6. Temptation
Temptation
“Where’s my money, Declan?”
The man sobbed through blood and snot as he lifted his swollen face and shook his head. “I’ll get it. P-please. I just need two more days.”
“You said that two days ago. And I gave them to you after breakin’ your wrists.
But here’s the thing,” McKenna replied evenly, crouching and wiping blood from the man’s bleeding cheek with his silk handkerchief.
“My kindness has a limit. So you either tell me where I can find the money in the next thirty seconds, or…” He glanced over his shoulder at me.
“I’ll unleash my monster on you. And trust me, I’ve been playin’ nice compared to what he’s capable of. ”
The man’s bloodshot eyes snapped to mine, wide with panic. He saw it then. Whatever men see before they’re about to die. He began whimpering and begging, the noise grating on my bones and making everything inside me shift.
“I–I know a man. He can lend me the m-money. P-please, don’t kill me.”
“Name.”
“Eddie B-barden.”
McKenna stood and adjusted his cufflinks. “What a wonderful friend you are, passin’ your debts along like that.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m goin’ to need somethin’ to show him how serious it is to be in debt to us.”
He turned his back on Declan and walked towards me. My wrists were freed, and a machete was placed in my hand.
“I want his head.”
McKenna had a kink for collecting heads.
“No! No, no, no, please!” Declan begged as my darkness tuned into the pathetic sound, fuelling the need for his blood.
A few minutes later, I threw the severed head at McKenna’s feet, heaving with rapid breaths as blood ran down my forearms in thick, warm ribbons.
“You did well. Get cleaned up.”
My shoulders dropped. The praise felt like a cage door, trapping the beast inside.
I moved down the warehouse hallway to the shower room, stripping off and watching the blood run off me onto the tiles and down the drain. Two soldiers who followed me everywhere hovered nearby, their guns in one hand and tasers in the other, just in case.
“Do you think he even feels?” one muttered behind me.
I braced my hand against the wall and let the water hammer down on me.
“Nah,” the other replied. “Dead behind the eyes. You saw it. No one hacks a man’s head off like that and still has a fuckin’ soul.”
“Well, he didn’t get the name monster for nothin’.”
I closed my eyes, tuning them out and let my head fall back against the powerful stream of hot water.
I’d made that beheading as messy as possible, just to give me a reason to shower here.
It was the only warm shower I’d have for a few days.
Was it the act itself that made me soulless, or the reason for doing it?
Opening my mouth, I let the water pelt my tongue and nose, filling my mouth until my lungs burned. I waited for panic to set in: the clenching of my stomach and the instinct to breathe. None came. There was only pressure. And silence.
If I drowned myself, would I finally know the answer?
Would I feel a spark of humanity or a desire to live?
Could a soul survive if it’s only ever known violence and hate?
Or does it leave long before death? Abandon the physical body to the darkness it knows.
Without it, was I even human? Or was all that’s left the monster they made me?
“Time’s up!” one of them shouted, chucking a towel at my back. I glanced down, staring at it in the puddle of water that now made it useless.
The rage was instant. In a split second, I was across the room, lifting the soldier by the throat with one hand and slamming him against the wall. He clawed and kicked against my vice-like grip as the other guard shoved the taser’s metal spikes into my neck.
Electricity surged through my muscles, and my entire body locked up as a foreign force hijacked it. Big mistake. That only made my hand tighten around his throat until I felt his windpipe crush beneath my grip.
For a moment, I was completely disoriented as static currents filled my head. My knees buckled, hitting the hard tiles before I fell to my side, my body no longer cooperating with what I wanted it to do. The strangled man dropped in front of me, vacant eyes staring into mine.
More men charged in. Another taser cycle began. Boots connected with my ribs and back, and I took one to the face, pain exploding across my cheekbone because I couldn’t lift my arms to shield it.
“Enough,” McKenna growled, cutting through the chaos and peering down at the scene with disappointment.
I guessed that meant I wouldn’t be rewarded for my efforts today.
“You just keep testin’ my patience, Monster.
Get him back. And for fuck’s sake, you eejits, cuff him before he showers next time. ”
I was dragged upright, my head bowed as my muscles still refused to cooperate. Someone tied my wrists behind my back and leashed my neck again, then led me back to the car, naked.
By the time I stumbled into my bunker, I had regained control of my muscles, though the cramps were setting in.
I face-planted into the mattress and groaned through clenched teeth as my calf spasmed.
When it passed, I looked towards the corner and found hazel eyes, wide and surprised, staring at me.
Her cheeks had a little more colour than before, and I spotted the blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a book in her lap.
Make yourself at home, darlin’.
Her eyes travelled down the length of my body, her throat working as they settled on my naked arse, and then she immediately looked down at the book again. I chuckled darkly at her obvious discomfort. Her eyes snapped back to my face, narrowing.
Oh, she didn’t like that.
I climbed off the bed unsteadily, my ribs still sore from yesterday’s fight and flaring with relentless agony as I stood up. The battering they had just taken hadn’t helped.
She kept her gaze fixed on my face, refusing to let it stray any lower. The attitude in her eyes, with the innocent blush deepening her cheeks, was an intriguing contradiction.
What’s wrong, Pretty Girl? Never seen a dick before?
My dark eyes challenged her to look, and she took the bait.
I felt her gaze everywhere, travelling down my chest to my abs, then down my thighs to my feet, before finally landing on my cock.
It was the only part of my body not covered in ink.
It wasn’t hard, but shite, it jolted under her attention.
Then her eyes lifted to meet mine, and she shrugged.
She fucking shrugged and went back to her book.
A rare, involuntary twitch tugged at the corner of my lips. It was barely a movement, one she’d never notice, but I felt it. When was the last time someone had made me want to smile and not because I knew I was about to give them a gruesome death? Not since before.
I walked over to the clothing rail and yanked off a pair of joggers. Pulling out a cigarette, I slumped into my chair and stared at her as I smoked. She did her best to ignore me.
The fact that she had the guts to sit there, wrapped in a blanket I hadn’t seen since last winter, wearing my socks that peeked out beneath it, perched on my only shitty pillow and reading when she was supposed to be fearing for her life, was bizarre behaviour.
I’d never encountered anyone so unbothered by the danger they were in.
But that wasn’t the only thing that intrigued me. It was her silence.
I was a killer, not a conversationalist. But what was her excuse? She hadn’t even attempted to beg for her life.
For the first time in a long time, I felt the urge to say something. To break my vow of silence and ask what the fuck was wrong with her. Where was the emotion that had possessed every single person who’d ever crossed me? Did she think this was a feckin’ holiday?
The words scratched at my throat, and I fought them back.
I didn’t talk anymore. I didn’t think about other people or their needs enough to ask questions.
I didn’t get ‘intrigued’ or ‘smile’ at a gesture that should have only pissed me off.
I only acted and reacted. Sleep. Eat. Exercise. Smoke. Fight. Kill. Repeat.
It infuriated McKenna that he couldn’t get a rise out of me anymore, so I made myself a promise. I’d rather cut out my tongue than give him the satisfaction. Words couldn’t help me, so what was the point? That I was even considering it made rage flood my system.
This had gone on long enough.
I sprang from my chair and closed the distance between us in five long strides.
I snatched the book from her hands and tossed it across the floor, then yanked her to her feet by her dainty throat.
The blanket slipped off her shoulders, taking one of her dress’s sleeves with it.
Her hazel eyes widened with surprise and shock, a flicker of fear in them as I shoved her against the wall. Finally. A reaction, though minuscule.
But she still didn’t make a sound. Not even a gasp as I squeezed, cutting off her airway.
Her arms hung limply at her sides, her lips parted as she struggled for breath, yet she didn’t fight me.
She didn’t cry, whimper, or beg. I could end this so easily.
I could watch the life drain from her pretty eyes and be done with it in seconds.
I waited to see just how long she’d hold out for. When the burn became too much and her survival instincts kicked in, would she beg then? Would she fight against me and trigger the monster in me to end her?
When she was about to pass out from lack of oxygen, her eyes rolling back and her face turning a deep shade of red, I let her go.
I slammed my hand against the wall beside her head and roared in her face, pressing my forehead into hers.
She gasped for air, clutching her throat and heaving.
Even then, she recovered quickly, leaning her head back against the wall and staring into my eyes.