Chapter Twenty-Six
Killian
Locke takes me to the warehouse district, about half an hour outside the city, where I have a few warehouses that I use for different purposes.
The purpose of one of them is to take care of loose ends, and get information out of people reluctant to give it.
Locke killed one of Lyra’s muggers, but he kept the other alive, and I have quite a bit of anger and pent-up tension to work out. Usually, I leave matters like this to Locke, but what happened tonight feels like a personal sleight.
For the time being, Lyra belongs to me. I’m the only one allowed to touch her, to hurt her. She’s mine to look at, fuck, and punish. The very idea of someone else doing so is abhorrent.
It’s not because I care about her; I don’t.
I can’t. As offended as she was in the apartment, everything I said was a statement of fact—apart from the moment where I nearly lost my mind and proposed that she could be mine.
She is a working ant in the colony, with potential to be so much more. She is filth compared to me.
She is what I once was; young, na?ve, poor, and easy to take advantage of. I’m well aware that she’s not pinching pennies to make ends meet, but the numbers in her bank account are a fraction of what I keep in my checking’s to cover my monthly expenses. Compared to me, she is filth.
So why the fuck can’t I get her out of my head?
“The blade the first one had was nice—too nice for your casual street mugger,” Locke says from the driver’s seat. “There’s something off about this, boss. Something’s not right. Those guys were organized, and they seemed to have a plan.”
I cock my head to the side, blowing out a long breath. “Do you think they were under orders?”
“I think it’s possible. Even plausible.”
That is a big fucking problem. Lyra’s too insignificant for the time, attention, and money it’d take to order a mugging—which means that, if the two idiots were told to go after her, whoever paid them was probably trying to land a blow at me.
And, considering Locke’s intervention that ended with one of them dead and another soon to die, I’ve just proven that Lyra does mean something to me.
Which she doesn’t. She can’t.
And yet… the feeling of her crying in my arms as a result of pain another man inflicted on her was nearly enough to bring me to my knees. I was planning to stay with her, bathe her, feed her dinner and hold her until she fell asleep—which is beyond unheard of for me.
“You sure you want to join in on this, boss?” Locke asks. “It’s going to get ugly.”
A smile splits my cheeks. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
Locke carries the soon-to-be-dead fuck into the warehouse I have set aside for such times, down a set of staircases hidden beneath a box of crates, and into what he refers to as his personal playground.
The mugger’s wrists go into a pair of manacles, and he’s completely suspended from the ceiling, tied at his feet and fully immobile.
I sit on a shitty folding chair in front of him while Locke collects several tools hanging from the walls.
The mugger starts to come to when his entire bodyweight hinges on his limp wrists, but he snaps fully awake when he sees me sitting in front of him.
Recognition flashes through his eyes as he looks at the blood-stained cement walls and floor with a drain, then sees Locke, who’s holding several repurposed garden tools in his hands.
“This can be quick or it can be slow,” I say, my voice distant. “I’m pissed off, so I prefer the slow route, but I’ll give you the chance to change that. I have questions that I’d like answered; you will either answer them freely, or Locke here will… persuade you to answer."
The man releases a pathetic, high-pitched whimper.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
He licks his lips, jerking at his chains. When he realizes they have no give, he says, “Floyd.”
“You mug people for a living, Floyd?”
He pauses, then nods frankly. “I’m sorry about the girl. I didn’t know she was yours. I—”
“She’s not mine,” I growl, holding up a hand. “But that doesn’t mean she’s anyone else’s, either. She’s certainly not yours to fuck around with.” I brace my elbows on my knees and lean forward. “Were you waiting for her tonight?”
He hesitates. “No.”
I flick a glance at Locke. My chief bodyguard lifts up a pair of clippers, reaches for Floyd’s hands, and neatly slices off his thumb.
Floyd releases a scream that bounces off the soundproof walls and grates against my ears. It lasts for an impressive stretch of time—enough for Locke to shoot me a bemused look, and for me to lean back with a bored sigh.
Blood streams from the stump where Floyd’s thumb was, coating his forehead, face, and neck, staining his already filthy shirt.
The sight is only mildly satisfying. Lyra was shaking like someone stuck in Antarctica without a jacket when I saw her. Only a painful, gruesome, prolonged death will make up for what was done to her.
“Try again,” I say when Floyd’s screech turns into a girlish whimper. “Were you waiting for her tonight?”
“Fuck—yes,” Floyd cries out.
Fury skitters up my spine and sets my blood ablaze. I rise from the chair so abruptly it tips over and snatch the clippers from Locke’s hand.
I want to skin Floyd alive for his crimes, but I start with clipping off his index finger. When he screams like a little bitch, I snatch his index and thumb from the ground and stuff them into his open mouth.
He spits them out and throws up; I jerk to the side just in time to avoid being covered in vomit.
“I told you what you want!” he cries. “I told you—”
“You also went after someone who’s under my protection.” Even if it’s just a temporary arrangement. “Who told you to wait for her?”
“No one—”
He loses another finger, and even more screaming ensues. If I didn’t need him to talk, I’d cut his fucking vocal chords. “Who?” I demand, fisting his hair and yanking his head back.
“I don’t know! A guy stopped me and Ron on the street and offered us cash!
Showed us a picture of the bitch, told us to make it look like a robbery and rough her up—” he cuts off when my fist drives into his abdomen.
Two times in fast succession, justice for Lyra.
Her creamy skin was a canvas of darkness, which means either this fuck or his friend punched her. I’m pleased to return the favor.
I want to snap his neck right now, but he deserves to suffer. I just can’t trust myself not to kill him too quickly.
“See if you can get a name from him,” I tell Locke. “And make it last.”
I leave the room to the sound of Floyd’s pathetic pleas drowning out under the weight of his shrill screams.
I drive myself home, trusting that Locke will find his way back.
My apartment complex is crawling with my security team, which means that Lyra’s safe for the time being.
I’m used to having a minimum of three men with me wherever I go, with nights like tonight being the exception—the less witnesses, the better.
Until I find out who sent muggers after Lyra and why, I’ll have to up the security around her. It shouldn’t take longer than our arrangement lasts. And even if it does, I’ll still protect her. She deserves that much, at least. I won’t keep her, but I can look after her.
When I get to my apartment, my first move is to check on Lyra in the bedroom. I wasn’t exactly kind to her before leaving, but I’ve never pretended to be a nice person. I’m an asshole, plain and simple, and being an asshole has amassed me billions.
Except, Lyra isn’t in my bedroom—she’s in my living room. Sleeping soundly on the couch. Her shoes are neatly laid out next to her, like she was planning on going home. I imagine she tried, before realizing the elevator doesn’t open without my go-ahead.
She doesn’t even want my amenities after being beaten, mugged, and nearly raped. This is a woman who truly has no use for me and no need of me.
It only makes me want to trap her more.
I walk up to her, intending to carry her ass to my bedroom, but pause. My hands are covered in blood—I’m covered in blood. I need to get a cleaning crew on my BMW, and I need to wash away the evidence of what I did tonight.
I take the fastest shower in the history of mankind, scrubbing my skin raw, then return to my living room.
Lyra’s still on the couch, still sleeping quietly, looking very young and vulnerable.
Most of the time, it’s easy to forget she’s so much younger than me, because she’s more mature than most of the people I work with.
But she is young. Too young for me. Too poor for me.
Too good for me.
I cut off the thought before it can take root, scoop her into my arms, and carry her to the bedroom. She only stirs when her back hits the mattress. She blinks her eyes open, gazing at me sleepily. I tuck a few stray strands of damp hair behind her ear.
“I want to go home,” she murmurs.
You are ho—
No. I won’t even let myself think it.
“Get some sleep,” I tell her quietly. “I have things to handle. You can go home in the morning.”
She closes her eyes with a sigh of dejection, and falls straight back to sleep like the good girl she can be.
I don’t sleep. Usually, this is the time of night when I’d head to my office and start working through all the bullshit I didn’t have time to do today, but tonight’s different. Tonight, I have Lyra in my bed, and the mere thought of abandoning her is repulsive.
She clung to me and cried. She leaned on me. Me, the man who’s done things to her so terrible it’s a wonder she doesn’t panic every time we’re in a room together.
Maybe it’s because she likes those terrible things more than she’s willing to let on…
I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at a woman who’s younger, brighter, and ultimately, smarter than me as she slumbers.
It’s close to three in the morning when I finally manage to drag my ass away from her, and even then, it’s to make a few calls to ensure my security team’s up to date on what needs to be done, and to check if Locke managed to get a name out of Floyd.
Unfortunately, he didn’t. He did, however, skin the piece of shit alive. He got to Floyd’s neck before the prick’s heart finally gave out.
I head to my office, but instead of firing up my PC’s, I grab my laptop and take it back to my bed.
There are a few facts that strike me when I see Lyra still there, in my bed. A deep satisfaction takes hold of me.
Lyra looks like she was born to sleep in my bed.
I want to fuck her so desperately I’m tempted to wake her up with my cock.
This girl is such a gigantic distraction, she’s dangerous.
Which means I can’t extend my time with her, and I need to start weaning myself off her.
We only have a few more weeks left to go; I can’t become attached when it’s time to part ways.
Especially when she’s made it clear that she abhors me, wants nothing to do with me, and is too free spirited to ever hold a permanent place in my life.