Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
Danika
I didn’t have to see him to know he was there last night.
It’s like I could sense Liem watching over me.
I almost texted him to come up, but I need to stop being so forward and pushy.
We clearly want two different things. Sure, I can tell he cares for me, but it’s not the same way I care for him.
Him being in my life is enough and my feelings don’t need to be reciprocated.
But damn, does he make me feel alive again.
And when he touches me, he’s all I want to experience.
His hands. His lips. I dream about those lips every single day…
“Danika!” Eric stands at the doorway of his office, and I nearly drop the ketchup bottle I’m refilling. “I didn’t ask you to come in early just for you to stand around and daydream all fucking morning.”
I sigh heavily, capping off the bottle and setting it down on the table. Let’s just say, if he got hit by a bus, I wouldn’t be mourning him at his funeral.
When he called me in early, I’d assumed there’d be others, so this entire situation is a nauseas mess.
At the sound of his heavy footsteps approaching my body stiffens. The smell of his cheap cologne invades the space behind me, and I grip the silverware in my fist that so happens to be a fork. I’ll do it. I’ll stab his eye out. One touch from him and I’ll fucking do it.
“You should start showing me gratitude for all the times I’ve offered you more hours. For all the days I let you work overtime.” His hot breath hits the back of my neck, and I tighten my hold on my only weapon I have. Do it, asshole. I want an excuse. I need an excuse.
“Offered me? You mean all the times you said I’d be fired if I didn’t show up?” I stay facing forward, him still inches behind me.
“You stupid girl. I’m the best boss you’ll ever fucking have.”
I let out a mocking laugh. “You’re disgusting.” The words leave my mouth so fast, I don’t have time to play the possible repercussions, but at this point, I don’t care.
“Did you just laugh at me?” He doesn’t give me time to respond or time to ready myself as he grabs my neck, thrusting me into his chest. But I go for it, jerking out of his hold and gashing him straight in his arm with the fork.
The only reason it didn’t hit his skull is because, apparently, I suck at aiming silverware.
He lets out a piercing yelp as he rips the fork from his punctured skin, blood trickling out of the wound. “You goddamn bitch!”
I back away but my body collides with a table as my boss stalks me with hatred in his eyes. Despite it all, I smile, watching the blood run down his arm.
“Think this is funny?”
“I do, actually.” I snatch up a knife from one of the tables. “I’m enjoying this.”
He clocks me with a confused look.
“What? You didn’t think I’d fight back? Yeah, fuck that. I’ve had worse done to me. You can’t hurt me. You can’t bring me down. I’ve already been through the ringer. So come on… try me.” I don’t even stutter as my pride returns and a power in me flares to life.
Glass shatters behind me, and out of instinct, I crouch down, covering my head. The echo of my scream doesn’t overpower the muffling behind the ringing of my ears.
Did someone break the door’s window?
“What the fuck is this?” Eric’s timid voice can be heard from my position even though I’m practically hugging the ground.
When he comes into view, a panicked look flashes over him. His mouth agape and he starts retreating backward.
Someone is here.
Another set of approaching footsteps grow heavy and closer by each ticking second. My body trembles as black boots stop directly next to me, and when I realize who those boots belong to, I steadily bring my arms down.
The eyes I’ve gazed into many times before are the light and they are his. They aren’t unreachable. But the concern for me is written all over his face.
Liem rubs his hands down my arms, scanning me with urgency. “You hurt?”
I shake my head, never looking away while Liem’s eyes hold me sane, holding me safe.
“I stabbed him in the arm,” I quiver, managing to tell him.
He picks up his bat stroking my tear-stained cheek with his thumb and grins. “That’s my girl. But I have to take care of something. I’ll be right back. Stay down and don’t look. Okay?’’
I’m made speechless as I nod with a sandpaper swallow.
He pulls me close, his lips touching my ear. “You did good, Danika. You did so good. But it’s my turn now.” He stands and my heart beats over a thousand times in my chest. Pride swirls around like a whirlpool.
The bottom of his bat scrapes the tile floor as he stalks toward my boss. I don’t look away like he told me too. No, I watch because I want to witness Liem destroy this man, and I’ll do it with a smile on my face.
“You need to get the hell outta here, buddy. Your fucking club has been around enough. I’ll call the police.”
My boss has no idea what Liem and his club are capable of. The police can’t help him.
Liem keeps advancing on him, his body fueled with rage. He’s unstoppable at this point, and all I can do is watch in complete awe, no itch to stop him. Eric deserves the pain. Men like him deserve to suffer. And if that makes me a bad person—a monster—then so be it.
No words are spoken as Liem keeps closing in on him and Eric, with nowhere left to go, backs himself against one of the tables.
My heart pounds with excitement.
Liem wretches his bat against Eric’s windpipe pressing and cutting off the air into his lungs.
He gasps, chokes, coughs, and claws his way at the bat in hopes Liem will let up, but he doesn’t, and I don’t try to help him because my distain is greater than my empathy.
This world changed me somehow and while I feel stronger with Liem by my side.
I won’t bow to evil walking the streets.
With Eric’s face now turning a shade of purple, Liem backs away taking his bat with him, and Eric falls to the floor as Liem towers over him. Strangled breaths come from his frail body.
Liem only gives him a minute before bending down, taking him by his throat, and dragging him up to an unsteady stand. “Walk, motherfucker,” he grinds out as he steers him past, and away from me to the outside. A stumbling Eric dragging along with him.
I don’t dare look away, but instead I rush to the window when I can no longer see them from my position on the floor.
I open the door that is now unlocked, pushing my way to the outside, the broken glass crunching under my black Pumas.
The freezing air slams into my exposed arms and face but it’s an afterthought as I watch Liem man handle Eric like he’s a bug about to be squashed.
With the early morning still on the rise there’s no one around except a few passing cars, which don’t pay any attention. Coming from such an area, civilians tend to turn their heads at any confrontation. Unless it’s a dead body at a crime scene.
Eric, the boss I happily watch suffer from his own consequences, spits up blood as Liem throws a fist to his face.
The wind blankets over me, but I ignore it, staring, waiting for what’ll happen next. Is Liem going to kill him? Do I want Liem to kill a devil hiding inside a man’s body, walking free in this world?
Maybe I do.
A snowy ice pile lays beside them and Liem lifts Eric’s bruised and battered body up in the air like it’s no big deal.
He then plunges Eric’s face into the snow mound.
My breath is quick, my eyes darting between them both.
Liem isn’t letting up. He’s not letting him go.
I twitch to move but can’t seem to pry myself off this snow-covered sidewalk.
I gasp as Eric’s body thrashes around in panic and terror, fighting for its existence, fighting for the air being stripped from him. Liem continues to hold him inside the ice until finally, he grows limp, and he stops fighting.
I don’t know much about him. I know he’s not married. No children. Thank God. Who will miss him?
I doubt anyone.
Another sick bastard gone and the world will be a better place without him.
Liem steps away, never breaking a sweat and I admire his broad back that faces me. The way it rises and falls all too quickly… because of me.
It’s been minutes. His back still to me. If I were to see his eyes, I bet they’d be empty and soulless. He doesn’t enjoy this, but it’s scratching an itch.
He finally spins, looking intently at me the second he does, and his brows furrow.
But he doesn’t say a word as he prowls my way.
He takes out his phone, keeping his eyes locked with mine as he closes in on me, telling whoever’s on the line, they need to come do a cleanup.
I suppose they had something for this sort of thing.
You take someone’s life and there had to be a plan on how to handle the aftermath.
But I’m not afraid, I’m intrigued, and my body hums with excitement.
What does that make me?
Who does that make me?
Liem tucks his phone back into his pocket. “I’m sorry.” His voice is pained against his low tone, and he looks ashamed, yet a tad satisfied.
I peer behind him at Eric’s lifeless body and then search Liem’s eyes for the darkness I remember witnessing when I brought him back to my apartment that night.
Two murders. He’s taken the life of two people and I’m still falling for him.
“I wanted to watch.” My voice equally as strained, and he tilts his head, studying me closely. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill him?”
The icy wind picks up, whistling in the silent streets.
“He laid his hands on you. He touched you.”
My chest tightens. “Yeah, well, a lot of men have touched me.”
He shakes his head, slowly closing his eyes as he takes in a heavy breath. The sigh he lets out trembles his entire body. “Not anymore.” He opens his eyes with a glimmer of light.
My heart quickens, and I take in a sharp breath, any fight I have left vanishes.