9. Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Annie
“ H oly fuck! Holy Flying Dutchman’s fuck!” Justine whispers-screams as she stares down at the picture on my phone. It’s the one I snapped while the girls scrambled to call the police as soon as they saw the contents of the black box.
As for me, I surprised myself at how easy it was to keep my cool. Having witnessed Carlton kill a man in front of me at the Royales mansion, and then almost do it again at the ritual hardened me. The severed finger inside that box with the ring that identified its owner didn’t move me beyond the original shock.
But moments of lucidity do hit me once in a while. Lucidity about who I fell in love with. They’re few and far between, but I take them as a good sign that I haven’t utterly lost my mind.
“Your boyfriend is a fucking killer,” one of the girls says from where she’s slumped in an armchair in the living room. Eva picks up a drink and hands it over to her. The girl shifts her eyes from me to grab it with trembling hands.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I murmur.
“He sure thinks he is,” Cecilia counters.
“He didn’t kill anybody.” Not recently.
It’s not a straight-out lie. The police found the owner of the finger, Rainer Kovac, very much alive, his hand bandaged and hand in a sling. He refused to press any charges against anyone. He even told the police he cut off his own finger and placed it on my bed, making it look like he’s been obsessed with me to the point of insanity. His family is allegedly taking him away to a private psychiatric clinic, but it doesn’t take a genius to guess his brother is coming after me like a rabid dog. Because he sure as hell knows that Carlton did this, that he did it for me, and that he’s very likely to continue doing it to others.
“Are you okay?” Mel asks quietly as she approaches me with a strong drink.
“Surprisingly, yes,” I mutter as I gratefully take it. Maybe it will help knock me out. I haven’t been able to sleep at all since I found that thing, and I was already exhausted when it happened. To think that Carlton pleasured me with the same hands that cut off the guy’s finger rattles me to the bone. That box was already sitting on my bed while I shamelessly rubbed my pussy onto his mouth in the car.
“Good, because I’m afraid this was only the beginning,” Mel says. “If he started down this road, he won’t stop, Annie.”
I look around at the girls gathered in the living room. They’re still trying to calm each other down, whispering, holding each other, and when they throw glances my way, they’re more than just suspicious. They’re scared.
I take another sip of my drink, letting it burn its way down to my stomach. “He’s going to end up scaring everyone away from me.”
“He wanted everyone living in this house to know that he cut that guy’s finger off for you,” Justine says, passing my phone back to me. I take it and slide it into the back pocket of my jeans. “He made a fucking statement of it—after he declared himself your boyfriend. ”
“Which does give you status,” Mireille chimes in as she joins our group. “Puts you on a sort of pedestal. I admit, I’m impressed. I mean, the jungle snake, obsessed with you?” She snorts. “I didn’t think he took you seriously in the beginning, but can you blame me? No one here did. I mean, he had his cock down half these hoes’ throats before.”
Leave it to Mireille Dupont to throw this stuff in my face.
And to remind me that Carlton has probably fucked half of the sorority girls, even if none of them will talk about it. After all, each and every one signed an NDA if it happened, the way I did, and they also paid a price. But it wasn’t me who blew the horn. It was him.
“Why is he doing this?” I ask no one in particular. “I mean, the man is fucking engaged to another woman. Why would he want everybody to know about him and I?” I turn my attention to Justine, assuming she might have the next best answer since she’s about to marry a King. But it’s Mireille who answers, sounding damn sure about it.
“He wants the world to know that you belong to him. And he’s cutting men’s fingers off to send a message to all guys who might want to fuck you.” She looks me dead in the eye. “He’s seriously hung up on you, Annie, and I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it.” She stares as if waiting for me to finally grasp the enormity of this.
“If anyone fails to get the message, he won’t stop at fingers next time,” Mel says.
“So you’re fucked,” Mireille adds with poorly veiled enthusiasm. “The men who want you are fucked, everybody is fucked—pun intended.”
I don’t even know how to feel about this. The shock has started to loosen its grip, but the liquor makes it easier to accept the unacceptable, which is probably why I’m not horrified as I should be.
“This has to stop,” I mutter. “I can’t let him go around cutting people’s body parts off.”
“Why not?” Mireille counters. “It’s not like he’d ever face the consequences.”
I frown at her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you find this entertaining.”
The smile fades from her face and she holds her finger up in mine. “You know what I find entertaining? That you don’t realize how fucking lucky you are. You wanted this man with all your heart. And don’t you tell me it was just physical desire because we all know that’s bullshit. You had a mean-ass crush on him, and now he returns the feeling. If you weren’t a closed up hypocrite, you’d be doing the happy dance.” I open my mouth to protest, but she holds up her hand, stopping me. “You can scream and shout all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that that’s how you really feel. You’re crazy about the man, and it’s fucking clear you made him a raving lunatic for you.”
A raving lunatic. I hate that I love the sound of that.
“Listen, I’m sorry I called you a hypocrite,” Mireille says, calming down. “I didn’t intend to be mean. It’s just—”
“No, you’re right,” I interrupt. “I am crazy about him, and it did feel damn good when he pretended to be my boyfriend in front of all of you guys.”
“I don’t think he pretended—”
“It felt good when he protected me from those fuckers at the pub,” I continue, cutting her off. “It felt good when his fiancée stared at me with obvious envy. But it’s still wrong as fuck. Would it have been all right for him to punch Rainer in the face for being an asshole to me? Absolutely. Is it okay that he cut off the man’s damn finger? No. Is it okay that he stalked me to the library the other night and threatened a guy for simply breathing around me? Fuck no. And it sure doesn’t look like he intends to stop this fucked up shit.” I can’t talk about the mayhem or watching him slit a man’s throat, or about any of the things I saw there, but they all flood my mind right now.
“This has to stop,” I conclude. “Carlton can’t go around doing this kind of shit to people.”
“It’s the only way to keep you safe,” Eva chimes in as she joins our group.
“The only way?” I whisper-shriek. “Cutting off people’s body parts? Come on, Evita, you are the most level-headed of us, you can’t possibly not see everything wrong with that.” I down my drink, but when I lock my eyes with Eva’s again, I find her unfazed.
“Yes, cutting off people’s body parts.” Everyone in our group goes completely silent. I could swear Mireille isn’t even breathing anymore, probably fascinated to find someone whose thinking is as cold and cutting as hers .
“The men who are after you aren’t average school bullies, Annie,” Eva continues. “They’re Kings and acolytes of Kings. Men capable of the most heinous crimes, men who go to terrible lengths with their sadism. They’re the hydra’s heads, the ones pulling the strings behind pimping networks and drug cartels. The ones who orchestrate the kidnapping of girls from their families and trafficking them.”
“Stop.” My voice breaks. I hate it when she gets graphic.
But Eva doesn’t even break eye contact. “Extreme measures are necessary to keep such monsters on a leash. The kind of measures Carlton took with Rainer.”
“Oh, I guess that makes everything okay.”
Her sharp blue eyes pierce mine. “I don’t think you have a choice but to accept it.”
“And it doesn’t bother you at all?” God knows that Justine has the heart of an angel and Mel the soul of Mother Teresa, but there was always an unwavering correctness about Eva that makes her cool assessment now hard to swallow.
“This isn’t about me. ”
“Wow. Your relationship with Micah sure changed you.”
“What my relationship with Micah changed is the kind of information I have access to.” Noticing Cecilia slowly inching her way toward us, she steps closer to me, lowering her voice so she can get this out before the girl reaches us. “I won’t deny that I take quite a bit of satisfaction in seeing Carlton lose his head for you now after he gave Sade and Micah shit because of Justine and me. But I am afraid of what’s at stake for you.”
Eva’s lips seal now that Cecilia has inserted herself into our group, too. She’s Eva’s student, and Eva prefers to maintain a certain distance, but Cecilia keeps angling for her closeness.
“Maybe if I just ignore him on campus and act like I’m over him, he’ll just let it go. After all, it’s not like he can openly pursue me.”
“I suggest you absolutely don’t do that,” Mel warns.
“Why not?” Cecilia chimes in. “The situation can’t get any worse than it already is. Annie pulling back would be, you know, damage control. ”
“I think it’s too late for such strategies,” Mireille argues. “I’m afraid it will only trigger him, and he’ll end up killing people and sending Annie their severed heads. Hell, he might be planning to do that as we speak.”
“Or worse,” Eva says, her eyes squinted as she runs the data through her brilliant head. “If those plans end up including Annie.”
“He’d never hurt her,” Justine argues, but Eva lifts an eyebrow.
“Maybe not physically. But he’s clearly not opposed to psychological terror.”
“Enough,” I say. “Everybody knows that once set in motion, Carlton Wilde is unstoppable. But the blood he sheds will be as much on my hands as it is on his if I don’t do something about it.” Thinking about it is enough to make my heart bleed, but I can’t think of a better way to stop this. “I have to find a way and cut ties with him.”
***
Carlto n
I look down at my phone, re-reading her text for the fiftieth time.
“Is she—” Micah looks over my shoulder, pushing his shades down to get a better visual. “Is she fucking breaking up with you?”
My jaw hardens like stone, and my teeth grind, ignoring the bastard.
It sure sounds like she is. And even though her words say, “We can’t keep doing this, this whole thing is sick, it scares the shit out of me, and I want nothing more to do with it…or you,” what I read between the lines is that she’s choosing someone else over me. It’s the logical conclusion. Somewhere down the line, she wants to be with someone else, get married and have children.
I look up from my phone and let my eyes run over the cafeteria. It’s midday, the place is full, and there is a chance that Annie won’t show up at all. She hasn’t left the sorority house since the night I brought her home and she found my first gift on her bed, but there’s only so many classes she can skip. If I hadn’t been out preparing my next gifts for her, I would have broken into her bedroom and fucked her senseless last night, to make her understand once and for all that that I’m her fucking destiny, and that she can’t hide away from me forever.
To think that this all started with her wanting to be mine.
Yes, I’ve always been attracted to her too, and it annoyed the shit out of me, but she was the one who initiated. Now, she has to live with the consequences. Possessing her has become as vital as breath, and I’ll force her to reciprocate if I have to.
I’m already making plans for tonight inside my head when I see her enter with Mireille Dupont and Cecilia Chen-Martin. Yes, I have files on all the girls who live at the sorority house with her. I can’t leave anything to chance, not when some of the most dangerous men in the fucking country are after her.
“I thought you never took a woman against her will,” Micah says, dropping into the sofa behind me. I can feel his cunning eyes drill into the back of my head. It’s just him and I in the gallery at the moment, but Sade and Damon are on their way. “So why do you stare at this one like you could lock her in solitary confinement? ”
“It wasn’t like this from the beginning,” I answer, my eyes still following Annie like a hawk’s. She’s aware of me, too. I can tell from the strained look on her face, from the effort she’s making to not even glance up at me, which is usually the first thing she does when she walks into the cafeteria. “If she hadn’t come after my dick, I would have left her alone.”
“The fuck you would have,” Micah counters. “Lie to yourself all you want, brother, but I saw the way you stared at her ass.”
“Fuck you, Micah.” I’d give him a black eye to remember, if I only could tear mine away from Annie. She’s talking to a few male classmates, keeping her distance. Smart girl. I knew my gift from last night would put things into perspective for her. The one this morning cemented said perspective. Same rose, different body part inside the box, this one from the big guy who tried to stop me leaving with her from the ritual.
“I’m feeling generous today, so I won’t remind you about the shit you gave me when I went against the Elders for Eva,” the daredevil continues. Bastard is clearly taking satisfaction from this. “But I am going to keep the receipts.” He fishes out his phone.
“Do whatever the fuck you want,” I grunt.
“Aren’t you going to say you’re sorry, now that you understand?”
“I don’t understand.”
“So you’re telling me you wouldn’t break up with Rosalind for her?”
“That was never the plan.”
He clicks his tongue, snapping a pic, and pockets his phone. “It’s going to be.”
He sounds so damned sure of himself that my eyes shift to him. “You did that because you were in love with Eva. It’s different for me with Annie.”
“Is it?” He tilts his head to the side like the raptor he is. “So what you’re doing, the stalking, the chopping off of men’s hands, the plans you have of gouging their eyes out for the petty crime of looking at her, what does all that mean?”
I don’t answer, not because I’m avoiding it but because I can’t go too long without looking over at Annie. She’s wearing a pastel blue dress today that sits tight on her waist but then flares down to her knees. The cleavage that is revealed isn’t very generous, giving her a girly air, the sneakers topping the outfit perfectly. My mouth waters as I think about the curves hidden in that dress.
“Because, if you ask me, I’d call it obsession,” Micah goes on, pushing himself off the sofa and walking over. “I don’t know if you realize this but, from where I’m standing, it looks like you can’t fucking breathe without her anymore. All you ever do in your free time is stalk her.”
Now that he says it, I do understand what it looks like, but I still don’t get it. I don’t understand the storm in my chest every time I see her, or the rage that clenches my stomach every time another guy comes within a few inches of her.
“What I feel has nothing to do with the love you feel for your woman, and this isn’t the road to it, if that’s what you’re implying,” I say, my voice low. “Love is sweet, kind and generous. My feelings for her aren’t remotely that.”
Micah steps closer to me. “Dude, at the very least you’re crushing on her pretty damn hard. I can’t believe you’re still in denial about that. Truth is I think you’ve given her your heart already.”
“I didn’t give her my heart. She fucking took it. As for the truth—” I scoff. “The truth is an ugly bitch, and you know it. If she saw who I really was, if she knew how to read the tattoos on my fucking body—”
“I know exactly how you feel because it’s how I felt about Eva, too,” Micah says, softer than I ever heard him. He places a hand on my shoulder, joining me to look down at the swarming cafeteria. At Annie, who doesn’t even glance over. “I was sure she’d be disgusted with the devil underneath my skin. That she’d hate me for the rest of her life for forcing her to be with me. But then she took that devil and tamed it. She soothed and loved it, and now—” his voice fills with that strange emotion it always does when he talks about the philosophy professor, “—now I’m not even sure it’s there anymore.”
“I hate to burst your bubble, but it sure as fuck is.” I saw that bastard’s ugly face just a few days ago on our last mission.
Micah laughs, slapping my back. “Listen, I’ll never stop giving you shit for going all Elder daddy on me and Sade for falling in love. So you better learn to live with that. But I’ve also totally got your back if you choose to do the same.” He squeezes my shoulder reassuringly. I nod, acknowledging his support.
The other Kings and I have no shortage of conflicts, but we’ll always have each other’s backs. What we share is the unique kind of bond forged between men who had to gamble their lives in war zones.
“Then back me up on this,” I grumble.
His hand drops off my shoulder as I stalk to the stairs, and then down into the cafeteria. There’s only one way to teach Annie Jones that ignoring me isn’t an option, much less breaking up with me. I am her fucking destiny, and it’s time she accepted that.
***
Annie
Not looking at him was supposed to make it easier to do what I have to do, but it doesn’t. I can feel his eyes on me from the gallery, stripping me to the bone. I try to focus on small talk with my classmates but it’s not working. Not when I know he already read my text. He knows I want out, and by the way his eyes are burning into the side of my face, he’s not taking it well.
But I can’t go on sleeping with him while being the reason why he maims people—even if those men deserve every last bit of hell that Cralton gives them, as Mireille argued. Still, I can’t be the reason Carlton Wilde goes psycho on them. I won’t be able to live with that.
I’m still shivering from the “gift” I found on my windshield this morning. Another rose with the rims of its petals dunked in blood, and another velvet box, this time with a whole severed hand inside. I didn’t actually catch more than a glimpse of it, because Eva grabbed the box and passed it over to one of the guards, but I’m still shaken. This is beyond toxic. I’m in love with a killer.
“How many of these gifts will keep popping up?” I whispered to Eva on our way here.
“As many as there are men drooling after you,” she said matter-of-factly while rounding a curve. “Micah says Carlton won’t stop until all the men present at the ritual are dealt with.”
“Dealt with,” I repeated.
My hands clench around my stuff as I hurry out of the cafeteria, his eyes on me until the moment I step out of his field of vision. I breathe out in relief, remembering how shamelessly I used to stare at him before all this happened. What the hell was I thinking? I knew about the other Kings. I knew what Justine and Eva went through. I knew these men were different from the rest of us mortals. They’ve been brought up as killers, butchers. Carlton has even had his kills inked into his body, and yet all I ever thought about when I saw him half naked was how much I wanted to run my hands down his arms, and my tongue over his muscles. How I wanted to press my lips on his skin, how I craved to worship him and feel myself crushed against his chest.
It’s still all I can think about during my next class, where I should be focusing on cybersecurity. It’s one of the fastest-moving areas of expertise, there’s always something new to deal with, and I should be able to laser-focus. Instead, my every thought is soaked with Carlton Wilde. He’s infiltrated every cell of my body like a toxic substance wreaking havoc.
In the beginning, I wanted him so badly that I didn’t stop to think about the consequences, not even when they involved giving my body to other men after he took my virginity. I didn’t even stop to question my own morality. Did it mean that I was a depraved slut, or that my desire for him had literally driven me crazy? Judging by my reaction when that guy wanted to fuck my mouth, I was just a stupid girl who didn’t realize what she was getting herself into. I couldn’t go through with the act when I was faced with it, and I ended up letting Carlton deal with the mess.
And now I’m facing the consequences of who Carlton Wilde really is. I should stay a million miles away from him, even if it hurts. He fucking killed a man in front of me, then shattered a guy’s bones only to go on and cut other men’s fingers and hands off. Yet all I can think about is how tortured his soul must be, and my heart bleeds for him.
“Ms. Jones, do we still have your attention?”
Professor Huang’s voice rips through my thoughts. I look at the man leaning against his desk, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows, those slanted eyes fixed on me. The girls in the front row stare up at him with smitten looks on their faces, while a few cock their eyebrows in my direction. Professor Hayden Huang is a hot number on campus with looks to rival a k-drama starboy, which is why I expected to be safe from prying eyes during his cybersecurity class. But, obviously, Carlton made too much of a show of our relationship.
I redirect my gaze to my device, afraid that Mr. Huang could end up on Carlton’s shit list. Him watching me right now through the webcam of my device isn’t even far-fetched, not to mention that anyone here would sing like a nightingale if he questioned them.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Mr. Huang, shaking my head to pull myself together. “I was a bit distracted.”
“That much was obvious,” he says, and I swear I can hear some of the girls sigh at the sound of his voice. “I asked you twice to explain to your peers how you cracked that code, since you’re the only one in class who did. ”
“Oh yes, the assignment,” I say, remembering last week.
“Give her a break, professor,” a girl chuckles from the front seat. “She’s in love.”
I shoot her a glare, but she stares at me with such dreamy eyes that I can’t be mad for more than a few seconds. A few glances around the room reveal a number of girls looking at me in the same way. Busy watching for hostile faces, I missed all of the friendly ones.
Mr. Huang lifts an eyebrow, his irises piercing black against the backdrop of his perfect skin. It hits me that there are more girls in this class than guys, even though our faculty is more of a boys’ game. Especially the cybersecurity classes and workshops.
“I see,” he says, making me wonder if my supposed love story reached him, too. I was never a shy girl—my open stalking of Carlton at the beginning of this mess is proof of that—but now I wish the ground would split open and swallow me whole. “I will still ask you to leave your personal matters at the door, and focus on class, Ms. Jones.” He runs a hand through his dark hair as if willing himself to be patient. “You're a very smart young woman who worked hard for her fantastic grades. Your focus has always been one of your greatest assets. It would be a shame to watch you lose it for a boy.”
“Oh, she isn’t just losing it for a boy ,” the girl from before emphasizes. Her eyes sparkle with the prospect of breaking the news to him, and she does before I can open my mouth to stop her. “She’s seeing Carlton Wilde. He’s filthy rich and hot as hell.”
Murmurs spark everywhere around the room.
Mr. Huang doesn’t say anything, but I don’t think the information is new to him.
“Carlton Wilde is engaged to a loaded heiress, Rosalind Hayes,” a seething brunette says, intent on cutting me with her glare. “She’s a former Miss Miami, and she has men lined up at a snap of her fingers. There’s no way in hell Carlton Wilde would break up with her.”
“Kings have broken up with heiresses before,” the first girl says. “Sade and Micah Royales ended up with other women, too. ”
“I hear Carlton Wilde is on the more conservative side,” one of the brunette’s friends says. “Like Chase Daytona. No way those two are ever going to—”
“That’s enough,” Professor Huang cuts in. “I have very little interest in my students’ personal lives.” His eyes find me again, and my back straightens of its own accord at the stern message in them. “I can totally understand how Carlton Wilde grabbed your attention, Ms. Jones, and how he ended up in love with you, too. You can get married and have a dozen children for all I care. But I will have you focused in class, and I will have you explain to your peers how you cracked that code.”
I clear my throat and manage to gather my wits enough to answer, but it isn’t lost on me that Mr. Huang just declared that he believes Carlton is into me as if it were as logical as the coding he’s teaching us or the AI he’s showing us how to build. But that only intensifies the brunette’s seething. She stares openly and aggressively at me and, by the time the class is over, I suspect she’s on Rosalind’s payroll.
With the class now over, I sling my bag over my shoulder, gather my things and storm out of the lecture hall, feeling even angrier at myself. It doesn’t matter that the mean brunette lost the argument—she was right. Whatever sick feelings Carlton might have for me, they’re not of the staying, committed kind. You don’t fuck a woman when she’s passed out, nor do you cuff her feet to the doors of your limo, and you sure as hell don’t leave roses dunked in blood on her bed. Also, you don’t fucking send her severed limbs in expensive jewelry boxes.
No matter how I look at it, the man is one giant walking red flag.
And if I take a long hard look at myself, I’m not much less twisted either. Only I don’t have a heavily traumatizing childhood to justify it with, which all the Kings seem to share. There’s nothing in my past to justify the sick pleasure I take in Carlton’s possession, in his overwhelming dominance, in how good it feels when he claims me as his in front of basically the entire campus.
Or maybe I just don’t see it.
I head toward the library with quick steps.
I need my safe place right now .
It’s where I go to work or to read the romances that put wild ideas into my head. I even tried to blame those romances for how sick my fantasies got, but Eva argued it was the extremely strict environment I grew up in. As progressive as the world professes to be when it comes to women’s rights and emancipation, there are expectations for a “proper” girl in my hometown in Alabama.
Mom never tolerated me missing a single Sunday in church, and she sure as hell never hinted at female pleasure ever being part of any relationship equation that mattered. Hormones fucked with my head like little devils when puberty hit me, and Mom went out of her way to inhibit their expression. She bullied me like a pro when she discovered my diary at fifteen, where I’d written about Craig, the hottest guy in school. She decreed the nature of my fantasies were “vile”, “filthy”, and “sinful” and I should spend the whole day in a corner with my face at the wall, contemplating proper feelings of shame.
When the feeling of shame became too much, I completely dissociated from it. I don’t remember experiencing it ever again since that day. Guilt, on the other hand… guilt was the reason I already loved Aunt Rita so much.
She never judged. Not me or anybody. It just wasn’t in her. She was always a monument of kindness that contrasted strongly with my emotionally austere mother. She’d also get in Mom’s face whenever she ranted about what a filthy horny teenager I was, crossing herself every other sentence. It was Aunt Rita who suggested that I try for Norton King’s, and who always brought up my stellar grades in order to get Mom off my back. I found refuge in learning, and she understood that. My sharp mind was never enough to impress my mother, since it wasn’t a valuable asset for a girl, and even less enough to move my emotionally absent father who wasted away in front of the TV screen day after day after work, but it did get me out of that house. And, thank whatever God is out there, it got me away from my mother.
The rest is history.
I applied to Norton King’s, and even got lodging at the sorority house. The college, the campus, and especially my bffs opened up a world of possibilities .
I walk down the hallway that runs along the library, heading straight toward my favorite alcove. I can see through the glass doors that the tables inside are all taken, and many of the alcoves are too, but my favorite one is usually empty because it's the smallest one, basically just a cushioned circular seat carved into the gothic-looking turret, with a small reading table. You can’t see outside through the crown glass window, but it’s still my favorite place in the world.
But the moment I stop in front of the alcove my breath catches, and ice blasts down my spine.