Twenty-Seven
Zagan
With a rock-hard erection straining in my slacks, I walk out of her door to inspect her tiny house. I have stringent self-control—which is useless with what I had just fucking done—but I am not a saint. I don’t trust myself not to do something even more drastic and terrify the living hell out of her.
Not yet, anyway.
If I hear her moan one more fucking time, I will fuck her and probably scare her away for good. I want her fully awake and sober when I drive into her. I do not want to lose my control more than I already did.
I’m furious with myself as I quietly descend the stairs. Furious that my control has snapped. It is one thing to give in and kill. I’ve been groomed, and all my life, I’ve known nothing but killing. Giving into that urge, killing men for her , can be me slinking back into my original skin. It would be giving in to the voices that had been starved without violence.
But eating her pussy while I fucked myself in my hand while she slept and dreamt about me is a different animal. It’s a line I’ve never crossed before, one that is as intoxicating as it is dangerous. Because I want to do that again, this time wake her with my cock in her wet cunt, just to see how those expressive eyes sing her thoughts. Could she be a freak beneath all that skin of innocence?
Dangerous. The pull the woman has on me is dangerous.
She is able to do what no one has ever been able to do: control my actions. That should pull me away from her and make me want to throw her out of my territory if I knew not to test myself. The thought of not seeing her, not catching a whiff of her after tasting her, leaves me growling into the night.
The rest of her home reflects everything she is: small, almost too neat, each piece chosen with care. Bright colours crowd every space as though she’s scrubbing out any hint of black. Each room feels carefully arranged, her life on display in this mix of colour and order that would drive most people insane. Looks like the siren thrives on it. An order to my chaos.
Earlier, I watched her from far after she reached her home. She had dutifully cleaned her legs and bandaged them, letting out curses in a foreign language, and the sound of it made me hard like a fucking pubescent.
I knew Iblis had something for her friend, but it wasn’t evident until I saw him with her. His carefully crafted mask slipped several times, which I don’t think Eero noticed with how he kept looking upstairs. Probably listening for any disturbance with the kid Ara has adopted. For all his psychotic ways, he has a human side when it comes to kids.
This information is going to come into use if Iblis tries to moral police his way into things I do and how many fucks I should give as if he is the messenger of morale. He is as twisted as us all; he hides it beneath the mask of pompous aristocracy. He nearly bit Eero’s head off when he proposed that Iblis imitates Vessar and developed a persona of the actual aristocrat who looks at every human being as specks of dust underneath his shoes.
I listened as Iblis played Ara into approaching me. She saw right through him. She is clever, the little nerd. She is smart not only in a scholarly way, but she has the necessary street smarts. The one which her stupidly brave friend lacks. I should’ve let those bastards teach her a lesson, but something in me stopped me. I knew that if something happened to Ivy, Ara would be…sad.
Ara’s loyal. Too loyal, perhaps, if her reaction when I demanded the kiss was any sign. The sensible part of her screamed against it, but there was something there. She wanted it. She knows I’m no good for her, and yet she said yes to my terms for her friend, locking her jaw and swallowing her fear. She pretended that she didn’t want me.
It would have pissed me the fuck off if I didn’t hear her moan my name a few minutes ago. If I hadn’t sucked her messy juices that were for me, if I hadn’t heard her seductive voice moan my name that people are scared to utter, I’d have killed someone believing that she didn’t want me. She does a good job at acting.
But now I know she wants me. By some twisted fuckery by the devil, that goddess of the woman is attracted to me. She doesn’t see the horrors on my face, the death in my eyes and the darkness in my soul. Or maybe she does see it and is attracted inspite of that. The knowledge only spurs my obsession.
Despite the walls she’s built, Ara wants me. Not some polished fantasy, but me. Whatever darkness she’s running from has scarred her enough to recognise the beast in me—and yet she still craves it.
She’s not a simple woman. She is as complicated as they get.
The past she hides behind her walls of awards and certifications, the pristine credit score, the missing social media—it’s all part of a mask. Her life is too clean, too perfect to be real. The steps she’s taken to erase her past tell me she’s hiding something, something I’ll dig out if I have to tear down her entire world to do it. All this points towards trouble, and that thought should not excite me as much as it does.
It could all be because she is inherently a good person who is extremely private, but I call bullshit on that. She is a good woman, but my gut tells me she is scared of something. She doesn’t want someone to find her. Hence, having hired an IT person or people who are better than the ones I have. She must have invested fuck a lot to have them on her payroll. Everything about her history in Inamai is wiped clean.
Nothing comes up in the name of Ara, Iyra or Sinclair. She must have spent a lot of money to forge identification that got them into these new names. She must come from money or she had a source to be able to afford the almost pristine documents. It could’ve fooled the officials, but learning to forge documents to pass every inspection is the first thing we learnt under Iko. I know a fake document when I see one.
I wouldn’t give a damn about what the video Ivy recorded had. If that is what they think is the worst horror in this world, then both the girls are in this for a rude awakening. But if there is any reason for the siren to come sought me out, I will take it. I claimed her as mine and the veil of secrets she surrounds herself will have to be unearthed to keep her with me.
I stand in front of the kitchen, the room wafting more of her sweet scent than any other part of the home. She must spend most of her time here. There is a contrast in every fucking thing this woman does.
She is a scientist, makes a lot of money and has a lot more in an offshore account of hers, but spends nothing on herself. She could own a high-end apartment uptown, but instead saves everything up for her adopted kid and sister, who does well for herself. She is a firm believer in science, but she also goes to the temple. She works hard every day but makes time to cook instead of hiring help.
She spends none of that hard-earned money on herself but on her family and fucking orphanages. She paints every corner of her house in a muddle of colours to give a portrayal of vibrance in her life, but her room is only white and what seems to be cream or whatever posh name they call. I am not a pro at designing, but I have some shit which Iblis insisted on filling my head with as he renovated his house in the estate come of use now.
Surrounding oneself with neutral colours usually meant craving a sense of peace. A peace that they try to find in their life. She also has a whole fucking wall filled with pictures, as if she is actively trying to remind herself of the happy times. Every minute, painstaking detailing and decoration on the wall makes me think that she needs these memories, this wall, to keep her tethered to something.
Ara is a kind, warm, loving, intelligent, sexy and a contradicting woman who has her share of secrets. The ones she went to long lengths to keep hidden. I would be damned if I let them remain hidden, though. The need to own this woman, every part of her body, soul and heart, consumes me like a fire inside my veins.
I don’t know what I want from her, what is it about her that makes me become this unhinged beast, but I just know that she is mine. As she is the one responsible for dredging up this fuckery inside me, she will have to be with me, suffering from the same shit she is making me feel. A selfish and a fucked up thought, but I am not ashamed. I’ve owned my demented and fucked up self long before I turned myself into the monster of everyone’s nightmare.
I turn into the kitchen, heading for the back door, when I hear it—the soft, unmistakable pitter-patter of small feet. Instantly, I slip into the shadows of the living room, pressing myself against the thick curtains, letting the weight of the night cloak me.
A kid—six, maybe seven—wanders in, eyes darting around the room. His gaze is sharp and curious, lingering in every corner, exactly where kids think monsters hide. And right now, that’s where I am. But he just tilts his head, staring straight into my corner, his mismatched eyes steady, without a trace of fear.
“Are you, Devlin?”
Something is off about the kid. His eyes are blank, not the ones that should be on a kid who is being raised by someone like Ara. Eero said he was a shy, lively kid, nothing like the hollow-eyed boy in front of me now. His eyes remind me of my own at that age, stripped of innocence, already well-versed in the cruelty of the world. I keep silent, watching, but he steps forward, unfazed.
There isn’t a flicker of fear on his chubby face, tilting his head to the other side in curiosity.
“He said you were here.”
Every hair on my body stands on edge.
“Who?”
“The man outside my balcony,”
Cold anger surges through me, and I make for the stairs.
“He is gone.” The kid says softly, stopping me in my tracks.
I turn back to him; my face must be reflecting the anger that I felt. I do not hide it when I stomp towards him and fix him with a glare. He flinches slightly, but he holds his ground. He looks at me as if he is sizing me up.
“Did you see him?”
He shakes his head and rubs his eyes. He looks up, his eyes fixed on the space where Ara’s room is. The thought of her sleeping, unprotected and in the deep haze of pills while some fucker wandered around her house snaps something inside me.
“He comes sometimes,” he says in a detached tone. “Says he’s my friend. But I don’t think he is.”
“Why?” I frown.
The kid’s lips press into a thin line.
“Because he thinks I’m a stupid kid who’ll believe a man outside my window is harmless.”
“Does Ara know?”
He shakes his head. Something similar to warmth comes into his otherwise unexpressive eyes as he looks back up towards her room.
“She’d worry. She is easily scared and highly emotional. I don’t like it when she cries. That is why I came down to you. I’ve heard her talking about you.”
I raise my brows. He is no kid. He speaks like an adult, and he has smarts that most lack. He also has the backbone to look me in the eye and not flinch. Grown men aren’t able to do that.
“Go sleep. I’ll check outside.”
As he turns towards the stairs, his voice stops me. “He said he left you a gift.”
The kid disappears with that.
I walk to the back patio of her house, and immediately, I feel eyes on me. Years of living in the shadows until I owned them made me aware of every shift in my surroundings. And that is how I know in my bones that there is someone, hidden in the canopy of the thicket, watching. I lean on one of the wooden pillars, cutting my eyes throughout the perimeter, daring the fucker to step out and face me.
But like a coward, no one steps out. A glint of metal snaps my attention towards the covered box in front of the steps. Those eyes are still on me, and I take my time climbing down the stairs while I fish out my cigarette and light it. Being followed isn’t anything new to me. Some did it out of curiosity, and some did it to see if they could try attacking me. But no one was brave enough to step out of the dark, and I let them revel in their stupid notion that they could approach me.
Cowards did not receive my attention.
I stand in front of the box, covered with a black cover with hints of silver stripes. It looks like someone took a great deal of attention into wrapping the box.
I want to sneer, but that means showing I care. The care in its presentation is an insult.
I light my smoke, taking in a lungful of smoke, irked at myself and everything else, when I feel the remnants of Ara’s addictive taste leave me and fill it with tobacco.
Fuck
The anger, which only burned and hissed on my account all my life, sizzled my veins for Ara. What if she had gone into her kid’s room and saw a man lurking outside his window? The bastard would have left her rattled enough to cry. Or worse, kill her.
Why is he here? What did he want from her? If he wants to harm her, why did he not? With what the kid said, it seemed like he had plenty of an opportunity to do so.
“Nico,” I call.
He steps out of the shadows he’d been blending into along the side of the house.
“Open it.” I nudge it toward him.
Someone was trained enough to slip from under Nico. Trained enough for me not to notice them lurking around. This would have been interesting if it did not involve the woman sleeping upstairs.
I inhale a puff and blow out the smoke, not letting my eyes stray away from where I could sense the coward looking. He is trained and careful enough to move around without being detected by my guard. He has the advantage of the land. I’m sure he has it all scoured, knowing where to hide and where to step. He has an advantage here. The neighbourhood is filled with attached houses; any noise would awaken the residents. Cause a mess.
“Boss,”
Nico holds the contents out to me. Inside the box, laid on a wrapped cloth, is a paper folded in half. Clutching my cigarette in my hand, I hold it to light.
Stay away from her.
Hmm.
I look down to see the picture of a corpse whose body is nothing but mangled flesh except for his face. It was kept recognisable for a reason.
“He was the one of those fucks who chased the girls. I let him go to send his boss a message.”
I nod at Nico’s words. Someone needed to go quack to their boss that the consequence of looking at those girls was nothing short of death. Looks like someone finished off the last one who chased my pretty little siren. And he sent me a gift of neatly severed fingers in the box with a single threat.
The air of mystery surrounding Ara is thickening every day. She is surrounded by things that would bring chaos to my doorstep, and I am not someone who bows out of a fight. Not when it comes to the things I’ve claimed as mine.
This man, whoever he is, thinks he has a claim on her. He is ballsy enough to send out a threat to me , of all people. He must know I don’t play. He must know what I am, what I’m capable of, and still chose to seek me out and warn me, thinking he has an advantage.
Why? Did Ara promise herself to him? Was he perhaps an old lover? Someone from the place she fled from? Is he the man she is running from?
She needs to move. Someplace I can keep an eye on, where there’s no question about how many guards I appoint or how hard I fuck her. The kid involved in this fuckery is the only thing stopping me from dragging her out of this place—kicking and screaming.
I take the note, hold it in front of me and light it with my cigarette until it turns into ash in my palm. A silent ‘Fuck you’ to the asshole who still is looking at us. He thinks he can lay a claim on what’s mine? He thinks he can keep on living after what he did?
I’m beyond pissed that some low-life fucker thinks he can take her. I broke every single bone of the bastard, Leo, who hurt her. I skinned and set Burke on fire because he touched her and caused her pain. I dumped the ones who bullied her in a vat of acid. I thought I knew satisfaction when I heard their screams. But they wouldn’t be as sweet as the ones when I rip the innards of this asshole right in front of Ara’s eyes.
Then she would be left with no mistake who she belongs to .