I glance back at him over my shoulder, a slow grin crawling across my face. “Maybe I do.”
I give him a mock salute and step out of his rotting office.
I walked into this filthy so-called mafia world on purpose. I want to burn out the vermin who are not ashamed enough to callthemselves kings and bosses. They breed nothing but misery, and I take a savage pleasure in erasing them, one by one. That’s why I stayed in the fraternity. To be broken down and rebuilt, to learn to fear nothing, to sharpen myself into a living weapon.
I will kill him. I will set her free. I’ll pry her loose from whatever cage he’s built and wrap her in the one thing that will never let her go. I’m not a savior, or a saint.
If that’s monstrous, I don’t give a shit. Monsters get what they want.
I’m not allowed to touch her because that will put her in danger, yet I’m the only one that can save her. That only makes my obsession with her grow. Because she’s fucking mine. She’s mine to protect. Mine to hold, mine to keep.
I just need a little more time to rearrange the pieces, shuffle the cards. A friend once told me, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” I intend to keep them so close I can count the hairs on their necks when they sleep. Close enough to learn every lie, every small mercy, every weak spot. Close enough to press and watch the light go out.
I’m the fuckingBanehe let inside his walls.
After I practically commanded her togo to her room, she obeyed, and she hasn’t come out since yesterday. I made sure she was safe. I stayed outside her door like Cerberus, listening to her breathing, her sobs, her curses, the way her anger cracked and faded. I didn’t cross the threshold. I didn’t go in. I let her drown in it. That’s what she needed. That’s how it gets easier—eventually.
Tonight, however, is date night. Tonight, I’m going to add one more pathetic piece of shit to my never-ending kill list. Even if he doesn’t do anything to her, the fact that he dared to think he could have, touch, or even look at what’s mine is enough to take him off the board.
After putting on my good-boy, bodyguard suit, I head to her room to make sure she’s ready for her so-called “business.”
I knock on the door twice.
“Who is it?”
Without replying, I open the door and step inside.
She’s …
Fuck, she’s mouth-watering.
Dressed in a dark purple midi dress that cascades loosely around her firm, Mediterranean curves. Her hair falls freely over her toned, exposed shoulders, making her look even more elegant and seductive.
“Oh, it’s you,” she says quietly with a soft smile, squinting her dark blue eyes.
I don’t say a word. I just watch the way her face lights up every time she sees me, even if she doesn’t realize it. That’s the part I like most. It’s the kind of thing that makes silence taste better.
“Dressed to impress?” I raise a brow.
Her lips part, but she seems hesitant. Awkward even. “I wore this for you,” she says bashfully, tucking her thick hair behind her ear. The sentence goes straight to my cock. She turns her back to me and looks at herself in the mirror on the vanity. “It’s the same color as these orchids.” Her eyes return to mine. “And orchids remind me of you now.”
Fuck … She looks like walking sin, wrapped in a dress that was made just to ruin someone’s self-control. Like the universe has handed me the fruit and dared me to take a bite. Every inchof her makes restraint feel like a joke. She doesn’t even realize how impossible it is to look away.
And that scar on her shoulder blade … It’s the first time I’ve see it—not that I’ve seen much. I wonder how she acquired it. It seems freshly healed.
I walk up to her, eyes locked on her and nowhere else. I stop just a breath away, close enough to feel her warmth. Her eyes follow every move I make though the mirror, lips parted, eagerly waiting for my next move.
“You look like a goddess in this dress,” I say, sinking my teeth into my lower lip, eyes dragging over her. “The kind that makes men forget the rules and reach for the fall anyway.”
Her chest rises higher than before, but she remains silent, watching me. Her fresh and flowery scent hits my nose, nearly numbing my mind.
Fuck. It’s going to be harder than I thought.
How am I supposed to keep my hands to myself and keep her safe, when all I want to do is defile her in every filthy way a man can? I am here to protect her from monsters like her father, but the truth is, I’m worse.
It’s not her innocence I see when I look at her. I see the end of me. My downfall. It’s everything I’m about to lose the second I touch her. I’ll lose my mind.
I want her skin under my mouth, my hands sliding between her thighs, her voice breaking on my name while I ruin everything I’m supposed to protect.
