Chapter 24
KNOX
My little beauty’s face turned beet red, and a million emotions crossed her furious face.
I savored every single one of them. My beauty had kept her name from me for far too long.
I let her keep that distance because I knew I was going to capture her one day and put her behind bars, and I was already loving our games too much.
Her keeping her name a secret gave her some protection from me.
But that was before.
Before I saw her scars.
Before she shot me in the leg because she got butthurt.
Before she kidnapped me and tied me to a chair.
Before she fed me pasta while revealing her truths.
Before she turned out to be my favorite fairy tale.
All my life, I’d battled with obsession and destruction. Anything that obstructed me from my obsession, I destroyed. Obsession and destruction went hand in hand. Both of them kept me sane. Obsession gave me loyalty and purpose. Destruction gave me the freedom to punish the obstructions.
My mother and brother had always helped me channel those two emotions ever since I’d fallen into violent outbursts if I couldn’t go to the little trail behind our house for my daily bicycle ride.
They’d found out that I had started to enjoy killing little critters on the trail.
Cue the smashing of the plates, fighting with my brother, throwing myself off the stairs, and a hundred other antics that had scared my little family.
It had taken months, but my mother taught me how to channel my obsession.
Before I could discover a new obsession, she gave me something to be obsessed with first. Be it reading books—I read 200 books a year—or getting good grades.
Be it helping someone every single day to earn a fucking sticker or becoming a detective and solving cases.
If I couldn’t be obsessed, I would destroy.
There was one obsession that had always protected me from becoming a psycho killer. My obsession to keep my mother happy and proud.
Up until last night, that obsession birthed the rest of my new obsessions.
I was already obsessed with my little criminal. Her mischief. Her vengeful little heart. Her vicious fighting spirit. The scent of her fucking arousal.
Through it all, I kept myself leashed, kept my rule, my sense of duty, above my obsession.
Until last night.
The moment I saw my little criminal’s magnificent face, the deepest, darkest writhing piece of my mind realigned itself.
Every thread of the leash holding my obsession in the dark recesses of my mind snapped off and latched to a single source.
My beauty. My little criminal. My little stalker. My fucking fairy tale.
It wasn’t just the dichotomy of her face that had my obsession burning me up from the inside. It was the horrors she suffered, the pain she endured, the battles she fought, that she carried on her face. She wore the face of her beauty and her battles.
Her face was her story. Her scars were her victory.
I would destroy anything or anybody that kept me away from my forever obsession.
And I fucking deserved to know the name of my obsession.
“I’m still waiting for the name, Beauty. Give it to me, or I will make it my mission to ruin all of your missions.”
I had already made up my mind not to arrest my girl or her friends.
At the end of the day, they, too, were serving justice.
The part that wasn’t tied to my morality—the part that hated bullies and inherently knew that men who bullied women, abused them, and harmed them needed to be punished—applauded the Wildcats.
But right now, all I cared about, all I wanted, was to be around my beautiful vigilante.
I wanted to know every little thing about her—her likes and dislikes, the way she fought, the way she worked, her weapons, her cases, her history, her dreams.
Starting with her fucking name.
I kept my gaze trained on her—I couldn’t look away even if I tried—and waited for her answer. My cock was already fucking chubbing up with anticipation. I just knew she was going to break any second now.
Her jaw clenched tight as she gritted her teeth before she uttered one word, “Tara.”
Ecstasy exploded through my veins as my brain started chanting her name like a prayer. Tara Tara Tara Tara Tara Tara Tara…
My lips stretched into a wide smile, and my chest heaved with unfiltered delight. “Fuck me,” I panted, my cock as hard as a rock in my pants. “What does it mean?”
She sighed, rubbing her hands over her face, a tempting red blush coating the top of her cheeks. “A star.”
Fireworks exploded in my brain. The only star I could see. My North Star. “Tara,” I said it aloud, my heart pounding in my chest at the way her name rolled off my tongue. “Beautiful.”
Her cheeks darkened further, and I decided to give my girl a break.
“Tara,” I said it again just because I couldn’t not say it.
“I will not arrest you or your friends. I will work with you. I will live with you. And I will not interfere in what cases you take up or how you choose to handle them. I’ll be involved in whatever capacity that works the best for your mission.
And mind you, I will be involved in the mission and not put on the sidelines. Does that make you happy?”
Her eyes widened into shock, utterly incredulous. “What part of this could possibly make me happy?”
“The part where I don’t arrest you and your friends? A pretty important part, all things considered. Now, if you can untie me, that’d be great.”
“Fuck me,” she mumbled.
“Untie me first, my Tara.” I fucking loved her name.
She growled as she got up to grab the key from behind me.
I turned my head as far back as it would go. “I must tell you, I’m so excited to live with you. Work with you. It’s going to be so much fun.”
I could imagine her rolling her eyes at me as she sat behind me to untie my hands. “Why don’t you go fucking die?”
I chuckled. “Such a naughty mouth.”
“Shut up. Just shut up. It’s bad enough that I’m agreeing with your stupid conditions. No need to rub it in.”
Once she had my arms and legs freed, I finally got off the stupid chair. I stretched my arms and twisted my torso, relieving the soreness. All the while, Tara kept her eyes riveted on me. “Are we going to meet your group?”
She folded her arms. “Yes. I want no funny business from you.”
“Can I freshen up before we go?”
“Sure.”
She gestured to the door in the corner of the room.
Once inside, I did my business and then splashed my face with ice-cold water.
My eyes took in my haggard appearance—the bristles on my jaw, the pale cheeks, the slightly sunken eyes.
My body was exhausted and in pain. The loyalty of the man in the mirror had dramatically shifted overnight, and his newfound obsession was a fucking criminal.
While I mourned the possibility of disappointing my mother, after a long time, I finally felt.
I hadn’t felt true emotions for so long, I’d forgotten what they did to my psyche, my mind, the way I experienced the world around me.
For so long, in the world where my only goal was to walk the legal line while keeping my true desires barely sated, everything around me was a dull, monotonous hum.
Now, my mind—my dark, devious, starving mind—had finally found my soul’s obsession.
I stepped out of the bathroom, and my eyes fell on Tara.
She stood in a black crop hoodie and lounge pants, a sliver of her stomach—her abs—peeking from under the hoodie.
Her hair fell over her shoulders in waves, and her lips were pursed in irritation. The world wasn’t so dull anymore.
The air around her sparkled with electricity, creating a halo around her silhouette. Her dark mischievousness matched mine, her stalkery tendencies combating mine in a way that only hooked me deeper. My ears captured every single one of her breaths. My heart pounded in a wild rhythm of obsession.
My little beauty, my Tara, dressed like she wanted to hide from the world, but she would never be able to hide from me.
“Ready?” I asked, stepping closer to my beauty.
“Not really,” she grumbled and rolled her shoulders. “Might as well. Let’s go.”
She took the lead while I followed her, the sway of her tight little ass making my journey even sweeter. Now that I’d decided to claim my beauty, I couldn’t care less about my surroundings.
She walked; I walked.
She entered the elevator; I followed.
She stared at the little panel showing the floor level; I stared at her.
Before I knew it, we were walking into the Wildcats’ Headquarters.
She looked back at me with a snarky twist of her pretty lips. “This is our headquarters. Not like you need a tour.”
I shrugged my shoulders. She just rolled her eyes at me and walked farther into the space.
It looked like nobody was here, but the moment we reached the glass-enclosed office area, five people’s eyes were trained on us.
Four of them had a mask covering their face, while Dominic Park confidently sat in his three-piece suit as if he owned the fucking place. Which he did. Rich fucking asshole.
I met his penetrating stare head-on, giving him the cold, dead eyes of the Beast inside and the lieutenant outside. After a second, Dominic turned his head and looked at the large woman wearing a red tiger mask. That’d be his girlfriend.
Tara walked to the chair at the other end of the room, and it didn’t escape my notice that this way, the whole room saw the unscarred side of her face.
I simply followed her, taking a seat right beside her, deliberately facing her scarred side, taking in the three remaining women with lion, cheetah, and jaguar masks.
Tara’s eyes narrowed at me, and with a huff, she cleared her throat and turned to the ladies. “Ladies, meet Lieutenant Knox Steele,” she said, and then turned to me. “Lieutenant Steele, meet the Wildcats.”