19. Arson
Arson
T he security feed flickers as a black SUV appears outside the warehouse.
Expensive. Tinted windows. Familiar.
The coffee mug I held in my hand shatters against the concrete floor before I register dropping it.
No. No. No.
I lean in a little closer to the monitors, fingers white-knuckled on the desk as I watch, terrified, at what happens next. A second passes, and then the passenger door opens.
A small body appears on the screen, and the moment I catch a glimpse of her face, I know something is wrong.
What the hell are you doing, Lilian?
The back window on the SUV lowers just enough to show Mr. Alvarez’s profile. That perfectly engineered smile. The casual adjustment of his watch that signals a deadline. Horror mixed with dread zips down my spine.
I should’ve known it was them. They’re the only ones who would show up here like this.
They’re sending a message. Making it clear they can reach out and touch anything, anyone, in my carefully constructed revenge.
Including her.
The SUV pulls away, and Lilian stands there, her features a mixture of anger and fear. She doesn’t understand. Doesn’t know what these men are capable of. What they’ve done to others who complicated their “investments.”
My hands shake as I pull up the other camera feeds. I quickly check sight lines and scan the area for additional vehicles. They’re never alone. They never make only one move.
Seven days. I’ve ignored her for seven days. After the confrontation with my brother and our meeting in the garden, I knew I needed to get my head on straight. Lilian’s presence in my life has fucked everything up. I knew I needed a couple of days but didn’t expect it to take this long. I spent the time researching every possible individual the Hayes family had a part in incarcerating, which gave the Alvarezes an opening. Considering I still don’t quite understand what they want out of our arrangement, it’s even more dangerous.
For days, I tried to remind myself that she was nothing but a pawn, just another way to hurt Aries. Tried to forget how perfect she felt pressed against me, like she was made for me, her darkness calling out to me like the siren she is.
Nothing I’ve told myself over the past seven days matters now.
They’ve taken notice, made her a variable in the equation. Even though I tell myself it’s nothing more than attraction I feel for Lilian, the thought of letting them get their hands on her, of letting them hurt her the way they’ve hurt others makes me irrational.
It makes me murderous with rage.
I’ve been trying to figure out what these bastards want ever since they showed up offering money. Seeing them with Lilian terrifies me on a level I didn’t even know I could feel anymore.
The convenient accidents. The untraceable poisons. The clean disappearances leaving no evidence, asking no questions.
I can’t let them do that to her.
She’s mine to break, mine to corrupt, mine to ? —
Fuck. I press a hand to the side of my head, trying to slow the chaos forming there. I need to bury those thoughts. Drown them. Kill them. Until I don’t recognize them anymore. This isn’t about possession or desire. It’s about control. About keeping my revenge on track. About?—
Lilian’s entire body shudders as she breathes, and then she walks toward the entrance, her head held high, her stride purposeful.
Like she’s walking into a business meeting instead of a killer’s lair.
Stupid, brave girl. I don’t know if I should reward her or strangle her for being so stupid.
I’m moving before I can make a conscious decision to do so, fury and fear driving me toward her. What is she thinking? What happened?
I hit the warehouse floor running, all pretense of control abandoned. The metal stairs rattle under my boots as I take them three at a time. No more calculated movements. No more careful performance. Pure instinct drives me now.
Animal rage mixed with something else—something resembling fear, but that can’t possibly be it, since that would mean Lilian is something important to me, more than a pawn.
The security door beeps as I slam through it. Sunlight blinds me momentarily as I burst outside, but I don’t need to see where I’m going. I can feel her presence and smell her expensive perfume mixed with the heady scent of adrenaline.
My hands find her before my vision clears.
“What did they say to you?” I wrap my hands around her arms, yanking her against me. “Tell me. Every fucking word. Now.”
She gasps—not from fear but surprise at my roughness.
I’m usually more controlled with her, more seductive. She’s never seen me like this, so raw, balancing on the edge of right and wrong.
“Arson—”
She says my name. My. Fucking. Name. That’s all it takes to make me unravel from the inside out.
“Inside,” I demand, dragging her through the door with me. I don’t care if I bruise her porcelain skin. She has worse things to worry about than a couple of bruises. “Before they come back. Before they?—”
“Let go!” she grumbles, struggling in my grasp.
As if I would let her go.
We crash against the wall just inside the entrance, and I take note of her tiny gasp when she slams into it. Releasing her, I use my body to cage her in while I kick the door shut with my foot. Above, the security lights flicker on, casting harsh shadows across her face.
Anger—at myself—consumes me. Does she not realize the danger she’s put herself in? The danger I put her in by allowing her to taunt me, to tempt me with her body and her alluring eyes. I grab her by the arms and shake her. I need to make her see how dangerous this is, how dangerous I am.
“What. Did. They. Say?” Each word is punctuated by my fingers digging a little deeper into her flesh.
“Stop! You’re hurting me.” Her voice is strong even as she flinches from the pain. Gone is the fragile girl she pretended to be before.
“Good. Maybe you’ll be able to look at the bruises and remember why you shouldn’t be here. Now answer the question!” I shake her once, trying to get common sense to filter into her brain. “What did those men tell you?” Her head whips back and forth, strands of blond hair falling into her face, and even now, with the reminder of danger and the awareness that she’s nothing more than a pawn to me, I’m tempted to tuck them behind her ear. Tempted to wrap my arms around her and tell her I won’t let anything happen to her, but I can’t. Now that they know about her, she’s a pawn, a weapon they can use against me.
Her blue eyes narrow with suspicion. “Wait, are you afraid of them?”
The observation hits far too close to the truth. I drag her closer, bringing us face-to-face.
“Do you think because I want to fuck you that you mean something to me, that you suddenly know everything there is to know about me?” I growl into her face. “This has nothing to do with fear. I’m not afraid of anything.” The lie tastes bitter. “But you should be. Of me. Of them. You don’t know what any of us are capable of.”
“Then tell me.” Our gazes collide, and I see fear in her eyes, but that’s not the biggest emotion that stands out. It’s anger. Searing rage. “Tell me why the great Arson Hayes is coming apart at the seams because of one car ride.”
Does she really think this is still our game of seduction and power? Doesn’t she understand the danger she’s in?
“I think it’s time you learn exactly what kind of hell you’ve walked into.” I turn, and with one hand wrapped around her bicep, I drag her behind me while continuing deeper into the warehouse.
“I’m not going anywhere until you explain?—”
“You’ll go where I put you,” I snarl, mask completely shattered. “Because right now, I’m the only thing standing between you, them, and a very untimely fucking death.” The longer I think about them touching her, about them using her against me, the angrier I become. “Did they touch you?” I demand, shoving her around another corner. “Threaten you? Offer you anything?”
“Stop manhandling me!” Digging her feet into the ground, she makes a feeble attempt to stop me, but her comfort is far from my biggest concern right now.
“Answer me!” I yell, my voice echoing off the concrete walls. “Did they say anything about deadlines? About complications?”
She twists in my grip, surprisingly strong for someone supposedly fragile. “They said you’re off schedule. That I’m interfering with their investment?—”
“Fuck!” I roar and slam my palm against the wall beside her head, making her jump. Pain zings up into my shoulder, but it feels good, keeps me present. “Did they mention Aries? The Hayes family? Any specific dates?”
“I’d tell you if you’d stop throwing me around like a rag doll!”Her outburst catches me off guard. Most people cower when I’m like this—all rage and barely contained violence. Not Lilian. She stands straighter, eyes flashing with anger rather than fear. When I don’t respond, she chooses to fight back. “You want answers?” She shoves against my chest, hard enough to make me step back. “Try asking like a normal human.”
The push ignites something primitive in my blood. Nobody touches me without permission. Nobody pushes back. Not since the institution.
“Careful, Lilian.” I stalk forward, backing her against another wall. “I think you’re forgetting who’s in charge here.”
“No.” She holds her head high even as I crowd her space. “You be careful. You want answers; well, so do I. I’m done being pushed around. Done being protected and sheltered. I’m not weak or fragile. I’m not the enemy. I came here to help you, remember?”
“Help me?” I laugh, the sound harsh and broken. “I don’t think you understand what is happening. They weren’t supposed to know about you. About us. About?—”
“About what?” She pushes me again, a little harder this time. “About how you can’t decide if you want to threaten me or fuck me? About how you’re so obsessed with hurting Aries you can’t see you’re turning into exactly what they made you?”
I snap, something inside me—that carefully constructed control I’ve maintained since escaping the institution—evaporating.
She sees it happen, recognizes the moment the monster breaks free of the chains, but instead of running, she pushes me one more time.
“Come on, Arson. Show me what they really created in that place. Show me the animal they?—”
I don’t think. I simply react, wrapping a hand around her throat before she can finish. I give the slender column a squeeze, stopping her from speaking or screaming for help—not that anyone would be able to save her. Her blue eyes reflect that danger; she knows this isn’t the seductive grip from our previous encounters.
This is pure, uncontrolled violence.
God help me, she’s still standing here, her eyes shimmering with both fear and determination. She doesn’t fight me, doesn’t scream or cower.
My fingers flex against her throat, muscle memory from years of institutional violence taking over. A little more pressure, and I could silence her forever. End this complication. Remove this variable that’s making me feel things I buried deep between padded cells and chemical restraints.
Emotions lead to mistakes, loss of control, they lead to giving a shit, and I have no room to care for her, not with my need for revenge burning so brightly. As I watch her, though, I realize I’m past that point. Meeting my gaze steadily, her small hand comes to rest over my mine, the one wrapped around her throat.
Not fighting. Not surrendering. Something else entirely.
“Is this what they taught you?” Her voice comes out rough under my grip. “How to hurt anyone who gets too close?”
Stupid girl. Always tempting the monsters in the dark.
“Shut up.” The words scrape out of me, animal-raw.
“Make me.” She presses herself into my hand. “Show me what they turned you into. The monster under the bed. The bogeyman they used to scare the other patients?—”
“I said shut up!” I snarl into her face. The desire to hurt her surges up, wild and blistering. It screams through my bones, coils around my spine, and demands release.
I could end this. Shut her up. Break her down. But I don’t.
My grip doesn’t tighten, and instead my fingers tremble. Like even the darkness inside me flinches at the thought of hurting her. She’s not afraid of me. She should be and that makes me even more dangerous. Dammit, she’s in my blood now. In my head.
Wrapped around every fucked-up part of me like silk on barbed wire.
We stand locked together, her pulse fluttering under my palm, both of us breathing like we’ve just ran a marathon. If I had any sense, I’d finish what I started. Snap her like a twig and walk away before she ruins what’s left of me.
That’s no longer an option, because somewhere along the way, she stopped being the pawn I needed to use, and became a weapon to be used against me.
“Why aren’t you afraid?” It’s an honest observation, and one that has me curious.
Her thumb strokes my knuckles, the gesture incongruously gentle against our violent tableau. “Because this isn’t you. This is what they programmed you to be. Their attack dog.” It’s true. “If you wanted to hurt me, you would’ve done it already.”
Memories flood me—orderlies teaching me where to hit so it wouldn’t leave a bruise, doctors explaining how violence was my natural response, nurses sedating me when I tried to be anything else. I give my head a shake to break free of the thoughts. It doesn’t matter if she’s right. She doesn’t know me, doesn’t know what I went through to get here.
“Don’t act like you know me, Lilian, because you don’t. You know what I want you to know, and that’s it.”
“You’re right. I don’t know you, but I do know they hurt you.” Her other hand comes out of nowhere, and her gentle fingers skim across my cheek. I can’t tell if she’s stupid or fearless, especially since I’ve still got a tight grip on her throat. “I know they used you for their own benefit, that they wanted you to become a weapon.”
“Become?” I tilt my head at her. “What makes you think I’m not a weapon for them to use already?”
“Maybe you are. I don’t know. What I can tell you is that you aren't the monster you pretend to be.”
There’s a fracture in my chest—not the satisfying shatter of violence, but the slow, agonizing split where truth slips through my armor.
“I’ll kill you,” I whisper, but my grip is already wavering. “If they even suspect you matter to me, they’ll use you—and I won’t let that happen. I’ll have to…” My voice breaks, the vulnerability ripped from me. Lilian matters. Fuck, she matters more than she should—more than I ever should’ve allowed, and now there’s no way out.
It’s too fucking late.
I can’t let her go. I won’t .
“Kill me to protect me?” That ghost of a smile plays across her lips. “Pretty sure that defeats the purpose.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I growl, voice low, almost broken. “But if it’s you or them—if it’s you or them using you —” I can’t make myself finish that sentence. The thought makes me irrational.
We stay frozen at that moment—my hand on her throat, her hands on my face, violence and tenderness tangled together until I can’t tell which is which anymore.
Slowly, I shove the animal back into its cage. All that time in captivity taught me how to compartmentalize—how to tuck rage into tidy boxes and lock them tight. What it didn’t teach me was how to do it with someone’s pulse still trembling beneath my palm.
I stare down at her beautiful face, my hand hovering at her throat like it doesn’t know what to do anymore. “If they think you’re compromising their investment, you’ll vanish. There will be no body. No evidence. It will be washed away as another tragic accident.” I exhale through clenched teeth. “I’ll be the one left cleaning up the mess— again . Knowing I let it happen. That I let you get that close.”
“I’m not afraid of dying.” Her fingers trace the scar along my jaw—an old reminder from the first time they tried to break me.
Sever the connection, end it now. I can’t do it. Her touch feels like everything I’ve ever wanted and nothing I deserve.
“You should be. These men...they won’t just kill you. They’ll dismantle you. Tear apart who you are piece by piece until you’re begging for an end that will never come.” I pause, jaw tight, eyes locked on hers. “I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. The thought of it happening to you—” I swallow hard. “Death would be mercy. But they don’t do mercy.”
Understanding dawns in her eyes. Her other hand slides from mine at her throat before moving to my chest, coming to rest over my hammering heartbeat. The gesture is so intimate it hurts. No one has ever touched me with such care, or tenderness.
“I’m not weak, Arson. I can protect myself.”
I study her face—the steel beneath her delicate features. “You aren’t weak; you’re right, and that’s what I like best about you. How delicate on the outside you appear, but how strong you are inside. Even so, you’re naive if you think you can protect yourself against these types of people.”
“I don’t want your protection. I don’t want to be another liability.”
I pull her closer, my gaze dropping to her lips.
Fuck, I want to kiss her.
But now isn’t the time for that. “What you want doesn’t matter. It stopped mattering the moment you tangled yourself in my web. Right this second, they’re watching us. Every move we make. Every time I touch you, every secret you uncover, every moment we’re together—they’re cataloging it. Building a profile, strategizing how to hurt me through you.”
“Then let them watch.” Her chin lifts defiantly. “We can’t change what they plan to do, especially when we have no idea what their plan is.”
“You don’t understand.” I press my forehead to hers, the gesture more intimate than any violence I could visit upon her. “Their appearance here, it changes everything.”
“In what way?”
I already know she’s going to fight me on this, but the decision to keep her here was made the moment they pulled up. “I can’t protect you outside these four walls. Can’t control all the variables. Can’t guarantee your safety.”
Her breath catches as she realizes what I’m saying.
“Are you asking me to stay here? Do I have a choice?”
“I’m asking you to stay, but if your answer is no, I’ll keep you, anyway.” I pull back enough to meet her eyes. “The alternative is to watch you die, or to kill you myself.”
I can see it in the way her expression shifts—understanding reflecting in her blue eyes.
I won’t lose anyone else to them. Even if it means becoming just like them.
This isn’t revenge. It’s not even rage anymore. It’s something worse—need. A brutal, possessive instinct to protect what’s mine, no matter the cost.
I’ll keep her safe, even if it means sacrificing my own wants.
While she’s here, I’ll use her to get revenge on my brother. I gently caress the soft curve of her jaw. Perhaps my brother was right, and she’ll never want the monster. Not like she wants him .
And as badly as I want Lilian in my bed, her pussy pulsing around my cock while my name escapes her lips, I also want to use her for revenge, and separating the two seems impossible.
I guess we will see which side wins.