Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Hennessy: It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.
“?En tus suenos!” I roared, “In your dreams.”
There I was, yelling at a guy I knew only by reputation, out in the middle of the woods, which apparently were now owned by him.
Both my fists remained at my sides while I tried like hell to keep my cool, to maintain my composure and act like the lady I was raised to be, but you wouldn’t know it by my actions at that moment.
Uncontrollable anger rolled over my entire body, and I fought the urge to punch him right in his damn mouth.
Onyx Devereaux.
Just his name made me want to throw down.
I hated guys like him.
I didn’t know much about him, but the fact was I didn’t need to.
Men like him were all the same, every last one of them.
Acting as though they were hot shit and owned every place they walked into.
With their “my shit don’t stink” attitudes and their “money will buy me out of everything” mentalities.
It was exhausting.
I’d seen them all my life, being raised around all walks of life with tourists coming in and out of mine.
Especially the good-looking ones. Add money and power, and they thought they were unstoppable.
The older I got, the easier it was to know who to stay away from.
The ones whose eyes would linger on me one too many times, the ones who didn’t care that I was only sixteen and not yet a legal adult.
Although in Peru, if you could see above the bar, you could drink. Once I hit puberty, I developed overnight. I always knew the effect I had on men. They were the easiest thing to read and understand. I stayed away, not wanting to make trouble for anyone, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t experienced.
I had a few boyfriends, but none serious. I didn’t have time for any of that, nor did I want the drama I’d seen my friends go through with theirs.
It was so cliché.
All of it.
With an overconfident arched eyebrow, he narrowed his stare on me, standing there with nothing more than a mischievous smirk across his face. It was the first time I’d ever been around a guy who screamed sex. It radiated off him. He had this cocky demeanor without even trying.
I was giving him exactly what he craved. A reaction out of me was what he wanted, and I had yet to figure out what his problem was with me. He didn’t like my family. That much was obvious.
But why?
I slowly licked my lips, my mouth suddenly drying up.
I felt like I was suddenly under his spell.
His gaze immediately followed the movement of my tongue, and I subconsciously took a step back, holding my ground.
I shook my head, ridding myself of the uneasiness I was immersed in because of his slightly intimidating composure that unexpectedly seemed to loom over mine.
With his arms over his chest, accentuating all his muscles, shining bright under the moon, he looked like a god, a fucking Viking, a pirate. Something about his demeanor still made me feel like we knew each other from another world, another lifetime.
I couldn’t shake that feeling, the emotion taking over every part of my nervous system.
What the hell?
I tried like hell to ignore how his stance only emphasized his tall, muscular build as he leaned back.
Cocky and confident as ever, fully aware of what I was thinking, feeling…
He bit the side of his lip in a charismatic and magnetic way, and I arched an eyebrow. I hated that he was trying to use his so-called charm on me.
“What? You’re just going to stand there and not say anything back?”
“Trust me, Hennessy,” he finally spoke with a rough yet smooth tone. “You don’t want me dreaming about you.”
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t catch me off guard.
Everything about him did. I thought I knew what to expect when it came to him, but he proved me wrong tonight.
He had the power to affect me, and I hated that more than anything.
It didn’t make any sense. I was supposed to have the upper hand, not him.
His patronizing stare scanned the length of my body, starting with my pink toes, lingering on my breasts, and coming to a stop at my eyes again. I thought I was prepared. I thought a lot of things, but I would learn soon enough that I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
It was one thing to think you knew, to assume, but when it was staring you right in the face, when he was looking only at you, it changed things.
It changed everything.
The way his honey-colored stare bored into mine ignited a fire deep within me. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking through me, and I hadn’t expected that.
I wasn’t prepared for that.
We locked eyes.
I had never been this conflicted around a guy.
I don’t know how long we stayed frozen at that moment, but he suddenly leaned forward, closing the gap between us and bringing us back to reality.
His cheek grazed mine as he moved closer to my ear. I faintly felt his breath on my neck.
“Your scent is poison,” he whispered, lightly brushing his lips on the sensitive area just below my ear.
Shivers rippled throughout my entire body. The beat of my heart escalated, betraying my mind to the man before me.
I curved my face, meeting his lips. “Hi, Jekyll, meet Hyde.”
He didn’t budge.
“So is this how it works? Am I supposed to spread my legs for you now?” I crudely mocked, letting him know he couldn’t intimidate me. “I will tell you one thing: I’m not impressed. You’re just a lost boy in a man’s world and not even a good one at that.”
He grinned, backing away.
I hated that I immediately felt the loss of his warmth on my skin.
“Is that an invitation?” he finally spoke.
“Fuc—” His finger pressed against my lips, silencing me, and I barely resisted the urge to bite it off.
“See how easy that was.”
I didn’t resist that time, snapping my teeth toward his finger. In one swift movement, he was tugging on the ends of my hair.
“I’m leaving now, but not because you won…” He tugged on my hair a little more. “If I stay, I’m going to show you how much of a man I really am, and you’re not ready for that. Besides, right now you’re easy prey, and I prefer to chase.”
And with that, he turned around and went back to his house.
I was dismissed.
Onyx
“Fuck me,” Caspian announced as I walked into my bedroom.
He stood in front of my computer on the desk in the far-left corner of the wide-open space. He’d been watching the surveillance cameras that surrounded the property.
“Someone just got chewed up and spit the fuck out.” He laughed, obnoxiously clapping. “I’d pay good money to see that again.”
“Shut the fuck up.” I slammed the door behind me.
Caspian didn’t know when to quit, and that was always the problem. He took any opportunity to fuck with me, as I did him. The entire Brotherhood was like that, and I just gave him the perfect ammunition.
I was an asshole. I owned it, making no excuses. There was no reason to try to deny it. I accepted that title a long time ago. I spoke my mind. I didn’t sugarcoat shit, and whether it hurt your feelings or not, it wasn’t my problem. Life was too damn short to pretend to be someone I wasn’t.
My reputation followed me everywhere I went, only making women wet, and they threw their pussies at me like it was gold. Except it wasn’t me they wanted. They craved my last name and everything it stood for.
This was new territory for me, a stranger calling me out. Yet there I was, lost in thought about her. It was the way she came at me with no fear that piqued my interest. She actually had the balls to say to my face what most people said behind my back. It was refreshing.
How she knew about my tattoos wasn’t something I’d soon forget. I couldn’t think of one person who would know all that. I never shared their significance with anyone.
Not a soul knew.
Not that I didn’t enjoy watching her pouty lips pucker every time she tried to hide the effect I had on her. I’d even go so far as to say she affected me too.
She smelled like honey mixed with vanilla and another note I couldn’t name.
It was unique, lingering on her tan skin.
It was part of the reason I found her that night of her party.
I followed her scent. She left it everywhere for me, and I had to tell her that.
She was poisonous, and I needed to let her know that too, but something told me she already knew.
Belladonna was living up to her legacy like a little fucking witch.
The girl was a paradox of contradictions. Her demeanor screamed she hated me, but her body, her body liked me just fine. Which only made me want to get to know her that much more. I loved a challenge as much as the next guy.
I wasn’t lying. I loved to chase. The hunt was my favorite thing about the Brotherhood. It was the pirate in me.
“She got to you, didn’t she?” Caspian asked, pulling me away from my reckless thoughts.
“I’m just doing my job.”
“Your job wasn’t to have cameras installed all over her uncle’s estate.”
“It’s not her uncle's. It belongs to Devereaux.”
“It’s going to be her uncle's. He’s marrying your aunt, remember? It’s why he’s living there in the first place.”
I threw off my sneakers, paying him no mind as he added, “What part of your job stated to have cameras in her bedroom?” He smiled like a jokester, big and wide.
“Did you put one in her shower too?” He glanced back at the computer screen.
“I didn’t get to play around with the camera feeds, but you got quite a few squares on here. My guess is—”
I was over to him in three strides, yanking the cord out of the monitor. It instantly went black, and his eyes flashed with delight.
“Oh, motherfucker…” he sang in a sarcastic tone. “What else are you hiding on that computer?”
Without knocking, Deja appeared out of nowhere, walking into my suite with disappointment written all over her face. I swear she was like a damn cat and had been since we were kids. She used to follow me around as if she were my shadow. I think it was just to learn my habits.
Now, she popped up wherever she felt like it, and I was none the wiser, case in point.
“You have fucking cameras in her bedroom?” she exclaimed loudly. “You’re fucking disgusting! How are we even related?”
“How many times do I have to tell you to knock—”
“How else am I supposed to know what’s going on if I don’t—”
“That’s the whole fucking point, Deja. You’re not supposed to know.”
“Why?” She shrugged, folding her arms over her chest. “Because I’m a girl?
That’s sexist,” she sassed, pissing me off.
“I can do anything you can do, and probably a better job at it since all you’re run by is your ego and your dick.
” She glanced at Caspian, who was leaning up against the wall, enjoying the show.
“Speaking of dicks, what are you doing here, dickhead?”
Deja hated everyone in the Brotherhood, especially since she was promised to one of them. She hadn’t met him yet. She wouldn’t until she was twenty-one. She had about a year and a half left, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she ran away before then.
I hadn’t met him. The only one who knew who he was was our father, and whoever he sold her to was, more than likely, the highest bidder in the room. This was how families maintained generational wealth among those chosen into the society. It was just how things had always been.
Our mother tried to change it. She wanted better for Deja. Instead, she was silenced.
If she did haul ass, the families would murder her, and part of me thought that was the appeal for Deja.
To not have to live in this world, one that she didn’t have much say in.
I mean, being a Devereaux offered her more advantages than most women married off into the Brotherhood, but not much, and she knew it.
“Should I go look in my room and make sure my betrothed hasn’t hidden cameras everywhere?” she asked, making me lose my patience.
“Is this what you’re doing now?” She made her way over to me. “I should tell Hennessy you’re stalking her.”
“Then you’d have to answer to me.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
“Maybe, but you are scared of Dad.”
She inhaled deeply, hating that I was spitting facts.
“It’s not right what you’re doing to her. You can’t play with people’s lives whenever you feel like it, Onyx.”
“This was set long in place before you and I were ever born, Deja.”
“Jesus, why can’t our family just go to therapy and be done with it? This curse—”
“Deja…” With one stern expression, I rendered her speechless.
“This is so messed up. You know that, right? You’re a fucking psychopath.”
“Sociopath,” I corrected. “If you’re going to diagnose me, at least get it right.”
“That’s worse! You have no remorse for what you do.”
I shrugged, mirroring her stance. “If you truly understood that, you wouldn’t be in my room provoking me right now.”
“Ugh!” She spun so fast, leaving in a second.
“She’s right, you know?” Caspian tore my attention back to him.
“What we do is fucked up.”
I smiled, not hesitating to admit…
“Yeah, but it’s so much fucking fun.”