Twisted Obsession

by Keta Kendric

  The man’s gun flew left, clinking to the ground before it slid to a stop about five feet to the right of him. I gripped Ansel’s non-gun arm and peeked around his muscular shoulder at the man. He raised his hands and turned the rest of the way around like he’d been ordered to. When he turned and faced Ansel’s direction…

  Pop! Pop!

  The powerful punch of Ansel’s gun registered, but a silencer muffled the noise. The scent of gun smoke drifted up my nose and swirled into the air around us. Ansel had shot out my attacker’s knees. He crashed to the ground when his legs gave out under his body. The man’s face was scrunched in pain, but I couldn’t make out his unfamiliar features. I didn’t know the man, but it didn’t mean he didn’t work for my family.

  My grip on Ansel’s arm was so tight, I was likely cutting off his circulation.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered as he turned. My tight hold caused my body to turn right along with his. My heels scraped the road with each wobbly step I took as my bugged-out gaze remained aimed at the man yelling in pain on the ground. The noise on the streets had covered all that had gone down in the alley, including the man’s incessant screams.

  Ansel escorted me to the car. My mind hadn’t wrapped around the fact that he’d just shot someone in broad daylight. Although we walked back towards Ansel’s car at a brisk pace, it didn’t stop me from turning back to snatch glances at the yelling man.

  When another man approached the yelling man from behind, a loud scream threatened to scratch the back of my throat. However, recognition registered, and my scream died on my tongue. It was JG, one of Ansel’s ranger buddies. Ansel had promised me he’d protect me, but I didn’t think I understood what protecting me truly meant until now.

  23

  Ansel

  Regina stared outside the window for most of our thirty-minute drive home. The sun sat with pride in the distance, providing sparks of warmth that lightened the chill inside the car. Regina’s quiet irritation with me was warranted. I wasn’t an easy man to understand, much less learn to take.

  She’d witnessed the scene in the restaurant, had fallen into the hands of her captor, and had stood at my back as I shot someone.

  Even though it was a good distraction inside the restaurant, I still would have beaten that motherfucker’s ass for putting his hand on Regina. He’d better be glad I hadn’t lured his ass to a quiet, dark place.

  The woman-grabbing bastard in the alley was about to face hell. His shattered knees were the least of his worries. He would tell me who sent him, or the devil would send me a personal thank you for sending him a fresh soul.

  “Did you know the man that attempted to take you? Did his face look familiar?” I questioned Regina breaking the silence inside the car.

  “No. But, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t work for my family.”

  The sadness in her tone spilled over. She reached over and placed a delicate hand on my arm.

  “Thank you, Ansel. Thank you for protecting me.”

  I didn’t answer her.

  “You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?” she questioned as she turned her head away from me, knowing the answer but seeking confirmation anyway.

  The idea of the man’s arm around her neck as he attempted to drag her off had rage burning through my muscles and my heart set on termination. I needed to kill his ass as much as I needed Regina naked in my bed. The fact that they thought they could snatch her from under my nose had me steaming, wondering who I was going to have to kill, and how I’d carry out the murders.

  I glanced in Regina’s direction. There was no use in me keeping the truth from her. “Yes, Regina. I’m going to finish killing him. And to get you prepared, starting tomorrow, I’m going to start teaching you how to protect yourself better.”

  “Okay,” her low tone sounded. “I’d appreciate that.”

  She turned her head back towards her window. Aaron had warned me that she wasn’t as weak as she let on. Most women would have been freaked out of their minds right now. Instead, Regina sat in silence, processing all that had happened.

  After parking, I opened her door and helped her from the car. We walked in silence to the elevator. The lift went by in a blur before the elevator dinged and opened.

  The silence between us was as alive as the trouble that I knew was brewing. Trouble had entered the city searching for Regina, but they had no idea the hell they’d face in their attempts.

  I expected Regina to be upset over how I acted inside the restaurant. However, I think she’d learn to appreciate the demon inside of me. If I didn’t let my demon eat, he’d be a motherfucker to control, and I’d always be in beast-mode, ready to destroy any and everything in my wake.

  He was the worst part of me, but it was also that part that would protect Regina at all cost. I didn’t believe Regina understood that once she had a Knox fighting for her, she’d have a beast that wasn’t going to stop until he solved whatever problem she had and destroyed every threat that came at her. If it meant dropping bodies, so be it.

  It wasn’t the time to pull Aaron into this situation. If things heated up enough to require another Knox or members of our MC, all hell would get raised. The California chapter of our MC was spun from our Florida chapter. If I mentioned trouble, they wouldn’t hesitate to assist.

  However, I preferred my own gang. The men I’d lived in the trenches with. The ones that had seen the true faces of evil in third world countries. The ones that had followed orders that required us to take out entire villages and towns if the government deemed it necessary. We’d all been trained, conditioned, and had acquired skills that required a certain amount of finesse when dealing with the kind of people searching for Regina.

  I flexed my sore knuckles and fell onto the couch as my gaze rested on Regina retreating towards the stairs. My head fell back onto the couch, and I did my best to relax the beast stirring inside me. Deep breaths were useless as I attempted to calm myself before I left to meet my crew. The no-knees motherfucker would tell me something, or else.

  The idea that I’d unsettled Regina wasn’t sitting well with me either. This was a fucking first. Since when had I given any kind of a damn about upsetting anyone?

  Regina had me acting off and out of character. I worried about her well-being and safety, but I acknowledged that I was also worried about how she felt in relation to me.

  The light taps of her bare feet registered as the sound grew closer. She’d changed into a pair of my gray sweats and one of my plain black T-shirts. She’d worn jeans this morning, so I’d thrown away every pair she owned. She’d let me have it too, calling me a ‘selfish, arrogant asshole.’ I’d taken her angry words as a compliment.

  When she marched towards my room, I assumed she’d been furious enough to toss all my shit. Instead, she’d gone into my room and taken a few pairs of my sweats and T-shirts. She wasn’t going to let me boss her around, and I liked it. Regina had a quiet feistiness in her that turned me on.

  My head lifted when she approached carrying her medical bag. The bag didn’t come out unless she was preparing to check my shoulder wound. She sat the bag on the coffee table and stepped between my splayed legs. Not saying a word, I glanced up at her, my brows pinched. When she kneeled before me and reached for my battered hand, the gesture floored me. My ass was tongue-tied for the first time in my life as my face drew into a confused frown.

  I couldn’t take credit for saving her moments ago because it was an unscripted incident that could have gotten her killed. I’d also embarrassed the shit out of her inside that restaurant. I hadn’t listened to any of her pleas when she begged me to stop. Yet, here she was about to fix my scraped knuckles.

  She reached back for alcohol swabs and Q-tips before she laid her hands face up to await mine. She remained kneeling before me like I was this precious package she sought to take care of. She ripped open a few swabs and swiped them across my scraped knuckles. She blew away the sting as she glanced up at me with a level of care in her gaze that I
didn’t deserve.

  I sat in the quiet peace she’d enveloped me in and watched her take care of me. No one had done anything like this for me, especially not after witnessing the hell I was capable of unleashing.

  “I left you alone in the car on purpose. I wanted to see if anyone was following you. However. I didn’t expect they’d be stupid enough to try to take you.”

  When she glanced at me, those big pretty eyes caught the light enough for me to see that she didn’t have any hostility there.

  “I figured that much when I saw JG dragging the man away. It’s why I asked if you were going to kill him.”

  “You’re not upset?”

  She shook her head and continued the business of fixing my hands.

  “I’ll always be straight with you, Regina.”

  She stilled, glaring at me. “I’d appreciate that,” she stated without saying more.

  “Motherfuckers are going to try to take you, and I’m going to likely kill a lot of people. There is a demon inside me, and once I let him out, it’s hard to put him back in the cage unless he gets what he wants.”

  She placed a soft hand against my forearm. “I know. I met him first. He scares me, but he also saved me from a family aiming to kill me, and who continues to come after me.”

  She glanced down before lifting her gaze again.

  “Ansel, I’m not street smart. Hell, if I’m being honest, I’m only smart in the areas of medicine that I’ve studied my butt off to learn. I’d always been able to get what I needed from books until my family took me captive. I’ve learned how to protect myself the hard way, and as you witnessed in the alley today, I’m not that good at it. So, whatever you’d like to teach me, I’m willing to learn because I don’t think my family is going to stop until I’m dead.”

  My fingers slid under her chin and lifted her head. “That will never happen, not as long as I’m alive.”

  She glared a long time before she nodded. The emotional impact of my statement left tears standing in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall.

  She continued her task of patching me up. In a moment, I would likely bust my knuckles up even worse, but I enjoyed her taking care of me. More of my anxiety slipped away as genuine care seeped into me. Regina could well be the stabilizer I needed in my life to staunch my need to kill in the name of taming the beast within.

  We didn’t speak another word to each other, but the connection we shared was as alive as the thundering beat of my heart. Once Regina completed her task, she gathered up the supplies and disappeared, her light steps falling back down the stairs and meeting my ears.

  My head fell against the couch. This was supposed to be a piece of cake. I protect her. Kill some people. She becomes my sub. Have hot kinky sex. End of story.

  Not even fucking close to my current reality with Regina.

  24

  Ansel

  By the time I marched into the garage at my house in the hills, my crew had everything set up. JG and Rob stood waiting like ravenous dogs, knowing that we were about to do some sick shit to this man to make him talk.

  Cuffed to one of my sturdy wooden poolside chairs, the man’s bucked eyes darted around in his head like loose marbles as he glanced up at us. The guys had wrapped his blown-out knees in torn white towels that were soaked through with his blood.

  He was positioned like he was about to sunbathe, except each of his limbs and midsection was secured to the chair. He wasn’t gagged, so he could save himself the pain and start talking.

  “Would you like to do the honors?” I asked JG.

  “No. I’m classically trained by my grandfather. My methods work, but they are dated. You know that new age torture type shit that allows me to update my resume.”

  I shrugged at JG’s compliment. “In that case, were you able to get the items I asked for?”

  “Yep. Took a bit of trying, but I finally found the right size you wanted,” JG answered before he walked off whistling. JG’s father and grandfather were mob hitmen. To keep JG away from the business, his father had struck a trade deal with the bosses. His father had stacked up an untold amount of bodies to buy JG’s freedom. Killing must have been in the men’s blood because after the military, JG ended up doing the same work as his father and grandfather anyway. The difference was JG did it as a freelancer.

  He returned and set the items I’d requested on the table along with his opened torture kit. The kit contained an impressive array of knives, saws, syringes filled with different types of drugs, and several other blades and items.

  “I can’t wait to see what your crazy ass does with that shit. Looks like you’re about to conduct a science experiment,” Rob stated with a pinched brow and his arms folded across his chest. “Hanging around with you two sick bastards, I know more shit about torture and death than any normal person should.”

  “When in the fuck did you become normal?” JG asked Rob.

  Rob released a low chuckle. “Touché,” he answered.

  Rob was a more traditional killer. He didn’t play with his victims. He’d put them out of their misery with quick, calm ease.

  I chuckled at my friends before casting my gaze to the man that had started to squirm. Without me saying a word, the man started to shake his head at me, noticing my death-filled gaze. He had no idea that he was getting the tame version of me. It was when I asked for alone time with someone that my techniques swerved towards psychopathic.

  The man’s eyes bugged, the pleading in them apparent as his rigid body shook from the intense fright coursing through him. I was the poison he could see, the threat he could feel, the deadly predator that lurked in plain sight.

  Silence blanketed the space as I stared down at him, my fingers intertwined in front of me. I maintained the position for a solid minute, letting his tension knot even tighter. When I broke the silence and reached for his pants, he, as well as JG and Rob, ogled me.

  The man started to whimper and wiggle away from my hands when I yanked his belt apart, unbuttoned his pants, and slid his zipper down. JG and Rob observed, neither uttering a word, although I could read the questions in their tense expressions. The man’s vocal protest and his repeated yammering about not knowing who he worked for was nothing more than a blade sliding across my nerves.

  When I tugged his pants down and exposed his flaccid dick, his protests intensified. He yanked against the cuffs holding him to the chair. He forgot about his injured knees as his legs worked against the cuffs, making them clink loud and echo throughout my garage.

  I retrieved a syringe from my pocket, which enticed JG and Rob to lean closer, curious to see what I’d do next.

  “I told you. I don’t know who hired me. I never saw him. We did everything over the net. I got my assignment through a secure online inbox.”

  The man’s harsh breathing echoed off the garage wall as his wide gaze remained pinned on the needle in my hand. Since I’d exposed his dick, he likely assumed I’d inject something into it or cut it off.

  When I reached down and gripped his arm, he shrugged away, but I was so filled with the devil that my strength had doubled. The man screamed his head off, but he may as well have been whispering as far as I was concerned. I jammed the needle in his arm and emptied the contents into his flesh.

  A tired breath escaped me as I stepped away and stood at the table with my back to him.

  “What now?” JG inquired behind me.

  “We wait,” I answered.

  “Well, I’m going to go and fix myself a sandwich. Dealing with silly motherfuckers that claim they work for ghosts has worked me up an appetite.”

  I shook my head at JG. Most of my friends claimed I was the craziest person they knew, but if I listed the crazy shit I’d witnessed from them over the years, I’d say I was in like company.

  Rob cleared his throat behind me but didn’t say anything as JG walked back into the garage with a stack of meat he’d decided to add bread to. My alarm sounded on my watch prompting me to turn as I was met
with the man’s stiff erection.

  I don’t know how, but JG stood there and ate a sandwich while staring down the eye of another man’s dick. The dreadful sight didn’t appear to bother him one bit.

  “What the hell did you give him?” JG asked before taking another bite out of his stack of meat.

  “Viagra. A double dose,” I stated, my tone indifferent. Rob silently repeated the word Viagra before his face scrunched in confusion.

  25

  Ansel

  I stepped to the opposite side of the table so that the man could see what I was doing. I picked up the large beaker I’d asked JG to find up for me. The thin glass jar was the size of one of those five-gallon jugs the waterman delivered.

  Untying the sack, I reached in with caution and removed the black snake. It wasn’t a large snake, a two-footer, just big enough to do the job.

  At the sight of the snake, the man started to scream his head off, his screeches peeling the paint off the walls.

  “Man, don’t do this shit. I don’t know who hired me. I’m telling the fucking truth!”

  I tipped the beaker a little and let the snake wiggle and hiss and work up his agitation before I slipped him inside. With a dropper firm in my grip, I squeezed and released until it was filled with the liquid. Rob and JG glanced at each other before they returned their attention to me. By now they knew or had an idea of what I was about to do to this man.

  “Rat musk,” I stated while using the dropper to drop the liquid on the man’s stiff dick. I’d tortured many men, but I’d never heard one scream as much as this one. I tipped the short-neck of the beaker over with the snake inside and slipped it over the man’s dick. The man flapped around in the chair like a fish out of water.

  The chair bucked under him, making loud grunts against the cement floor. The snake had fallen from the bottom of the beaker and landed on the man’s dick as his head climbed up the jar searching for a way out. The two small holes I’d asked JG to cut into the bottom would allow the snake breathable air, so this process could be a short one or long one. It didn’t matter to me either way. It wasn’t my dick in jeopardy.