Chapter 49 #2
“I know,” he says.
“Then let me kill him,” I plead.
Something dark and hungry flashes through his gaze at that. “You want to pull the trigger yourself, and watch while it happens? You want the last thing he sees to be you?”
My voice is steady, surprising me. “Yes.”
Rook leans forward. His hands leave the desk and come to my hips in one smooth, decisive motion.
He drags me in between his knees like I weigh nothing, like there isn’t a part of me that still remembers being thrown and pinned and trapped by bigger hands.
He looks up at me from that position, and it goes straight to somewhere low in me I’m pretending isn’t there.
“Listen to me,” he says, quiet and intense, thumb pressing into the sharp point of my hip bone.
“When you end him, I’ll will be in the room.
When you end him, you will be the last thing in his world that he sees.
When you end him, it will be because you told me it was time.
Not because he finished being useful to me. ”
I blink.
“When I end him,” I echo dumbly.
He smiles, slow and devastating.
“Do you honestly think I would ever give that man a future?” he asks softly.
Heat licks down my spine at that. The way he says it. The possessive certainty. The promise curled in it like a brand.
“I thought you were stalling,” I admit, voice small.
“I am stalling,” he murmurs. “But, only a little. I’m stalling because I want as much as I can get out of him. I don’t care about him. I care about walking you through London and someone taking a shot at your head because I left a loose end.”
Something in me unclenches. Oh.
“I’m not asking you to wait forever,” he says. “I’m asking you to give me until tonight.”
My stomach flips. “Tonight,” I repeat.
His eyes stay on mine. “Tonight.”
“So we end him tonight.”
“Yes.”
“Promise,” I whisper.
His grip tightens at my hips. His voice drops into something sinful. “Yes, my disobedience. I promise you his last breath.”
Something molten floods me. It’s not pretty, or soft. It’s violent and grateful and starving. I don’t know what my face does, but his eyes go almost feral when he sees it. “Rook,” I whisper.
He looks like he’s about to lift me onto his lap and make good on every filthy promise he’s been holding back since the night in the townhouse. Like he’s about to ruin the argument and me along with it.
Which is when the door bangs open. Of fucking course.
Rook’s jaw tightens with lethal annoyance. I don’t move, and his hands don’t leave my hips.
Mateo saunters in like he didn’t just blow apart something electric.
He doesn’t knock. He doesn’t apologize. He just slides through the door in a black t-shirt and dark jeans like sin got bored and decided to wear denim.
He’s still bruised faintly at the temple, a fading yellow near the hairline where he got clocked during Damien’s grab. He looks good with bruises. He knows it, too. His grin is feral, dark eyes glittering with something suspiciously like amusement.
“Interrupting?” he sing songs.
“Yes,” Rook says flatly.
“No,” I say at the same time.
Mateo laughs, delighted. “Perfect. Family meeting then.”
Rook’s hands tighten at my hips in warning. He doesn’t let go, but he leans back an inch, gaze slicing to Mateo. “If you don’t have something I want—”
“Oh, carino,” Mateo purrs, “I have something you want.”
Rook goes still in a way that means something just clicked. “You found him.”
Mateo’s grin sharpens. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
My heart kicks. “Who,” I say, eyes snapping to Mateo even though I have a feeling I already know.
He turns that grin on me. God, he looks almost unhinged with how pleased he is. Hungry, smug and vibrating with the effort of not bouncing on his heels like a child.
“Hi, reina,” he coos. “I brought you a present.”
My mouth goes dry. “What kind of present?”
“The live kind.”
Rook’s entire body changes under my hands. Not looser, or calmer. Focused—like a predator sliding into final position. “Where is he?” Rook asks, voice taut.
“Wraith and Saint are bringing the van around now,” Mateo says, still high on the thrill of it. “Ash is already clearing the warehouse. I came to get you and the lady of the house.”
My skin prickles. “Marcus,” I say, realization flooding my veins.
Mateo practically glows. “Yes, love. Marcus.”
Heat hits my throat so fast I have to lock my knees to stay steady. “You went without me,” I say quietly, turning back to Rook.
His gaze flickers. “Ember—”
“You went without me,” I say again, sharper now.
Mateo lifts both hands, palms up, mock-surrender. “Before you get that look, we didn’t take him to play. We took him to deliver. Unopened. Promise.”
I glare at him. “That’s not the point.”
“It’s a little the point,” he argues brightly. “You wanted him still breathing. He’s breathing. Barely. But breathing.”
“Mateo,” Rook warns.
Mateo rolls his eyes. “Fine. Yes, okay, we went without you. Cry about it later. Throw me around a bit, punish me, whatever gets you off. We had to move fast.”
“Why,” I demand.
“Because he was about to bolt,” Mateo says, expression flickering serious for just a beat.
“He was twitchy. Someone told him about Damien. He was packing, and had plans to leave the country. We either grabbed him now or lost him for a while, and I didn’t feel like explaining to you why Marcus disappeared because I waited for you to lace your boots. ”
I hate that he’s right. I hate that I know he’s right the second he says it. Because Marcus would run. Men like that don’t sit and wait around to be held accountable. They scuttle. They slime. They rebrand.
My voice comes out low. “Is he hurt?”
Mateo’s grin kicks back up. “Not… permanently.”
“Mateo,” I scold, but there’s no real heat. I wouldn’t have cared if he blacked his eye, or cut off a finger or two. But I don’t tell him that. I let him fester instead. Both of them.
“Reina, please,” he purrs, giving me a pouty look. “Don’t insult me. I didn’t break your toy. I was very gentle. Saint supervised and everything.”
“That is not reassuring,” I mutter.
Saint’s version of “gentle” is “he can still speak sentences.”
But…
Marcus is ours—at the warehouse. Alive. Waiting for me.
I look back down at Rook, and he’s still looking up at me. He can see it on my face. The fury. The relief. The hunger.
The way something settles in me like a final piece of a weapon snapping into place.
“This ends,” I say. “Today. Both of them.”
He nods once. “Today,” he agrees. “We kill both of them.”
Something in my chest unclenches so forcefully I almost sway. I don’t realize until this second that my hands are still fisted in his shirt. I’m still clutching him in both fists like I’m trying to anchor myself to the floor through him.
I let go. Slowly. Rook doesn’t. His hands stay at my hips. He leans in, close enough that I feel his breath at my jaw. His voice is for me alone when he murmurs, “You lead.”
My throat tightens. “Me.”
“You heard me,” he says.
Mateo lets out a low appreciative whistle. “Oh, that’s going to make the room fun.”
Rook doesn’t look at him. He keeps his eyes on me. “You walk in first. You ask first. You say when it’s over.”
My pulse is everywhere, but I nod. I can barely force the word out past the way my lungs are trying to climb up my throat. “Okay.”
He presses his mouth, just for a second, to the inside of my wrist where my pulse is racing. It’s not a kiss, not really. It’s a mark. A vow.
It shoots heat through me like a live wire.
Mateo groans. “And now… I’m hard in a briefing. Disgusting. Someone stab me.”
“Shut up,” Rook and I say at the same time.
He grins, unbothered. “Love when you two act married. Warms my heart.”
I turn to him. “When do we leave?”
“Now. Saint and Wraith brought him through the service entrance,” Mateo says, practically bouncing now. “Ash is already there setting up audio. Rook’s little murder palace is dressed and ready. Damien’s awake enough to hear it.”
My stomach twists, and settles. My voice is steady when I say, “Take me to him.”
Mateo gives me something I’ve never seen on his face before.
Not lust, or mockery. Not even twisted joy... It’s admiration.
“As you wish, reina,” he says.
Wraith calls me little fox. Saint calls me little lamb. Ash says Red like it’s both a warning and a prayer. Mateo calls me reina. Rook calls me my disobedience. They’re all mine when they say it.
And now?
Now I get to show them what I do with that.
I turn back to Rook one last time. “We finish this. Today.”
He looks at me like he wants to tear London apart and lay it at my feet. Heat slides into my belly, slowly, deliciously, and it takes everything in me to stay where I am. “We finish this,” he says.
I nod once.
Then I step back, out of the warmth of his hands, out of the shadow of his desk, and toward the door, toward Mateo, toward the stairs I already know too well.
I’m done watching. Done being handled. Today, I get to end the two men who made my life a living hell.
And I’m going to make them watch while I burn it all to the ground.