Blood drains from Shkelzen’s face. His eyes dart to me. What a coward.
I think about the men nearby, what I overheard. If Elias killed him, everything would go to hell.
“Last words?” Elias murmurs.
I grab his arm. “Don’t. He’s not worth it.”
He ignores me, his deadly gaze still leveled at the man.
“Not worth it,” I repeat, softer. “Assholes are a dime a dozen. I’m fine.Please, Elias.”
After a long beat, Elias slowly lowers his weapon. He still doesn’t address me but steps up to the slimeball.
A hiss cuts through the air.
He grips Shkelzen’s hand—the one he used to touch me—and burns it with his lighter. The asshole emits a strangled howl.
A charred smell reaches my nostrils. My stomach roils.
“No second chances.” He tosses the man back, who’s clutching his injured hand as if he were permanently maimed. “Tell your cousins if they’ve got a problem with me, they can find me themselves. Don’t gossip like high school girls.”
Without another word, he grabs my hand and drags me down the stairs.
“Slow down.” I stagger down the steps. “Elias, seriously. I was fine. I could’ve handled him. You think he was the first asshole to touch me that way?”
He stops dead in his tracks and spins around. I slam into him.
“Names,” he seethes, his eyes murderous, “give me their names.”
“What?”
“Who touched you that way? They won’t live to see another day.”
I gasp, a deep pulse throbbing in my core. My senses finally register the six-plus-feet of powerful, muscular male in front of me, anger rolling off him—a thunderstorm threatening to wreck anything in its path.
“Why do you care?” I whisper. “You loathe me. That’s what you said. You shot my brother. Pointed a gun at me. I’m a means to an end.”
My ribs tighten, fury singeing my insides. I jab his chest, angry at the situation just now, the marriage I’m in, the dreams lost. “Why do you care, Elias?”
His eyes flash and nostrils twitch. Without answering, he hauls me down the rest of the stairs at breakneck speed, yanks open the first door he finds, pushes me inside, and closes it behind us.
Our breaths tangle in the dark room, an office of some sort. Only a sliver of light seeps under the door.
But I feel him—all of him—crowding me in.
He shackles my wrist above my head againstthe door.
Unlike the revulsion I felt earlier when the asshole assaulted me, Elias’s touch only sparks heat.
“Idon’tcare,” he seethes, venom dripping from his words. “Remember, Ihateyou.”
His poisonous words sound like love sonnets to my twisted heart.
Elias tightens his hold and presses his body against me, letting me feel all of him.
Rock-hard muscles, barely tethered control, fire and brimstone.
I should shove him away. I hate his guts.
