Chapter 51
Rhett
“You stupid motherfucker.”
I stepped closer to Ryan, voice low and edged with barely restrained anger. The traitorous asshole stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet as he tried to put some distance between us.
“Really thought you’d get away with it, huh?” I growled, closing the distance between us. I grabbed his shoulders and slammed his back into the cold wall of the underpass. “Thought you could run and hide from us? From me?”
Ryan flinched, eyes darting nervously from side to side as though searching for an escape. But he was trapped, cornered. “Please. It’s not what—”
I stared down at him, expression a cold mask of fury. “Let me guess. It’s not what it looks like?”
“Yes! Exactly!” Relief flickered over his face. “It was just—”
“This is the part where you say it was just a joke, huh?” I hissed, pulling him forward before slamming him back into the stone wall again. I followed that up with a swift punch to his gut. Just a warning tap, really. The next one would be harder.
A grunt of pain escaped Ryan’s mouth, followed by a rattling gasp as he tried to catch his breath. The faint light from outside the underpass cast shadows across his face as he raised his hands in an attempt to defend himself. His petrified expression was pitiful. Pathetic.
I felt no sympathy for the little prick. What the fuck did he think would happen when he crossed the Wilders like this? He knew better. Everyone did.
“Rhett, please,” he ground out, pre-emptively wincing as I yanked my right hand off his shoulder and curled it into a tight fist.
Just as I raised the fist, a voice echoed down the tunnel. “Hey! What the hell is going on down there?”
The words cut through the cold air like a knife, halting me in my tracks. I turned my head sharply to see a girl standing at the far end of the underpass. She was just a silhouette, but her stance was clearly defiant.
“Help!” Ryan yelped. “Call the pol—”
I clamped a hand over his mouth to shut him up, thumb moving downward to press down on his Adam’s apple until he was letting out gurgling gasps of pain through my fingers. “I think we both know what’ll happen if the cops get involved, and it won’t be good for you, will it?” I growled.
He stared up at me through wide eyes as understanding dawned on him. Then he nodded shakily.
“Hey!” The girl took several steps forward. Behind her, she was dragging an enormous suitcase on squeaky wheels, and a large tote bag hung from her left arm. “Leave him alone!”
I was about to tell her to fuck off and mind her own goddamned business, but then I realized how cute she was. Long blonde hair and a stunning body clad in tight skinny jeans and a loose jacket that did its best but still couldn’t hide her curves.
She took a few steps closer, eyes narrowing. Fuck. This girl wasn’t just cute. She was gorgeous. Plump, pouty lips I desperately wanted to bite, a heart-shaped face, and wide, flashing eyes that instantly telegraphed her spitfire attitude.
“Do I need to call the cops?” she asked, eyes fixed on Ryan.
I drew back and lifted my hands in mock surrender. “Nah, we’re cool here,” I said. “We’re just messing around.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You call that messing around?”
“Relax. It’s all part of a game.” I cocked my head and flashed the girl the same grin that usually made women stumble and fall at my feet. “You’d understand if you were a player. Are you interested?”
She scoffed. “A game? That’s seriously the best excuse you can come up with?”
Ryan gulped. “He’s not lying. I-it’s kind of like… a hazing thing.”
“See?” I raised a brow. “It’s nothing. You just walked in at a bad time.”
The girl’s jaw tightened, and she took another step forward. “I’d be more inclined to believe him if he wasn’t so clearly terrified of you,” she said, eyes darting between Ryan and me. “Also… hazing? Last I checked, that’s not a good thing.”
The grin stayed affixed to my face, and I raised an eyebrow, crossing my arms. “Well, speaking of being terrified… why the hell are you, a barely five-foot woman, walking down a dark tunnel alone at night? Aren’t you scared?”
She returned my smile as she reached into her front pocket to reveal a small, sleek Taser.
“Life becomes a lot less scary when you have one of these babies,” she replied, letting the faint blue spark crackle in the darkness.
She held my gaze, unfazed, her smile widening just enough to hint at a challenge.
“Do I have to use it, or are you going to let your friend go?”
I shrugged. “He can leave whenever he wants. Like I said, we were just messing around.”
Ryan took that as his cue to flee, feet loudly scuffing against the concrete in his haste to scurry out of the underpass.
I didn’t watch the dirty little rat go. Didn’t care that he’d escaped my wrath, either.
I would’ve liked to finish the job tonight, but it wasn’t the biggest deal in the world. I could easily find him another time.
For now, I wanted to stay and talk to this gorgeous blonde girl.
I hadn’t found someone as alluring as her since…
well, fuck, as long as I could remember.
There was just something so damn magnetic about her confidence.
It was like an invitation; a thrilling challenge that stirred the darkest parts of me.
It made me want to unravel her, to chip away at each bold layer until I finally found the vulnerability beneath.
I wanted to watch the steel in her gaze soften, then shatter.
See those pretty eyes fill with fear to replace the certainty that was once there.
Fear that would eventually melt into desire.
Just imagining it all sent a surge of satisfaction through me—the thought of her finally breaking, her lips parting to release a scream of terror. One she’d been so sure she’d never, ever let slip.
Those were the best kinds of people to play with. The real challenges. Not the ones who were already a blubbering, shivering mess from the very start.
The girl’s eyes narrowed. “You really expect me to believe that was just a silly frat boy game?” she asked. “I saw you. You were beating that guy up.”
I ignored her remarks. “What’s your name, princess?”
She ignored my question in turn. “Even if it’s true, and you guys were just messing around, it’s hardly a fair fight, is it?” she said. “That guy was half a head shorter than you, and you’ve probably got around forty pounds of muscle on him. Maybe even more.”
I smirked. “All I’m hearing is: you think I’m jacked as fuck,” I said, tapping my chin with one finger. “Thanks for the compliment. Means a lot.”
“God, you really are an asshole, aren’t you?” she muttered, rolling her eyes. The end of the Taser crackled again, blue against black. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the cops right now and tell them there’s a guy going around attacking students.”
I sighed internally. If she called the cops on me, everything would work out fine in the end—it always did for guys in my position—but it would still cause a fucking headache, and I could really do without any of that shit right now.
“Would it satisfy you if I said that I can’t tell you why I have a problem with Ryan, but I can tell you that he deserves everything he gets?” I asked, cocking my head.
The girl scoffed. “That sounds like something a playground bully would say after he got caught,” she said. She took one more step toward me as she spoke, still brandishing the Taser. “But I guess that’s what you are, huh? A bully who doesn’t realize high school finished years ago.”
Now that she was even closer, and her face was a little less shadowed, something about it was nagging at a deep, dark corner of my mind. She wasn’t just beautiful—she was familiar. But why?
I usually had a pretty decent memory, but I couldn’t remember meeting this chick anywhere at Hollingsworth over the last few years. Or anywhere else, for that matter. And I’d definitely remember meeting a girl who looked like that.
Still… I knew her face from somewhere. Maybe she was some famous e-girl. Or a local Insta model.
“Where do I know you from?” I asked, raising my brows. “Have we met?”
“No, I’m pretty sure I’d know if we’d met before,” she said, nose wrinkling. “You have a very memorable face, and I mean that in a bad way.”
I grinned again, still loving that spark of hers. “Are you calling me ugly?”
“No. I’m just saying that even if you leave right now, I could easily describe you to a police sketch artist and get a perfect likeness of you. And that would be bad for you,” she said stonily. “So I’ll say it again. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the cops and tell them what I saw.”
“What constitutes a good reason?” I asked, casually leaning back against the underpass wall.
“Well, I hate bullies who act like assholes for no reason, but I’m not totally anti-violence.
” She waved the Taser to underline her statement.
“If you had a valid reason to beat that guy up, I could probably muster up some sympathy and forget I saw anything tonight. Like… if he poisoned your dog. Or murdered your family. So tell me. What did he do?”
I stared down at her, tight-lipped.
She arched a brow. “Your silence tells me you don’t have a valid reason.”
“Or maybe it’s just none of your fucking business,” I said, shrugging.
“It’s almost as if you want me to call the cops.”
“You’re not gonna call them, princess.” A cold smile spread over my face again. “See, I’ve just realized—that particular Taser in your hand is still illegal in this state. So if you try to take me down, I’m taking you right down with me.”
The girl’s haughty expression faltered, and she swallowed hard. That made me think about wrapping my hand around her pale throat. I knew it would fit perfectly. Like a fucking glove.
“I… it’s not illegal. I bought it at a legitimate store,” she said. I could tell she was bluffing. All the bite from her voice was gone, replaced by nervousness and defensiveness.