“I’m calling for backup just to be safe,” Kenji says.
“I don’t need backup.”
Kenji laughs, like this is absurd. “I’ll make sure Samuel meets you underground. He’ll bring the manacles.”
James takes a tight breath. I can practically feel his irritation, even as he agrees. Then he says, “You going to be okay?” and for one delirious moment I think he’s talking to me.
“I’ll be fine,” says Kenji. “Don’t worry about me.”
Kenji and James appear to be exchanging glances, communicating silently.
“All right, then, get her out of here,” Kenji says, nudging my forehead with his gun as he steps back. I stumble slightly, and James slides a hand up to my waist, steadying me.
This brief contact nearly takes my breath away.
James draws the gun away from my head, the cool metal kissing my nape as he presses the barrel to my neck. He leans into my ear.
“I warned you,” he says softly, and I stiffen, my heart stopping. “I told you if you hurt my family you’d meet a very different version of me. Try anything with me tonight, and I will take you apart, Rosabelle.Do you understand? I will fucking destroy you. I don’t care who you report to back home.Right now, you take orders from me.”
His hand is still on my waist, his mouth so close to my skin. I don’t even know what’s happening to me anymore. I’ve been craving this kind of closeness with him for so long I can’t tell the difference between pleasure and fear. My skin is hot, my head is hot. I can’t catch my breath.
“Are we clear?” he asks, his whisper grazing my cheek.
I close my eyes, exhaling the word: “Yes.”
James
Chapter 38
This is an actual nightmare.
Hell on earth.
Worst day of my fucking life.
“Thank you,” she says, the word echoing in the dimness. “You didn’t have to do that.”
I don’t respond to this.
We’d been down here for all of five minutes before I realized she was barefoot. The tunnels are pretty clean—the polished concrete floors are fortified with steel panels—but we have at least a mile walk ahead of us, and I couldn’t let her do this without shoes on.WhyI couldn’t let her walk a mile with no shoes on, I have no idea. The girl is every inch the backstabbing, cold-blooded mercenary everyone told me she was. I should probably get my head checked.
Instead, we went back.
Me, with a gun to her temple, going from nurse to medic on the floor, asking if someone had a pair of shoes—in her size—that they were willing to let her borrow. It was a literal comedy show. Absurd to an unbelievable level. I hated myself more in every second, and still, I couldn’t stop. I kept thinking she was going to end up in prison with bloody, blistered feet. As if it matters. As if I should care.
I’m a raving lunatic.
At one point Kenji poked his head out of a recovery room and said, “What the hell are you still doing here?” and I gestured to Rosabelle and said, “She doesn’t have any shoes,” and he said, “She’s not wearing any underwear, either, are you going to go around asking ladies to lend you their bras, too?” and I imagined, briefly, jumping off a bridge.
Now I’m here, holding a gun to Rosabelle’s head and trying not to think about the fact that I’ve been having vivid, lucid dreams about this girl, trying for weeks to keep from so much as touching her by accident, and now here she is, practically in my arms, completely naked under that lab coat.
“James—”
“Don’t talk to me.”
My heart is racing so hard it’s embarrassing me. I am an embarrassment to myself. My anger is out of control. My head is spinning, my emotions pinging from extreme to extreme. I saw evidence of her murderous sociopathy over and over again tonight. I saw the remains of an eviscerated man in her bedroom; I watched her nearly murder Kenji; I found a nefarious vial on her body; a plot foiled; plans made; and I still can’t seem to shut off my feelings for her. It all happened so fast. The whiplash. I haven’t had enough time to process, to kill the cancer she left in my heart. I feel sick. I feel literally, physically sick. The same day I hear her laugh for the first time I find her dripping in blood and entrails, surrounded by dead bodies. I can’t think about it. I refuse to think about it.
Fuck.
