Michael is gone in the morning. Silas is there in his place, his gritty voice whispering in my ear how I’m his wife now, and I need to get used to being fucked and filled with cum. He grabs ahold of my hair and yanks me on all fours, and then he fucks me against the headboard. He wraps his hand around my throat and pulls me upright, pressing my tits to the wall as he nails me from behind and bites my neck. He fucks me all over the room, and when it’s over my legs are shaking and my chest is covered in fresh bruises, the memory of him making them burned into my head.
He dresses himself in his wrinkled crimson shirt as I lie on the bed, my chest still heaving. I watch his hands button up his shirt. An hour ago they were ripping across my ass, twisting my nipples until I screamed, and squeezing my throat just enough to make me strain for air.
“Michael?”
I still don’t know what the hell to call him.
He looks at me and his eyes trail downward, over my naked body. He makes a sound at the back of his throat as he stares at me. I know he’s thinking of throwing off the shirt and fucking me again, and for a second I’m consumed with the image of his hand buried in my hair, pulling hard as he forces between my legs.
“Yeah?” he prompts.
“What do we do now?”
I still don’t know why he’s done this, other than to save me from whatever the hell Viper would’ve had in store for me.
He finishes buttoning his shirt, and then he walks to my side with that predatory smirk still tugging his lips. Then he trails his finger over my chest, slipping between my breasts.
“Now we blend in. You act like a perfect syndicate wife and I’ll be the loyal lapdog.”
I sit up, taking his hand in mine. “What’s your endgame?”
Silas’s dark eyes glitter strangely in the dim light. “I’m not leaving until Viper’s blood spills all over my hands.”
“Are you crazy?” I say in a harsh whisper. “He’s surrounded by people now.”
“You asked me why I stayed—revenge. I will kill him.”
I’m afraid of his ringing voice, so close to where there might be a member eavesdropping, but the look on Silas’s face tells me he’s beyond reason.
He’ll kill him or die trying.
SILAS
Married bliss.
Isn’t that what they call the first few weeks of marriage? Fucking my wife until my dick is sore, and hard enough so that she can’t breathe. Ordering in. Fucking some more.
Dismantling a criminal empire. Protecting my wife from a psychopath. What, that’s not normal?
Viper gave me five days off to “breed my wife,” and I wish I could’ve told him to go fuck himself, but I’m supposed to be playing the bowing, scraping servant. The hitman who doesn’t ask questions. Who participates in blood ceremonial weddings without raising a fuss.
I finger the healing wound on my forearm as I walk through the black marble floors of this place. When other members see me, their eyes quickly glance away as though I’m an extension of Viper’s wrath. I hate that. Bile rises in my throat. I need to get these fucking bastards on my side to take him out.
I saunter to the second floor, where Viper has doubled his security. I’m waved in the moment they see me, and the huge double doors where Viper murdered the whole council open outward. Unlike the rest of the place, the floor is white. The throne room smells a bit better. At least they cleared the corpses, but the room still has a faint tinge of corruption, or maybe it’s because I’m staring at a man who’s more dead than alive.
Viper’s broad shoulders lean forward as he studies someone’s iPad. He frowns as his eyes move back and forth, reading. I wonder what the hell has him so engrossed, until one of his men grasps my elbow. It’s Peter—or Paul? They’re identical twins who both sided with Viper the moment his men came sprinting to the third floor, where the lower-level associates live.
“Peter?”
The whites show all the way around his eyes. “Paul. Silas, news about the coup has reached every major outlet. Someone has been talking syndicate business to anyone who’ll listen.”
“So what the hell do you expect me to do about it?”
“Talk to him. Get him to stop all these wars.”
I can practically smell the fear coming off him, and judging by Viper’s surreptitious gaze, he can, too.
I drop my voice a few decibels. “You know as well as I do that it won’t work.”
“But you and him go way back, don’t you?”
“No one talks Viper into anything.”
Paul rips his hand from my sleeve, so angry that his lips shake. “Fine. Let this whole place burn to the ground with everyone in it.”
His raised voice reaches the dais, where Viper sits. Paul turns his back on me and stalks toward the exit, throwing open the door. Viper’s narrowed gaze watches. It might as well be a death sentence.
Idiot kid. Why couldn’t you keep it cool?
Six heavily armed guards watch me as I approach Viper, who gives me an inquisitive look.
“What was that about?”
My hatred for him bursts into flames the moment he lays his pitiless eyes on me. I give him a sort of half shrug.
“He’s scared shitless about the leak.”
“They’ll be found and dealt with. I’m thinking of reintroducing public hangings, and whoever talked to those reporters will be the first to be strung up by their insides.”
I smile at the gruesome image, wondering where the hell he’ll have space to do that. The foyer? In here, where the blood of dozens already saturates the air?
“Anyway, that brings me to your next assignment.”
He shoves the white iPad toward me and I squint at the small screen:
Black Dragons Turn Red: Massacre at Crime Syndicate
Aptly put, I think as I raise my eyes.
“Your target will be the woman who wrote this article, along with her entire family.”
My mouth goes dry the second I hear the command fall from his lips.
“You’re involving civilians in this now?”
“Collateral damage.”
I shouldn’t be surprised. This is the man with a reputation for a fetish of wrapping his hands around women’s throats and choking them to death.
“They have to learn the consequences of printing articles that smear us.”
“That’s going to strain our relationship with the SFPD.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck.”
“You will when they burst down our door with search warrants.”
My face burns when I realize that my facade as the polite, obedient hitman is crashing around my ears. I shouldn’t be arguing with him. What the hell am I doing?
“How’s your wife?”
There’s a porcelain mug sitting on the table, which separates me from Viper. A brief image flashes through my mind of me bringing down the cup on his round face, shattering it over his skull, and using one of the fragments to slice open his neck.
“What?”
“I allowed you to marry her. You don’t think that permission can be revoked?” He half raises from his seat, leaning forward. “I can take her away, whenever I want.”
I reach for the gun that isn’t there when he steps around the table.
“I’m not going to kill a bunch of innocent civilians.”
He gives me a scathing look. “Then I guess I’ll just pay a visit to Fawn.”
I grab the scruff of his neck, seized by a blinding red heat. And my rage at the boy who killed the girl who saved my life, and my disgust at the boy who did nothing to stop it, rear up as I slam Viper’s back into the table.
His guards are ripping back my arms within seconds, but I’m fighting tooth and nail to get back at the blond demon who ruined my life.
Viper straightens and dusts himself off, looking at me with a smirk.
“Same old Roach.”
He approaches me until I can see the veins under his skin, which is almost translucent.
“Do you really
think I don’t see how much you hate me?”
“You go too far—”
“I saw you there. At the beach.”
The cold beach. Gray skies. A blond boy tugging a girl’s hand—Pepper. I followed them all the way from the piers when he angled his head toward her and whispered something in her ear. She giggled and nodded, her cheeks burning bright. Then his hand slipped from her hair and as she turned away I saw his charming smile melt away into cold, hard stone.
“I saw you follow us. I saw you cower and flinch when I wrapped my hands around her throat.”
They were kissing. He had his arm wrapped around her waist, and she was leaning into the kiss. Disgust rippled through my body, and I turned to leave, and then I saw his hands move from her face to her throat.
My skin burns as my mind replays the gasping, horrible sounds, them staggering on the rocks, Pepper, hopelessly clinging on to life, clawing at his hands, his face. The thirteen-year-old boy who she called Roach because he was so small, and a survivor. Just like her. He hid behind a rock, too terrified to move.
And I don’t know who I hate more. The boy who hid, or the one who killed Pepper.
“I strangled her until her eyes bugged out and her tongue was purple. Did you know she shat herself as I was strangling her?”
He’s trying to bait me. My whole body throbs with the rage of what he did. I want to end it now, wrap my hands around him just like he did to her. She saved my life when I was too small to be of any use to the crew, and I let her die.
His wide mouth stretches, tugging his lips into a mocking smirk that I know only too well.
Think of Fawn, I tell myself desperately. She needs you.
All my life I’ve learned to compartmentalize my emotions. Shove them in a drawer somewhere and forget about them for days. Weeks, even. I can’t even go five minutes when I’m around him.
“Why the hell did you want me here?”
He stares at me, his pupils standing out like dots of ink on pale blue. “Decent people are so easy to manipulate, Silas.”
The guards flanking his sides close in, and my gaze passes lazily over them. I could kill them, and Viper, perhaps, but I’d never get through the rest of them. Would it be enough to kill him?
I step back, letting the fire rage on my face as I bow my head and pretend to kowtow to my enemy and concede defeat.
“I’ll take care of them.”
My voice sounds small, even though it echoes throughout the throne room.
“Good.”
* * *
My stomach caves in the moment I step outside the throne room, but I keep my face tight. It’s like when I used to race the other kids when I was a boy. I never wanted them to see how much I was struggling so I purposely held my breath to make myself seem strong.
Except I don’t want to collapse in weakness. I want to march back in there, right now, and end him. Take that fucking human piece of garbage and smash him against the marble floor. The outside should reflect the ugliness inside him. The way he described her death. He knew all this time how much it bothered me. How? How did he know?
A man catches my elbow as I walk by, but I rip it out of his grasp. It’s Paul—or Peter—and his face is round with shock.
“Silas, I heard what he wants you to do. He’s fucking crazy if he thinks the rest of the syndicate will be on board with executing civilians. It puts our entire operation at risk.”
He has to jog to keep up with my strides. My thoughts are in turmoil. “I could give a fuck about the syndicate.”
“You’re a member—”
I burst out laughing, the first time in what feels like weeks. I stop in the middle of the hallway. “You think I want this? That I actually want to be here?”
Paul’s almond-shaped eyes narrow at me. He’s actually offended that I don’t want to be a part of this place. “He’s going to bring the whole syndicate down with all of this infighting with the gangs and between our own ranks.”
“I’m a hitman for hire—I don’t do politics.”
“Like it or not, you’re a member. Once you become a Dragon, you can’t leave.”
“I’d like to see one of you try and stop me.”
I slide into the elevator the moment the doors open, giving Paul a sneer as I smash the button to my floor.
Third floor. The number bleeds into my vision. Will that be my residence for the rest of my life? He might be right. I’m literally married into the syndicate. Wherever I’d go, their knives would follow.
The elevator doors open, startling me. My heart pounds as I follow the path to my suite, knowing that my wife will be there. God, that still feels so unfamiliar, like the tight band around my finger. But there’s no doubting that I need her like I need air. I shove the door open, and I see her jump on the living room sofa, her pink mouth open in shock. The moment I lay eyes on her, the tightness in my chest muscles loosens slightly. My mood doesn’t lift, but I feel better. She rises from the couch, and I see that she wears her wedding ring even when I’m not around.
I slam the door shut and lock it, never looking away from her. She’s wearing casual clothes, some sweatpants I bought for her in the underground mall. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun, but damn it if she doesn’t look fucking beautiful. Damn it if I’m not going to tear every article of clothing off her body and fuck her until the apartment reverberates with her screams.
“Silas, what’s wrong?”
She lifts her hand to touch my face, but I grasp it. “Michael.”
In truth, I don’t know who the fuck I am anymore.
“Michael, what’s wrong?”
What am I supposed to say to her?
“It’s Viper, isn’t it? What has he done now?”
“It’s nothing to be worried about.”
Her eyes widen and she rips her hand out of my grasp, stalking to the expansive glass where Union Square sprawls underneath us. She folds her arms tight against her chest. I take a few steps forward, watching her anguished face in the glass’s reflection. A pain shoots right through my chest.
“Do you know what it’s like to watch your home be destroyed?”
“Fawn, honestly, you can do better than this place.”
“I don’t have better. All I have is the syndicate.”
“And me.”
A shiver runs through her neck when I graze the tips of my fingers over her exposed skin. She turns around, and another punch hits my guts when I see her glazed eyes.
“You know we can’t leave. Not now.”
I grasp her chin as a single tear runs down her face. “Everyone keeps saying that to me.”
“Well, it’s true. You don’t just hand in your resignation to the syndicate. It’s a lifetime of service or death.”
I never wanted this shit.
“I don’t see how you can sing its praises.”
“I went down to the floor where they’re keeping all the kids hostage. He’s ripped families apart until he can establish himself. A-all the wives of the Council members are dead.”
Her lip trembles, and I wrap my arms around her small back. A sob shakes from her chest as she clings to my shirt.
“He’s not going to last long,” I whisper into her hair. “Someone’s going to pop him. He’s crossed way too many lines, and so far his supporters are only the guys from the Powell Street Crew. The rest are just scared.”
She looks up at me, her eyes raw. There are faintly pink tracks where her tears ran down her face, but she’s still beautiful. Christ, I don’t deserve her.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I do. I’ve worked with a lot of different crews throughout my life. The reason I’m still alive is because I always move on. Changes in leadership happen. It’s messy and violent for a few weeks, and then it settles down when they find a new asshole to worship.” She looks unconvinced, worried. My little Fawn. “The world is filled with guys like Viper, and the syndicate attracts them like moths to a flame. He’ll burn, just like the rest of
them.”
I’m trying like hell to stop the tears silently flowing from her eyes. She balls her fist in my shirt. Fuck, what did I say?
“He—he said things to me.”
“Who?”
There’s only one man who’d make her look so petrified.
“He said he should’ve been the one to fuck me next to my dad’s corpse.”
I dig my fingers in her hair as my heart pounds against my chest. The rush of blood to my head roars. I hear it like an ominous drumbeat as every sense fades away. My vision clouds over. She disappears, and all I see is Viper, laughing.
Nails dig into the back of my shirt, and sound returns to my ears.
“Stop! Don’t leave me here!”
I whirl around because for a moment I’m convinced he’s here, but then my wife flies into my chest, sobbing.
“I’m going to fucking kill him, Fawn.”
“I shouldn’t have said it—please! You can’t get to him, Silas. Not yet.”
“I can fucking get to him. Let me go!”
“He’ll just kill you.” Her face twists in anguish. “And you’re all I have, you bastard.”
She takes my hand and kisses it, pleading at me with her eyes. They stab at me, but I pull away. Then she forces my hand under her shirt. The moment I feel her bare skin under my hands, it’s as though there’s a switch flipped in my brain. Blood empties from my head, heading straight for my dick, which screams for me to remove every barrier. I ride my hands under her t-shirt as she presses her lips to mine.
Lust interrupts the heat building in my blood. My hands circle her back as I hold her close to me, twisting her bra clasp, and then I rip her t-shirt and bra from her head. The first things I see are her round, perky tits, bouncing slightly. She spills out of my hands. I knead her, enjoying the sight of her soft, silky skin. Fuck, she’s distracting me.
It’s working.
She hisses a high gasp as her back hits the cold glass wall. Still grasping her breasts, I bend down and wrap my lips around her pink nipple. I feel the nub harden under my tongue and hear a thump as Fawn hits her head against the glass.
“G-god.”
Anger still swirls in my chest. My tongue moves from her nipple to a swell of breast, and then I bite down with all of the rage coursing my veins. She lets out a sharp cry, and when I pull back there’s a perfect bite mark. My dick twitches. Fucking sexy.
Hitman's Bride (Bad Boy Empire) Page 13