Chapter 26
Ever since Paulie called to say he delivered my package from New York to the O’Leary gym early this morning, a maelstrom of rage pulsed inside me. It was something I hadn’t felt in decades. It combusted and burned, spitting fire in all directions.
Sleeves rolled to my elbows, I pummeled this fucker’s face in, brass knuckles off. He shouldn’t have tried drugging my woman.
In the last three days, we caught five of Sosa’s men.
They each got a beating and lost a finger before we sent them packing.
This asshole wasn’t getting that courtesy.
No, he was getting the all-inclusive package.
Every time I laid eyes on his ugly mug, I imagined exactly what could have happened to Alice had Paulie not been there to stop it.
Each hit to his face and gut and every crack of his bones expelled a little of my rage.
Then thoughts of her in the arms of other men, kissing other men, smiling at other men shoved their way back to the forefront of my mind, and a gale swirled the tornado of anger, suspicion, envy, and resentment back into full force.
“Killy, he’s had enough,” Liam said, his voice not half as pleasing as this asshole’s grunts and howls of pain. “Anymore, and you’ll kill him too quickly.”
His voice echoed in the empty room covered from floor to ceiling in easy-to-wash stone and ceramic tiles.
“Stay back.”
The entire crew could watch me lose my cool for all I damn well cared.
I was usually the one who stood back. Never got riled, never aggravated, never angered.
I was the one who said when it was enough.
I hadn’t been on the other side of that stick in as long as I could remember, and it felt bleeding fantastic and fecking awful at the same time. It was too much and not enough.
I didn’t feel the ache in my cracked, bleeding knuckles as another one of the sexual predator’s ribs broke under my fists.
Every hit was cathartic. Every punch got me closer to the highs she gave me before she fucked off to New York the moment my door closed, and she started kissing cheeks and hugging the whole damn population.
The door vaguely groaned, opened, then shut. Bickering roared in the background, but I was engulfed in my anger.
So far, this hadn’t been enough to bleed me dry of the insistent crawling and squirming in my veins. I felt too damn much. It jabbed and punched through my control, overwhelming me in a red haze that didn’t dissipate.
The piece of shit was barely breathing at this point, one eye swollen shut, jaw crooked, nose bleeding, and his torso a mass of swollen bumps, welts, and shallow slashes from different blades. I wrestled him close by the remains of his minced shirt and raised my fist.
Before my fist came down, a knife struck.
It hit straight into his ear canal and volleyed his body from my grip to the floor.
The room went pin-drop silent. Only the throbbing in my knuckles remained.
My demons halted their war path, with my hands hanging over empty air at a sudden loss of what to do.
“If you wanted him dead, that’s how you do it.”
That sultry, accented voice tinged with anger teased my senses.
I whipped around, my knuckles dripping blood.
My devilish fairy stood there, composed as ever, brushing her hands off, like she hadn’t been messing with my head the past few days.
Like this torment she was putting me through was nothing but her mundane routine.
It was like the moment after waking up from a nightmare, not sure what was real and what wasn’t.
“If you beat him to the brink of death, have the decency to push him over the ledge,” she lectured. “Otherwise, you’re no better than whatever landed him here.”
Dressed like sin itself in a tight skirt that grappled her curves for dear life over stockings, she moseyed through the room. Her heels clacked against the stone tiles, each step riveting everyone’s attention, especially mine. I hated that I couldn’t look away.
“Who did you wear that for?” I groused.
Her jaw tightened, her eyes narrowed, and she visibly bristled. Good.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Alice?”
Toothless Joe blocked her path, tapping a pruning saw against his palm. He liked the thing because it hurt more, made the screamers give it their all, but if he even grazed her with it, I’d tear his arm off.
I barely caught the towel Liam tossed me to wipe the blood off my skin, I was so focused on making sure Toothless did nothing I’d have to kill my own man for.
“You heard the boss. This ain’t no place for little ladies.”
She smirked. It was vicious and sent a jolt of pleasant tingles down my spine that soothed my rampaging inner monster.
“Move.”
Toothless didn’t. In two quick strikes, she disarmed him, his saw clattering to the ground, and kneed him in the balls. He dropped to a knee and hissed through his teeth. Liam shoulder-checked me and whistled beneath his breath, and I bit down a grin of pride.
“Next time, listen to this little lady.” She crouched in front of Toothless and patted him on the cheek.
Now all I wanted to do was skin Joe’s cheek off.
“What are you doing here, Alice?” I asked more firmly.
“I’m settling a score, Cillian.”
That sass, I’d missed it like an amputated limb.
I hadn’t known I could get all hot and bothered from the sound of my own name.
But there I was, fighting a bleeding erection amid a corpse, a gaggle of my own men, and the very epitome of my undoing.
It didn’t help that her anger was feeding into the chaos of emotions swirling in my bloodstream.
She was my own personal crack. One touch and I’d gone and gotten myself addicted despite the threat looming overhead.
The dead man lay between us, separating us by a meager two little feet. She was close enough to touch but too far to hold. Too far to grasp and never let go. Too far to kiss before I wiped away the stain of all other men and reminded her who she belonged to.
“And what score would that be, sweetheart?”
Eyes locked on me, she placed a heel atop his scalp.
Her hand wrapped around the knife’s hilt.
With one hard tug, it drew free with a wet noise.
No sign of disgust showed on her face, and that just amped up her appeal.
She wasn’t just any fairy. She was a fierce dragoness draped in the skin of a nymph.
“What did he do to you?” She nudged her chin at the corpse.
“Me? Absolutely nothing.”
“You were about to kill a man for nothing?”
“Didn’t kill him now, did I?” I overstepped the body and pulled her against me. Her shape curved into mine in a welcome homecoming as sparks burst between us. “But I would’ve.”
“Why?”
I brushed a strand of hair falling in front of her eyes. “Because he did something to you.”
“What?”
“Don’t you recognize him?”
She gazed down at the body, her head tilted and brows knitted so low, an adorable deep crease furrowed above the bridge of her nose.
“The club.” She growled and shoved me back. “You took a random guy from New York? Are you serious? What is wrong with you? How many of them are here?”
Steam surged through my veins. I clenched my hands around her arms to keep her in place.
“Exactly how many should I have taken care of?”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes at me. “Don’t go pretending I matter to you now.”
“You’re damn right you do.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She never did have good senses. From our very first meeting weeks ago, she’d challenged me and never stopped. Even now, at my worst, she kept at it. I grasped her chin and pulled her face up to meet my gaze.
“You’re under my skin, buried so deep I can’t seem to get you out.
You’re glued behind my eyelids, and I can’t forget your face no matter how much I should.
” I tapped my head. “Your laughs play on repeat in here.” I placed her hand against my chest. “The feel of you is imprinted right fucking here.”
“What?” Her voice cracked.
Her face scrunched up, and she shook her head. Her eyes tracked around the room and the audience I’d forgotten about. She trembled against me, and in that moment, I was ready to end them all just to take away the skittish look in her eyes.
“This isn’t funny,” she whispered. “Why are you always messing with my head?”
She wrenched herself free of my grip and ran. Through the room and out the door.
It awoke a beast I never knew I had. The need to hunt surged and blazed through me with single-minded focus to catch and claim. Everything else dimmed. My vision narrowed and shadowed. All sounds dulled but the clap of her shoes.
I sprang after her and up the stairs. I stalked my prey through the hallways, left then right, and sniffed out her sweet floral perfume among the sweat and testosterone like a bloodhound. A door snicked shut straight ahead. My lips curved up. Got her.
The locker room she’d escaped into was reserved for management and overflow on fight nights.
There wasn’t a soul in here now except for her and me.
I snicked the lock shut behind me and scanned the place.
All quiet. Excitement simmered beneath my skin, begging to break free, and I licked my lips.
My body hummed with desire, awake and alert in a way it hadn’t been in far too long. All because of her.
“Alice,” I taunted. “I know you’re here. Stop running from me.”
“Leave me alone.” Her anger lashed out in an echo.
The first row was empty. A soft metallic tap chinked up ahead. I lunged around the next bank of lockers, and there she was. She tried to bolt, but not quickly enough.
My arm wrapped around her waist, and I shoved her against the closest set of lockers. Those stormy gray-blue eyes locked onto me. A broken look still lurked there, where it never should have existed in the first place.
“Cillian,” she drew out with a growl.
She fought and surprisingly broke my hold without much effort, but I grappled her back to me. Her breasts heaved against my chest, and my cock throbbed heavy and angry between us.
“Let go of me.”