but I can’t. I don’t want to leave here, but if Nash gets involved, always quick to voice his opinions, then Donavan’s going to insist I leave. Hell, history says he’s going to tell me to get out of here anyway.
When she frowns, I feel the niggling urge to apologize so I choose distraction instead.
“How far are we from the diner?”
“Ten minutes,” Ayla says. “Thirty from home.”
I nod, realizing that Donavan lives freaking close. It shouldn’t surprise me, considering he and Nash sort of work together.
Nash and Donavan step outside to talk, and the second the front door closes, Ayla steps in closer to me.
“Is he hurting you?”
I lift my now clean hand to my neck. “He injected me with something that knocked me out, but Donavan—”
“Is Donavan hurting you?” she clarifies. “Making you hurt that man? Is he holding something over your head?”
I tilt my head in confusion. “Donavan? What? No, he’s not hurting me or making me do anything.”
“Have you… done that before? Cut someone?”
“No, never.” I shove away the shame she’s trying to make me feel. “He’s a bad man.”
“And he’ll die for his association with Cortez, but torturing him? You don’t find anything wrong with that?”
I shake my head, my answer immediate. “No, Ayla. I don’t see a damn thing wrong with it.”
“I’m worried about you,” she whispers, and I have to take a step back before she can place her hand on my arm.
It’s comforting, and it’s also something Mom would do. I hate the way it makes me feel, like my own emotions don’t matter because they might not look the way someone would expect them to.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” I assure her. “I’m fine.”
“I guess I’d be wasting my breath asking you to come back home tonight?”
I nod. “He may ask me to leave, but I don’t want to.”
“What exactly is going on between the two of you?”
I shake my head. “I don’t have a clue, but I can tell you I’m drawn to him.”
“He’s dangerous,” she says.
“So is Nash.” Her man is just as willing to kill that man in the room as Donavan is.
“I know,” she says with a nod. “Don’t lose yourself by getting lost in him.”
I don’t respond because I can’t make that promise. Hell, if I’m being honest, I might have already lost myself to him long before tonight.