The room feels too small and tight, as if all the walls are closing in on me. The air is thick and cloying with madness, rage, and regrets. I shift my legs restlessly on the edge of her soft, luxurious bed, hands twitching, every nerve on fire while I wait for her.For Livy, my fucking Hellstorm.
She should be here with us now, completely under our control, she should beours,but instead, she ran fromus. Ran straight intohisfucking arms, someone who is nothing and has no power. To Sim Melfort, that betrayer, like we’re nothing, likeI’mnothing. The thought claws at me, dagger sharp, raw, unrelenting, and filled with devastation, and a madness I can't seem to restrain or understand, and I want to rip the walls down just to silence it.She fucking belongs to me, not him.I should kill him painfully to teach her a lesson about choosing anyone but us.
Cross is pacing back and forth, wearing a path in the expensive area rug under his feet, and making me exhausted. The scowl he's rocking would be amusing, if I didn't know that his blood pressure is probably skyrocketing, and the thoughts in his head are of a serial killer vibe. His whole body seemsto be vibrating with rage; the veins on his forearms and neck are visible, and there's a distinct, unhinged, demented look in his eyes. He comes to a sudden halt and slams his fist into a small, thick, wooden side table, rattling a vase and knocking over a table lamp, that goes crashing to the floor, his face flushed crimson with wrath. I watch with a mixture of amusement, trepidation, and anticipation for the carnage to come.
“How fuckingdareshe?!” he spits, eyes blazing, voice cracking with fury.Here we go, the moment I've been waiting for since we walked into the house.“She thinks she can walk out onme?Onus? She belongs here, under our fucking control, with my belt wrapped tightly around that pretty neck of hers, as she’s forced on all fours like the bitch she is.” His knuckles split open again, smearing the surface in red as he pounds the wood harder. The small table doesn't stand a chance against him as it cracks, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His anger radiates sharply and hotly, filling the room until it stinks of it.
Speaking of demented, a bruised and battered Damon is sitting at the window seat, sulking and muttering under his breath, and swaying like a drunk, but he’s not drunk, at least not anymore. I know that twitch, that wild look in his eyes. He’s seeing them again, the shadows that plague him incessantly now. He growls under his breath to something only he can see, and from the snarled words I'm making out, I'm pretty sure he's asking it to suck him off.Fuck my life, it's days like this that have me questioning my own sanity.
Damon's bruises are blooming purple and black across his jaw and forehead, his labored breaths are ragged, and partially a result of the damage received to his ribs, which are wrapped tightly where Livy broke him down, and the rest due to the massive amount of snow this idiot inhaled earlier. He's furiousthat a pretty, pocket-sized sprite beat him,and it grates on him. I can hear it in every word he snaps at the air. I drag my handthrough my messy hair, wishing I had a Cocoa Puff to smoke at the moment, anything to take the edge off this situation.
“Laughing at me,” he roars, large hazel eyes darting to the corner, where nothing waits but darkness. “Mocking me. Wraith-bitches, whispering in my ears with your forked tongues. I should’ve crushed her. Should’ve... fuck!” He slams back against the window, causing the glass to vibrate, nearly toppling off the window seat, and points at nothing with trembling fingers. “You hear that? They’re saying I lost. To a woman.Me!”
His voice rises to a bellow, ugly and raw, and it makes my skin itch with the desire to slam my own fist into his damaged mouth, just to shut him up for a moment. Dammit, I don't know how much of this shit I can take. Everything is beginning to spiral out of control. We have so many fucking issues that we're juggling right now, missing drugs and weapons, a mole in our ranks, Damon's dad being back in Soule, and now Olivia Springhill being a thorn in our sides, and Sim openly betraying us in front of witnesses. Any one of them could sink us, and we're barely hanging onto the edge of an abyss.
Cross's face twists, and he turns his attention toward Damon, snarling, “Youdidlose, Damon. She fucking humiliated you. She humiliated all of us in front of everyone!” He takes a step toward him, malice radiating from his every pore, before he catches himself, and a quick glance at Damon allows me to breathe; he overlooked Cross's actions. This situation would have gone from shit to nuclear if he hadn’t.
I clench my jaw so hard it aches at his accurate words. Their voices blur, continuing on with their nonsense that gets us nowhere, and clashing in my skull until it’s nothing but loud static. I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to feel it, but it’s there regardless of my desires, this gnawing truth I can’t escape:rejection,she didn’t want me. No, not just me,us.That's never happened before, and I'm unsure how to handle the conflictingemotions within me. How could she have chosen him?Sim Melfort.A fucking nobody, with no power, when she could have been with Mayhem. That fucker dares to think he can protect her from our reach.He can't.I'll make sure of it, and if I don't, Cross will tear this world to shreds before he allows that to stand, never mind that Damon will rip out his beating heart from his chest while my little Hellstorm watches. She has no idea the devastation she's about to cause to this world with her actions.
I can’t stop replaying it over and over in my mind. The way her eyes glared, her mouth's cruel tilt, the defiance etched into her sexy features when she pulled away.God, she was beautiful.More beautiful than anyone I’ve ever seen, or ever wanted. She’s somehow carved herself into me, polluted me, and it sickens me. It makes me want to tear my own skin off, because I know she’s poison, and a massive problem for us. That scene tonight in front of that crowd, and our interaction at school, all confirm it. She’ll ruin everything we built if we let her, and yet… every breath I take without her under my control feels somehow empty. Every second she’s gone and with him digs deeper, like a blade between my ribs, sharply hindering my very breath.Mine.She was mine the minute I laid eyes on her in the shower, and I won't allow a lesser man to take her from me.
I look around Livy's large bedroom, at all the haphazardly unpacked and stacked items scattered all over the floor. The dresser has more clothes on top than I would have guessed it could hold, and bottles of makeup, tubes, and creams are scattered erratically across the mirrored dressing table near the window. I count three different glasses, partially filled with water, on one of the nightstands, and the other has a half-drunk bottle of soda. Two more open bottles of water are lying on their sides on the floor near the bed, along with a box of half-eaten crackers, spilling crumbs on the expensive area rug. How the hell does this room look like this after only two days?
Fuck, this girl is a slob, a beautiful slob.All of the mess is making my OCD and anxiety rise, and it feels like bugs are crawling along the surface of my skin. I can't stand mess or disorder, both of which this purple-haired vixen seems to be bringing to our lives with her dramatic appearance. Maybe we should just slice her neck open and let her bleed out. It would be quicker and less painful in the long run, perhaps even seen as a form of mercy. Even as I think it, I know I won't be able to do that to her, not unless completely pushed to no other choice. Livy is like a drug in my system now, and I just want another hit, even knowing it could ruin me.
"Where the fuck is she?!" Cross growls after checking the time on his phone once again. I don't bother replying, since he wouldn't like my answer. An image of Livy riding Sim's cock enters my mind, and I have to force it away before I go on a killing spree. Cross kicks one of the checkered upholstered chairs with his heavy combat boots until it skids across the floor, dumping some of the clothes that were scattered on its surface onto the hardwood, including a sexy nude-colored thong that I instantly reach forward and grab, as my blood rushes loudly in my ears. I raise the small scrap of material to my nose and take a sniff, instantly disappointed when it only smells like clean laundry detergent.
"Did you just smell her panties? Fuck, you're a weirdo," Damon mocks from the window, but I refuse to look in his direction.
Of course, the fucker would be back in this reality, paying attention enough to catch me doing that. "They're clean, fucker," I mumble with irritation, and slight embarrassment.
A loud, obnoxious chuckle rents the air as Damon stands and swipes out his hand, ripping the lace from my fingers. "Want me to go hunt down her dirty laundry, so you can lick her pantiesclean?" He waggles his dark brows, and then grimaces with pain from the bruising on his face from Livy's beating.
"Should you even be moving around? Pretty sure she's given you a concussion, and your nose looks crooked, cunt." I take immense pleasure when Damon stumbles over to her dressing table, and takes a good look at his reflection in the mirror. At least the cut over his brow, and his nose, have stopped bleeding, but he's a fucking mess. He looks like he went toe-to-toe with a guy his size, not a little five-foot-nothing purple fairy.
"That fucking bitch has a mean right hook. I wonder where she learned to fight like that? Someone hurt that bitch for sure," he muses, as he presses on the black eye that’s already forming and grimaces.
"I'm going to kill that motherfucker!" Cross shouts and punches the closest wall, leaving a visible hole in the plasterboard. Well, shit, that won't be noticeable at all, when Livy decides to come home.Unfuckingreal, I’m surrounded by savages.
"Who?" Damon questions, totally ignoring Cross' unhinged response, and swatting at some invisible force in front of him, before taking one of Livy's perfume bottles, pulling out his semi-hard cock, and rubbing it all over the bottle, before he does the same thing to her hairbrush.
I shake my head at his gross antics; we have to get this guy on some meds. I wonder, if I crushed them up and made them look like Coke, would he snort them? Maybe I could lace one of his blunts, and he would never know he was on some antipsychotics. It might be worth a try before he sets a building on fire filled with people. I sigh with exhaustion, pressing my body against Livy's massive bed, and getting more comfortable. Chances are, we won't be leaving here for a while. I pull one of her pillows toward me, wrapping my arms around it and taking a deep inhale, when I smell her shampoo on the surface. "Sim, whoelse? Weren't you paying attention, Damon? He was there with her, knew her somehow, was willing to stand against us, and left the underground with her."
Out of the corner of my eye, I observe Cross yanking on his thick strands with frustration. "How the hell did they know each other? She's new to town, and has been here for less than forty-eight hours. Shit, we didn't even realize she knew how to fight like that, never mind where our exclusive underground fights are held. Someone’s opened their big mouths and fed her information." He stops before the bed and stares down at me, the vein near his temple throbbing with his fury, and the desire to lick it rises within me, but I force myself to ignore it. Now is not the time to test Cross's patience. "I want whoever told her about those fights found, and their tongue cut off. Then, I want you to round up everyone who allowed her to get inside, and have their arms broken, to teach them a fucking lesson."
"Oh, goodie, play time for me, thanks, bro," Damon chuckles.
"What about Sim?" I question, knowing full well I'm poking the crazed bear, but it's aggravating me as much as him that she left with that over-muscled motherfucker.
"I say you let me stab the cunt, rip open his stomach and pull out his innards, and choke him with them, while I shove my cock up his ass," Damon responds with vehemence, as he strokes his hardening cock, and dips the engorged, mushroom head into one of Livy's facial creams before Cross can utter a single syllable. Both Cross and I turn our heads to stare at each other, and then Damon, who is now using one of Livy's red lipsticks to paint a smiley face on her mirror, while his cock bobs up and down, smeared with white cream. My mouth opens and closes, but I don't have a response to that very detailed description of the way that Damon would like to punish Sim, for taking off with our new plaything.
"Uh, maybe we could take it down a notch? He's one of our top fighters, and makes us a shit ton of money?" I query, as I watch him now use the same lipstick to draw smiley faces on his length. The darkness inside of Damon scares the fuck out of me sometimes. There is no doubt in my mind that he would actually do everything he just said, and probably with a deranged smile on his face. I watch as Damon takes the same red lipstick, and uses it to paint a grotesque, ragged'Joker'smile across his mouth and then uses his fingers to smear it, until it looks even more frightening.
"Who the fuck cares about money? We have more money than any of us can spend in this lifetime. I say we fuck the cunt up for good, then dismember his body, and leave it for the wildlife in the forest around Soule," Damon curses as he swipes all the makeup off Livy's table, causing a further mess on the floor, and I feel one of my eyes beginning to twitch.
"My father, for one,dick. Your father too. We need to contain this shit before either of them gets news of what happened tonight, and then we need to ensure that Sim learns his lesson, and that Mayhem owns his ass for good," Cross growls, his hands fisted at his sides.
I want to point out that, so far, we haven't been able to get anything on Sim that would force him to do our bidding. The asshole is very careful about what he's willing to participate in. The only illegal activity we have on him is the underground cage fights. Even then, he never loses control; he'll beat his opponent bloody, but he's never killed anyone in the ring. I bite my tongue, though, knowing that Cross doesn't want to hear that shit. I replay the image of Sim's arms around her, as he forced her to leave the underground fighting area, and how she didn't shrug off his embrace. My stomach coils tightly with fury, as my mind relives his fingers splayed across her silky flesh, pressing andtouching what doesn't belong to him. I’m going to chop off every digit that touched her, and make him swallow them.
