“You know what I hate most?” I murmur, leaning in, hot breath right against his ear. “Men who touch what’snottheirs and then pretend they didn’t. Makes me…unfriendly.”
His eyes blow wide.
Yeah. There it is. Guilt. Fear.Just what else have you been doing in the time Ember has been with us?
“I didn’t—she—she wanted—”
I laugh. It’s loud and ugly. He flinches like I hit him. “You’re going to want to be very careful with what you say next, Marcus,” I whisper, still smiling. “Because you’re going to be repeating it in front of her. And if you say something stupid now, and then you say something different later, I’m going to take that as you calling her a liar in my house. And I’m going to take that personally. You understand?”
He’s shaking. Full-body, teeth-clacking, eyes-wet shaking.
I love it.
“Wh—who are you?” he tries. “What is this? I haven’t—I haven’t done anything—”
“Oh,sweetheart,” I purr, amused. “That’s not true at all.”
He tries to pull back. I let him, for one step, one small second of safety. Then I slam him face-first into the chipped plaster next to the entry buzzer with a wet crack.
Not hard enough to break his nose. Just hard enough to ring his bell. He lets out a strangled sound, and blood blooms immediately at his eyebrow.
He sags, and I catch him by the back of the neck and hold him there, cheek pressed to peeling paint, breathing hard.
“You are going to come for a little drive with me,” I murmur against his ear. “You are not going to scream again. You are not going to run, because if you run I will put a knife between your ribs and drag you there like luggage, and I amabsolutelyallowed to do that. You are not going to piss yourself, because I’m wearing new trousers and I’ll be cross. Nod if you understand.”
He nods like he’s trying to detach his own head.
“Good boy,” I croon.
I pull his hood up, yank it low over his brow to cover the blood, and steer him out of the doorway with a firm grip at his nape. Head down, shoulders slumped, looks drunk or sick if anyone’s watching. London doesn’t stop for drunk or sick.
We move.
I walk him down the pavement like we’re just another old mates situation, me murmuring in his ear, him stumbling along. We pass a gap between buildings that opens into a narrow cut-through, and he lunges sideways, twisting like a rabbit. I feel it before he moves.
You spend long enough breaking men, you feel the twitch just before they fuck around. I let him get exactly half a step, then I hook my foot behind his ankle and yank.
He eats the concrete face first. Full body, teeth clacking so loud I feel it in my own skull. Marcus groans, scratched up and bruised and the sight does something to me. I crouch beside him fast, forearm across his throat, smile bright and pleasant as I lean into the pressure until his eyes start to water and panic rises up again.
“Mm-mm,” I chide softly. “Baby, no. That’s not how this works. You don’t get to run after you put your hands on what’s mine.”
He gurgles, choking a little on the pressure I apply. I ease up just before he blacks out. Got to keep him conscious. Ash will sulk if I bring home damaged goods. Though, this fucker doesn’t know that.
“Walk,” I say.
Wraith’s van is parked two streets over in a loading zone, hazard lights blinking, big and nondescript. No logos. No plates registered to this city. Blacked out back windows. The kind of vehicle no one asks questions about in East London because if you’re smart, you don’t.
Passenger door slides open before we even reach it. Saint steps down, fully armed to the teeth. He looks like judgment. And right now he isfurious.
Not loud. Not showy. Just—contained wrath. His eyes are glacier pale. His mouth is soft and kind and promising sin. The brace on his wrist makes his forearms look obscene, all tendon and vein and faith gone rotten.
Marcus sees him and actually tries to backpedal. I tighten my grip on his neck and purr, “Ah-ah.” Saint takes one look at Marcus, then lifts his gaze to me.
“Problems?” he asks mildly.
I grin. “Minor.”
Saint’s eyes flick to the cut at Marcus’s brow, the bloom of swelling there, the scrape of skin at his jaw.
