“Dahlia.” The man greets her with a gentle look and the timbre of his voice tingles through my spine.
No one’s taking me seriously but I’m sure as fuck I’m having a stroke.
“Christian.” Dahlia rises to her feet but though I know she wants to, she doesn’t move from her spot and only watches him with narrowed eyes. “Everett here was just telling us how you killed your team.”
“Of course he would,” Christian throws the body he’d dragged in to the centre of the room and I can hardly contain my surging excitement beneath my skin when I recognize the unseemly mop of hair.
Geoffrey Nash.
“With his skills, the most he’s good for is licking shit off of shoes,” Christian tilts his head like a broken marionette, pulled by invisible strings, “so getting rid of us was the only other option.”
All eyes turn to Everett and it’s obvious the man is freaking out. His breathing is laboured and sweat is pouring off his brow, from where I stand he looks like a cornered chicken with shaking knees. But he still manages to dig his heels in, “You’re a fucking liar. I watched you put bullets in Max and Mitch.”
Christian’s eyes darken and it’s like my vision tunnels because when he blinks I can notice how long his lashes are, how laboured his breathing is, the colour that’s draining from his pale cheeks—
I’m watching him breathe through his parted lips when my dick twitches again.
Time and place, time and place, time and place—
Christian pulls a phone from his pocket and I can hear Everett’s breathing stagger behind me. The bloodlust dripping from Christian is unfiltered and raw and fuckingbeautifulas he kneels to get the dead guy’s fingerprint, and when the phone unlocks, Everett steps forward quickly, only to walk directly into my chest. He sees the look on my face and pales as he backs away. I can’t blame him, because the decision to slice open his throat right now is just one foot out the door.
“Before he died, Geoffrey made a payment of twenty million to Everett before he shot him,” Christian puts the phone down on the table, speaking matter-of-factly. “I think you’d be able to confirm it from his phone.”
Dahlia waits a beat before picking up the phone and swiping through it. After a few moments, she looks up and motions her fingers towards Everett with a sharp command, “Check his phone.”
“You’re shitting me,” Everett raises his hands when her two guards get close, “you can’t believe a word he says, I told you everythi—”
The left guard punches him in the gut and Everett falls, clutching his stomach and heaving like a child. The guards seem to have already made up their minds too—there’s no way it should be that hard to grab a guy’s phone—and Everett’s façade has cracked before they’ve even recovered it. He laughs bitterly as one of the guards hands Dahlia the phone, and the other holds him back before he can lunge at Christian.
“You just always have to RUIN MY FUCKING PLANS!” His eyes burn with hatred, “I should’ve shot youthreetimes! You cockroach piece of shit!”
“Even if you did, I’d still haul my dead ass back here to kill you,” Christian replies sourly, and when I turn to him he’s raised his gun and pointed the barrel directly at Everett.
“Christian!” Dahlia hisses, and my expression darkens. Every one of ours knows it’s suicide to raise a weapon in the presence of the Don’s family. It’s the highest disrespect, often enough met with an immediate shot between the eyes.
“Sorry about this, Dahlia,” Christian’s tone says he doesn’t care. “You can kill me after... but let me be the one to kill him.”
The room is silent before she replies softly, “Granted.”
Christian fires two shots, aimed at each of Everett’s ankles and the snake screams as he falls to his knees. I don’t care enough to watch, because Christian is striding past me without even a glance and I’m too busy staring like a bloody virgin to feel insulted.
The scent of blood and something sickeningly sweet sticks to him, and I can’t look away when he pulls another gun from the waistband of his pants and fires two more shots, one in both of Everett’s knees.
Dahlia and I watch and the room is quiet save for Everett’s incoherent raving, “You had a hole in your fucking stomach! How the fuck are you still alive?!”
“Who said anything about being alive?” Christian asks in a deadpan voice, before grabbing the unfortunate man by the roots of his hair to pull him across the room, towards the only window. “I’m just a spectre here to take you to hell.”
“Fuck you!” Everett gnashes his teeth and spits in Christian’s direction but his struggles are futile, Christian is like a fucking boulder that can’t be stopped and I still can’t take my eyes off the gorgeous red energy around him. It’s practically soothing the relentless demon that usually hammers away beneath my ribs.
“I should be thanking you, Evie,” Christian’s singsong voice is a telltale sign that he’s lost himself in his rage. That it’s the only thing keeping him standing at all when he’s already lost so much blood. “Now I can’t wait to die and meet you in hell,” he tosses Everett onto the floor and steps over him to grab him by the scruff of the collar. “Because we’re all going to take turns killing you for all eternity,” his smile, even from my side of the room, sends chills down my spine but it’s the crazy light in his eyes that makes me adjust the tent in my pants.
I’m going to have a very stern talking-to with my dick later, because now this shit is downright embarrassing.
Sadly, two things happen that really put a damper on this strange hex he’s put on me.
First—
He stuffs a grenade into Everett’s mouth. So far down Everett himself is frozen and wide-eyed with shock and fear for the first time.
