Evelina scoffs loudly, then stares at me. “I’m notyours, Vaughn.”
My jaw ticks. “You are. Emphatically. You became mine when you chained yourself to me at the initiation as my Acolyte.”
Evelina blinks rapidly. “Okay, but you’re still saying this isn’t a relation?—”
“Trust me, that isn’t something you want with someone like me.”
She looks at me with a mix of curiosity and caution, like she’s trying to peel back the layers.
…Which is a decidedly foolish idea.
My phone dings on the coffee table.
Sebastian
En route with Beaumont.
Sebastian
LOL he pissed all over himself.
Carson
You kinky motherfucker. I didn’t know you were into watersports.
Sebastian
You didn’t? I would have thought it would have come up at your mom’s house over Thanksgiving dinner.
I roll my eyes, put my phone down, and return my gaze to hers.
“I have to go take care of something,” I mutter. I grip her hips and slide her off my lap before I stand. “You’re staying here, princess.”
She arches a brow. “Says who?”
“Says me,” I growl, lifting her face to mine. I run a thumb over her bottom lip, relishing the way she shivers when I do. “Stay. Eat. Relax. Hang out. I’ll be back.”
“Y-you can’t kill me!!”
Jameson Beaumont is naked and tied to a chair with the middle of the seat cut out. I frown. I circle him in the small, windowless basement room, thoughtfully twirling the long strip of leather with the knot at the end of it.
“Hmm…can’t I?”
I snap my arm sharply, cracking the leather strip up through the hole in the chair seat. Beaumontscreamsas the leather bites into his hanging dick and balls, drawing blood.
“Goddammit, Bancroft!!” he bleats, shaking and sobbing. “Youknowyou can’t! The Syndicate would never allow it! If you kill me, you’ll have a goddamn mutiny on your?—”
“Oh, Jameson,” I sigh. “I didn’t bring you here to kill you…”
He screams as I whip his balls again. I do it again, harder, then even harder the time after that. The vicious sound of leather stripping delicate skin from delicate parts mingles with the wet splatter of blood and his blood-curdling screams.
“I brought you’re here tohurt you.” I squat down next to him and gently pat his cheek. “And I’m going to really,reallyhurt you.”
An hour later, I’m taking a break outside. My lungs are enjoying breathing air thatdoesn’treek of blood, piss, shit, and fear as I look at the city around me.
“She okay?”
Gideon steps out through the rusty metal door and leans against the brick wall, looking up at the neon and steel towering over us.
