“I won’t drag you to my job.”
“What? Don’t want to be seen with a guy like me?”
“Really?” She gave me an indignant look, and swatted my arm.
I leaned in and used my index finger to slowly trace the contours of her face, the soft slope of her nose, and down her fleshy pink lips.
“Prim and proper Evangelina, in the company of a man with hand and neck tattoos. What would your colleagues say?” I tightened my hold, and slid down the side of my vehicle, so that she was cradled between my legs and nearly eye-level. The warmth of her breath fanned over my lips as hers parted. It would be so easy to kiss her. She was practically begging. And fuck me, did I want to. But I had to play my cards. No matter how goddamn beautiful and captivating she was.
“You can just tell them I’m your cousin. Isn’t that what you said?” I teased.
A slow smile moved across her face as she rose onto her toes, feathering her lips over mine, and whispering, “I’ll tell them you’re my brother.”
Ouch!
“Come on. I have to pick up my car,” she said, pulling out of my arms and rounding the hood with a smug expression.
“So you really don’t want me to tag along? You wound me, angel.” I threw my hand over my heart in a show of theatrics.
Eva arched a brow and slid into the car.
There was only one way this was going to end.
Eye on the prize, Derek.
Eye on the prize.
I rapped a knuckle on the car’s roof before pulling the door open and climbing inside.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
DEREK
Tearing my shirt above my head, I wiped at the sweat and blood splatters rolling down the sides of my face. The cellar was dark, a chill I couldn’t quite feel hanging in the air. Hard pants and rolling moans rose from the battered man shackled over a drain. His chains had been slackened so that he was kneeling, slumped forward, and head bowed.
The asshole from the market had followed through on his word and delivered his friend as promised. I only had to wait thirty minutes for the man to step onto his back porch, a cigarette in one hand and Heineken in the other. Being the gentleman I was, I offered the poor bastard a light. To my surprise, he didn’t try to run or shout like I thought he would. He simply stared, accepting his fate, as if he knew who I was and that I’d be coming for him.
Blood dripped in a steady stream from some unknown orifice in his face, coating the metal grates below. He spat and coughed, his body jerking with each desperate sweep of air he pulled into his lungs.
I knelt and fisted his blood-caked hair, and he growled in response.
“Just fucking kill me already.”
“Oh, that’s the plan, Andrey.”
Letting his face fall forward, I straightened and dragged my fingers through my scalp. I had long given up trying to avoid getting this asshole’s blood spray on me ten minutes into it. Four of his fingers lay by my feet, the first of his punishment, though he owed all ten for touching what was mine.
I didn’t make going off script a habit as I’d done with James. But this motherfucker had some skeletons and a rap sheet almost as long as the number of bribes his father had had to make to clear his name. He was young, barely out of high school, and already an errand boy for Belov. Only Andrey wasn’t just collecting gambling debts or running kilos; he was also a collector of young girls.
Maybe I was the world’s biggest hypocrite. After all, I carried the souls of all the men whose lives I’d stolen like a canvas of fine art on my flesh. But there were limits, boundaries even a sick fuck like me wouldn’t cross.
“I just want to have a little fun first.” I circled him, and his shoulders stiffened at the uncertainty of my presence at his back. “Tell me, Andy, what made you think you could put your hands on what’s mine?”
“Fuck you. I didn’t know who that bitch was other than she had the sweetest dick-sucking lips—”
The strangled noise he made when I clutched my hand around his neck was damn near music to my ears.
“She is fucking gorgeous, isn’t she, Andy?” I hadn’t had the pleasure of feeling her lips slide around my cock yet, but all in due time. “You roughed her pretty face up good, didn’t you? Split that little mouth of hers like some limp-dick coward because she would rather die than touch you.”
