Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SORCHA
Axl’s hand is a warm, solid weight in mine as we walk towards our lecture. The kiss has left my lips tingling.
We reach the lecture hall. The buzz of conversation is loud as we enter. Annastasia is there already. My gaze meets hers, and she gives me a slight nod. I give her one back.
Axl doesn’t release me. He leads me to the back row, the same one I sat in yesterday, feeling like an outcast. Today, it feels like a throne. He sits beside me, his arm draped casually over the back of my chair, a clear, unmistakable claim to anyone watching. And everyone is watching.
Dr Albright walks in, but his lecture on legacy syndicates is just background noise. My focus is entirely on the man beside me, on the subtle pressure of his arm, the heat of his thigh against mine. This isn’t about Criminology. This is a lesson in power, and I’m taking meticulous notes.
My body hums with a dangerous energy, a live wire of power I’m just learning to control. This is better than any fight, more intoxicating than any drug.
When the lecture ends, the scraping of chairs is loud in the suddenly quiet room.
Axl’s hand slides from the back of my chair to the small of my back.
The pressure is firm, guiding, an undeniable claim.
He doesn’t speak. I’m glad. I’m not in the mood for conversation.
I just want to go to my lectures, take my notes, keep my head down and try not to get shot or arrested.
“I’m hungry,” I murmur as my stomach rumbles.
“We have half an hour before the next class,” he says and turns course to steer me towards the dining hall.
We enter to the clatter of plates and cutlery and the delicious aroma of cooked breakfast.
“Sit,” Axl says. “I’ll get us something.”
I sink onto the bench at the table I sat at yesterday.
I watch Axl move through the crowd towards the hot food counter, a shark gliding through a school of minnows.
People part for him, their eyes flicking from him to me and then quickly away.
They’re afraid. They see an alliance forming that they didn’t expect, and it’s making them nervous.
The balance is being tipped, the ship is leaning.
It’s a heady feeling.
This is what it’s like to have power you didn’t have to bleed for.
It’s handed to you on a silver fucking platter, and the only price is your soul.
My pride screams that I should get my own food, that I’m not some pampered princess.
But the girl who grew up eating stale bread and dreaming of a hot meal just watches, transfixed.
Axl returns with two plates piled high with a full Irish breakfast. He sets one in front of me, the scent of bacon and fried eggs making my mouth water. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen all morning. He slides onto the bench opposite me, his knee brushing mine.
“Eat,” he commands softly.
“Or what?” I ask because I just can’t seem to help myself.
“Or I’ll feed you in front of all of these good people. Is that what you want? Do you want to submit to me right here, Sorcha, and let them all see that I’m your master?”
The threat is a caress, a velvet-wrapped dare. I pick up my fork, the metal cool and heavy against my skin. My gaze meets his across the table, and I let a slow, deliberate smile curve my lips.
“And what makes you think I wouldn’t enjoy that?
” I murmur, my voice a low purr that’s just for him.
I spear a piece of sausage, lifting it slowly to my mouth.
I take a bite, chewing with a theatrical slowness that makes his eyes darken.
The casual indifference is gone, replaced by a raw, possessive heat.
He’s not in control of this moment. I am. And we both know it.
“I think I’m enjoying this more,” he says. “Watching you take care of yourself is arousing, sunshine.”
“I always take care of myself.”
“No, you survive. There’s a difference.”
His words startle something in me that implodes outwards. They resonate deeply, and it hurts.
He sees it and goes in for the kill. “These loser boyfriends of your mother’s,” he says casually, taking a sip of coffee to show his indifference. “Did they sexually assault you?”
I swallow as my mouth goes dry. “What makes you think that?” I choke out.
“Call it a hunch.”
“Well, hunch away. That’s more information than I’m willing to part with.”
“Give me names and I will bring you their dicks pickled in nice little mason jars, all pretty with red ribbons and diamonds.”
My clit twitches frantically at his words, casually thrown out there. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
He smiles sadistically, and I gulp. There are deep, psychopathic tendencies in this one. Ciar and Cillian are brute force, muscle with brains to match, but I know where they live. They are like me. Easier to read. Axl, on the other hand, is a danger that I want to explore.
“Pickled dick, eh?” I say, deliberately dropping my gaze back to my food. “What girl doesn’t want that in her Christmas stocking?”
His chuckle is a low, dangerous rumble that vibrates right through the table.
“A girl who knows what she’s worth, sunshine.
A girl who deserves trophies.” His eyes are alight with a sick, savage glee that mirrors the darkness I keep locked away inside myself.
He sees it. He sees the part of me that would not only accept those jars, but display them on a fucking mantelpiece.
This isn’t a power play anymore. He’s not trying to break me; he’s trying to make me… happy. The scariest part is, I want to see what it looks like.
He watches me finish my food with a look of contentment. He knows he’s just found a key to a door inside me I didn’t even know was locked.
“Time for class,” he says, his voice smooth as ever, as if he didn’t just offer to commit multiple acts of castration on my behalf.
I stand, letting him take my plate along with his. He doesn’t touch me as we walk out of the dining hall, but I feel his presence like a brand at my back. He wants to collect the trophies of my past and put them on a shelf for me to admire. He wants to worship my scars, not just cover them up.
I don’t know which one is more sick, the fact that he wants to, or the fact that I want to let him.
As we walk into the psychology lecture, he puts his hand on the small of my back again.
This time, it doesn’t feel like a claim.
It feels like a shield. A promise. I don’t pull away, I lean into it.
Is he conditioning me, bribing me with gross gifts and vows of retribution?
More than likely. But it’s more than anyone else has ever done for me.
Even my mother, who decided to blame me rather than protect me.
If he wants to let his psycho flag fly loose on every creep who thought they could take something from me that I wasn’t willing to give, maybe I should let him.
“You have to earn the first name,” I say as we take our seats in Psychology.
His gaze bores into mine. “Let me guess. You are going to make me figure out how, right?”
I giggle. “Right. Otherwise, it’s too easy. I get the feeling you prefer the hard way.”
“You’re learning, sunshine. I feel kind of proud.” He beams at me, and it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. But it’s normal, and I can’t remember the last time anything felt normal, if that even existed in my life.
For the first time since stepping foot onto this campus for the mafia’s next gen elite, I relax.
But somewhere in the back of my mind, I know full trust is a long way from being earned.
Just because they have decided I’m worth their time and their protection doesn’t mean they get me.
Not all of me, anyway. Not yet. Maybe, not ever.