THIRTY-FOUR #2
He didn’t respond. He released my hand, stopping at a pedestrian crossing and then he pulled me gently but firmly by the neck until he devoured my mouth.
‘I don’t want freedom any more,’ he rumbled against my lips. ‘I want your chains. The lace, the metal… Your fucking freedom. I want that. Because it’s mine, too.’
‘Fuck, Cain…’
I pulled his hand to my face, kissing it, my thighs clenching to contain the need rising in me. Even in this dangerous predicament, we’d met each other. Even with threat on my tail, I still needed him so badly.
The thought barely settled before the wail of sirens sliced through the air, startling us out of the haze of lust.
A fire engine thundered past, red lights flashing, reflecting off the glass around us. I looked past the windscreen, my stomach tightening as the glow pulsed against the darkened street just around the corner.
We both froze, locking eyes, something cold and soundless slamming between us.
Then he hit the accelerator, and we rounded the corner—
Stopping dead.
Rushing out, we shoved through the crowd, eyes fixed on the orange light.
Cain’s penthouse was a wall of flame.
The fire devoured the top of the building. Timber crackled, smoke choked the surroundings.
The place meant little to me: walls, furniture, the bed I barely slept in. It had simply been where I’d existed between work and my worst habits.
What mattered was this: he knew where I lived. He’d come to my door and set it alight with a message. He was probably here, watching it burn, waiting until the flames died. He wanted to intimidate.
I breathed through the rush of violence unfurling inside me, letting it slither down my spine like a viper in wait. My fist twitched. My jaw locked. My pulse was a steady drum pounding in my ears as I stared into the raging fire while the firemen scrambled to get it contained.
Next to me, Paula stood silent, her breath uneven, her body stiff as stone. She was doing what she always did – holding it in, keeping it together, too afraid to let the trauma slip through the cracks.
In a way, I was thankful – if she’d broken down now, I wasn’t sure I could’ve taken it. Because if she cried for him, if she mourned the desolation this fucker left in his wake, I’d lose every ounce of restraint I had left.
‘Your home…’ she murmured quietly. Her hand brushed my sleeve, light as a whisper, uncertain. ‘I’m so sorry, Cain.’
The words grated like sandpaper.
I turned to her slightly. She was sorry because she had known. She had known who’d done this. And she was still afraid of him. Even in my arms, she shivered. And not because I made her feel things, but because he did.
A part of me wanted to grab her by the face, force her to look at me, only me, and burn that fear out of her. I wanted her to own that fear, not recoil from it – not be afraid of some pathetic excuse of a man who thought he still had a claim on her.
I tightened my grip around her waist, pulling her against me, anchoring her. Her warm, delicate body pressed into mine.
And then I locked onto one swollen, bloodshot eye through the smoke and chaos. His bruised face was barely visible among the onlookers. I caved it in well enough last night, but it seemed the fucker could still stand.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? That after everything, after I’d made him choke on his own blood, he could still stand.
That men like him always did. They slithered through the seams, infesting the world like parasites, sinking their rotted teeth into women who would never be whole again.
But maybe that wasn’t what clawed at me most. Maybe it was the sick, unrelenting truth lurking in the marrow of my bones: that I wasn’t any different. That I wasn’t better than him.
That I was worse.
Because yesterday, when his bones snapped beneath my fists and fear glazed his eyes, something in me thrummed. I wanted to hurt him for what he’d done – and I wanted to hurt him because it pleased me. Violence wasn’t just means. It had become me.
And that was why he should’ve run the second he saw me.
Instead, he was still watching.
Stupid. So deliciously stupid.
I could end him right now. Walk through this crowd, wrap my fingers around his throat, take him into the dark, and squeeze until something cracked. Until life drained out of that swollen eye and left nothing behind but silence. That would’ve been easy, though. Too easy.
And I didn’t want easy.
He didn’t deserve easy.
I wanted him to know. I wanted him to wake up every day knowing that I was coming for him. That I would take him apart into small, measured pieces; pull him open like a gutted animal and let him watch as I plucked out everything that he was made of.
A smile crept up my face, curving like a shadow at the end of the road. Because in that moment, I knew I couldn’t resist the pull. I knew exactly what I was going to do.
I was going to make him regret ever thinking he was the worst thing to happen to her. That title was mine. And mine alone.
Travis’ smirk twitched. Just barely. Uncertainty rippled through his bruised face, a crack in the mask of confidence he’d been wearing.
His gaze stayed locked on mine, but I felt it – the shift.
The unsaid understanding that whatever he thought he was, whatever darkness he believed he carried, he’d just stepped into the shadow of something far worse.
When he took in my smirk, his throat bobbed in a tight swallow. His fingers flexed at his side, indecisive, his body screaming at him to run even as his ego tried to plant his feet. But it was too late.
His weight shifted backwards as he took a shallow breath, then flicked the black cigarette from his fingers like it didn’t matter. Mistake. His DNA was all over it. But I let him have that little comfort.
Because he had just made the only right choice left to him: he turned and melted into the crowd.
I exhaled slowly, the hunger curling in my gut.
I would hunt him.
I would break him.
When I was done, there wouldn’t be an inch of him left unscarred.