Desire
After we slept a little more, I drove Aurora to her apartment. Once I’m a safe distance away, I park the Hummer, pull out my phone, and connect to the hidden cameras in her bedroom. On the screen, I watch her pack her things to go home to her parents and brother in the Shaker Heights suburbs.
For a while, I gaze at my broken princess on the screen. She came wearing my sweatpants and T-shirt, but she’s in no hurry to change. She pulls the collar up to her nose every now and then, inhaling my scent. The gesture makes me heavy in my groin. I palm the bulge in my pants. My girl.
The anger over her stunt at Savannah has already faded to the background; now I need to think about how we’ll survive.
Her words from earlier are spinning in my head.
Now, I understand crystal clear what draws me to Aurora.
Neither of us was just thrown into hell—we stay living there.
This hell still exists in our heads, and there’s no escaping it.
When I first saw her in that basement—in the white dress covered in bruises but ready to fight—I immediately felt a kindred spirit.
I went through the Red Stock and other brutal family trials to carve out my independence, but it burned everything good out of me forever.
She survived her own nightmare and now unconsciously craves pain and fear.
Is it within my power to give Aurora healing? No. I don’t even want that.
But I can teach her to enjoy her personal hell the way I do.
Neither Jefferson nor the family will make me give her up.
Aurora will become part of the Kingdom. She’s asking me to give up cruelty for her sake, but my princess is only fooling herself.
She’s my prize for all my crimes. Past and future.
I’ll celebrate every kill by greedily feasting on her cunt—and she’ll learn to come from it.
Setting my phone aside, I grab the gun from the glove compartment, check it with a practiced motion, and tuck it into my waistband, then I floor the gas pedal.
I won’t let the fact that Zack dared to touch her go unpunished.
I won’t kill him, but only because I still haven’t unraveled the mystery surrounding that bone marrow transplant operation at Alistair’s clinic.
Once that puzzle is solved, Zack won’t live another day—it’ll be better for everyone, Aurora first and foremost. That bastard dares to stalk her and put his shitty collar on her.
Zack isn’t a man but just a louse that needs to be crushed.
Since I can’t kill him yet, I’ll at least redirect his attention to me.
My path leads to the outskirts of Winchester, the leafy neighborhoods right next to Stonehaven.
Behind the fences of elite gated communities, the lavish villas of rich bastards are hidden.
I kill the engine in front of one of them, slamming the brakes hard.
Gravel sprays from under the Hummer’s tires with a crunch.
Even from the street, music blasts through the slightly open first-floor windows, along with drunken laughter.
I jump out of the car, not bothering to turn off the engine.
Crossing the distance to the high porch in quick strides, I pound my fist against the heavy door.
No response. I knock again—hard enough that the wood groans under my knuckles.
Finally, the lock clicks. The door swings open, and a half-drunk girl appears in the doorway, her top slipping down, her silicone tits practically falling out. She can barely stand, clutching the doorframe with manicured fingers, and squints at me with hazy, wandering eyes.
“Hooot guy, mmm …” she drawls, grinning, trying to focus on me. “Who you here for?”
“Your piece-of-shit brother,” I snap.
I grab her by the shoulder and shove her out of my way, stepping into the spacious foyer.
The bitch screeches as she lands on her ass on the parquet floor, and starts cursing me out, but I don’t even turn my head.
This cheap doormat is who Aurora’s mother seriously wanted Caleb to marry? Good luck with that gene pool.
I follow the music, turning into the living room.
What I see looks more like a den of cheap thugs than an elite home: the table is littered with empty booze, and sketchy girls are hanging around.
Without slowing, I walk over to the media console and stomp into the stereo.
The device crashes to the floor with a crack, shattering into pieces of plastic.
The music chokes and dies, and a ringing silence falls.
“Sterling?! What the hell!” Zack screams, his bruises still not fully healed.
“Too loud, don’t you think?” I toss back.
He leaps up from the leather couch, shoving aside the drunk sluts clinging to him. His shirt is unbuttoned, his face red, and he reeks of alcohol so strongly I can smell it from here. His cronies, unsteady and slow-witted, scramble to their feet after him, clearly not in top form.
“Grab that bastard!” Zack shrieks, stepping back, unwilling to lead by example.
His henchmen lurch into action—one fumbles a knife with clumsy fingers, another grabs an empty bottle from the table.
This pathetic mob starts closing in on me.
Feeling the numerical advantage behind him, Zack grins.
“Oh, Sterling, how nice of you to drop by,” he drawls, spreading his arms. Then he says something that will make him choke on his own blood in the near future.
“I was just remembering how I put a collar on my bitch recently.”
I glare at him, shoving my surging rage deep down. “That’s all you’ve got as a man, huh?” I snort.
Zack’s eyes go wild. It takes a moment for his alcohol-soaked brain to catch the implication about his pathetic impotence in bed with Aurora.
“Zack! That freak hit me!” His drunk sister appears in the doorway again, barely standing, and points an accusing finger at me.
“Not now, shut up!” Zack waves her off, not taking his bloodshot eyes off me.
“Drinking and snorting away Daddy’s inheritance?” I glance at the uneven white lines of cocaine on the glass table. “Such responsible heirs.”
Zack snatches the knife from one of his buddies’ hands and takes a threatening step toward me. “Why don’t I redecorate your face right now?” he hisses, moving closer, the blade’s tip aimed at my chest. “You weren’t very nice to me and my guys last time.”
“I plan to stay that way, if you don’t mind.” I smirk, not a single muscle flinching.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Zack frowns.
His question is drowned out by the sharp squeal of dozens of tires and the low, threatening roar of powerful engines tearing through the silence of the street. Zack’s henchmen flinch and rush to the panoramic windows.
“Holy shit, it’s the Kingdom!” one of them yells.
Zack spins toward the window, the blood draining from his face.
His perfect English lawn is being torn up by the wheels of heavy SUVs and sports cars.
Car doors slam one after another, and my subjects step out onto the lawn.
Patterned bracelets gleam on their wrists, and in their hands, they casually spin gilded baseball bats with miniature engraved crowns on the handles.
“Going to invite my guys in, Zack? Actually, don’t bother—I can manage myself if I have to.
” I draw my gun from my waistband. The entire drunk rabble around me goes pale, recoiling in terror, bottles crashing to the floor.
Zack’s sister lets out a piercing shriek and bolts, stumbling somewhere down the hallway.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to shoot me in my own house, Sterling,” Zack rasps. His enthusiasm for using his pathetic little toothpick has clearly waned. “There are plenty of witnesses. No lawyers will be able to clean up your mess.”
“You know how I picked the guys for the Kingdom, Zack? First category—tough guys, strong and resilient. You definitely don’t fall into that one.
They’re the ones tearing up your lawn right now, by the way.
Second category—kids of influential parents.
And that’s the category you happened to slip into by pure chance. ”
The truth is, the Thorntons’ private clinics would have come in handy for my crew down the line—places to quietly stitch up the guys after shootouts and perform necessary operations without any questions.
“One of my guys’ fathers is a district judge in Winchester,” I continue, casually waving my gun. “Who will he believe, Zack? His son’s best friend or a washed-up drug addict alcoholic who also happens to be the offspring of a serial maniac?”
I shift the barrel from the coke scattered on the table back to Zack’s chest.
“Sterling, what the fuck are you up to?” Zack’s voice cracks, betraying the fear creeping up on him. “I’m not wearing the Kingdom bracelet anymore! Go fuck yourself.”
“Drop that shit.” I nod at the knife.
Zack’s fingers open immediately, and the blade clatters to the floor.
“You touched my girl. Again. My guys saw you cornering her in the hallway.”
I lie, deflecting any suspicion away from Aurora. Zack shouldn’t burn with hatred for her because she confessed to me. I take all his hatred, his rage, and his fear onto myself.
“You think you can just hide in your house and get away with it?” I take a slow step toward him. “I’m here to show you just how wrong you are.”
“Sterling, I swear I didn’t even lay a finger on her—”
“Shut your mouth.”
I cock the hammer with a click. The sound echoes off the walls of the lavish living room, and Zack flinches as if the bullet has already hit him. I glance around at the frozen thugs and the girls huddled together on the couch, trembling. What cheap dens did he dig these whores out of?