22. Kaleb #2
Her eyes dart back to the bleeding man, chained up and at her mercy. I watch as her fingers tighten around the handle until her knuckles blanch, only to loosen a second later.
My eyes don’t leave her as she fights herself. Fights what she knows is right and what she feels is right. I watch every lesson society ever shoved down her throat collide with the reality standing in front of her.
We both know this cunt deserves to die.
And when her face hardens, the corner of her mouth lifts in a slow curve. A smile full of satisfaction and revenge. A smile that makes my cock jerk in my pants.
“Roxanne,” Harrison growls, his words laced with panic now.
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Harrison,” she drawls, swinging her bat a few times.
Testing the feel of it. “How I’m about to make you feel is nothing compared to what you’ve put others through.
Nothing compared to the fear that you love to force onto people.
” Her lip twists in disgust. “But I’m going to fucking try. ”
His eyes barely get a chance to widen before she cocks back the bat and swings it at his kneecap. It lands. Fuck, it lands.
The most delicious crunch of ligaments and bone echo in the building. Followed by a gut-wrenching scream.
Roxanne steps back with wide eyes, chest heaving like she can’t believe she just did that.
And laughs.
A breathy, unhinged sound. Turning over her shoulder with a light in her eyes like I’ve never seen before. One that doesn’t belong in a place like this.
“That felt good,” she gasps, bouncing on the spot.
It’s almost impossible to fight my smirk. “Do it again, then.”
This time, she doesn’t need any encouragement, and his other kneecap is smashed in a matter of seconds.
He’s blubbering already, screaming and sobbing through the pain.
“Fucking prick,” she growls at him. “Have fun chasing after women who don’t want you now.”
A low groan hums in my chest as I adjust my aching fucking cock. The thing is angry and trying to tear a hole through my pants. I don’t turn back, but I’m sure my brother is feeling the same agony.
Pushing the hair from her face, she turns back to me. “What now?”
A slow breath falls through my teeth. I reach into the inside of my jacket pocket, my fingers finding the familiar weight in an instant, pulling out my favourite knife.
The butterfly knife that I stole from my foster father, and used it to slice his throat when I was eleven.
The click hits something deep inside me every time I unfold the purple knife. Her eyes lock onto it immediately.
“The pretty one,” she whispers.
I know she likes it. She asked to be sliced by it.
“The pretty one,” I confirm.
I roll it once in my palm before stepping behind her again. She stiffens at our proximity again, but something tells me it’s not from fear. It’s from something far more dangerous.
Harrison’s cries and screams are distant to me. This close, I can see her pulse flutter in her neck, and my tongue darts out to lap it.
She moans.
Pull yourself together, Kaleb.
I guide her shoulders, subtly adjusting her stance with my body behind hers.
“Don’t tense up,” I murmur. “It’s like a dance.”
My hands guide hers around the blade. Her eyes stay fixed ahead while mine study her.
“What do I do with it?”
Unable to help myself, I nip at her pulse again. Feeling it race under my mouth. Her scent has my nostrils flaring. Drunk on the feeling of being pressed against her. Of watching her delight in violence like a sexy little sinner.
“I don’t fucking care,” I growl. “Stab him wherever you want. It’s sharp and he’ll bleed.”
“Kaleb,” she whimpers, and I squeeze my eyes shut before pulling away from her neck. “I’m scared.”
Harrison is going crazy. Yanking his restraints and bucking like a man possessed. Begging now. He can barely hold himself upright with his ravaged knees. Blood drips from where the cuffs dig into his wrists.
“His throat, Black Cat,” I whisper. “Right,” I murmur, kissing the pulse in her neck again, “here. Stab here and he’s gone.”
“You don’t have to do this, Roxanne,” Harrison pleads. “We can go back to Isaac and Ethan, and I’ll tell them you saved me. They’ll welcome you. Fuck, please, Roxanne.”
She stiffens every time he says her name, and it makes me want to rip out his voice box.
“Did they all beg like this?” she hisses through her teeth at him. “All those girls you used to drag back to the apartment. I bet they faced their fear with a hundred times more decorum than you, Harrison. Look at you. Weak.”
Harrison’s eyes are wide as if he is seeing the girl for the first time. I don’t blame him.
My hands slide from hers, and I wait. I don’t have to wait long though.
With a scream, she swings the knife into his neck. Pulling it out for a spray of blood to coat her. She does it again. And again. Losing herself to it.
Harrison died after the first one. But she keeps going.
My feet stumble back, and when she turns, my next breath gets trapped in my chest.
For too long, none of us speak.
My eyes search her for her reaction. I’m expecting tears. Sobs. Hysteria.
All I see is... Calmness. Unnatural calm.
A slow smile curls on her face, dotted with crimson. My eyes drop to the blood-covered knife still in her hand. With slow movements, she folds the blade closed. The click slicing through the quiet.
Her fingers tighten around the purple handle before she blinks up at me through her lashes.
“I’m keeping this,” she purrs.
I don’t know what I expected when I brought her here, but this wasn’t it. Not even fucking close.
Without another word, I turn and walk away. Kai steps into my path as I reach the door, and our eyes meet for the briefest moment.
And then I’m gone.