by A. Zavarelli
“Look who finally decided to join us,” he murmurs.
He shoves Katie away and comes for me. And I’m okay with that. I will do whatever he asks now. I will be his puppet.
His fingers brush over my cheek with reverence as he kneels in front of me.
“I couldn’t wait,” he says. “Time is up, Scarlett.”
“Do whatever you want with me,” I tell him. “But let her go. She has nothing to do with this.”
“You know I can’t do that,” he says.
There is no remorse in his voice. There never has been, so I don’t know why I thought I could find it now. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Alexander, it’s that there are other ways to get to him.
“You are disgusting,” I snarl. “It’s no wonder you have to fuck girls this way. You and that insignificant appendage you call a dick. Is that what pisses you off, Alex? You have to compensate for your lack of…”
His hand cracks across my face, whipping my head to the side. Once. Twice. And then a third time for good measure. He seizes a fistful of my hair and yanks my head back, glaring into my face.
“Do you think I’m that stupid?” he asks. “Really, Tenly. Give me some credit. I’m a federal fucking agent, baby. You don’t get where I am being fooled by common street-whores like you.”
Katie sobs in the background and I need her to be quiet. I need Alexander to forget about her and focus on me.
“You can do whatever you want to me,” I tell him again. “I’m the one you want to punish. Admit it, Alex.”
His eyes flash and I think I’m getting somewhere, so I keep after it.
“Invite all the boys for a reunion,” I swallow. “It’ll be just like old times. That could be your way back in.”
He shoves my head back and rips into my tank top, exposing my breasts. My legs are already splayed across the chair, defenseless, when he pulls my pants down around my ankles.
I’m naked and exposed for him now. The urge to vomit is strong, but I force it down.
Katie is limp, sobbing, and I need her to fight.
I tell her to run while she has the chance.
She looks at me, and then at Alexander, and she stands on trembling legs. She runs for the door.
And she doesn’t make it.
Alexander tackles her to the floor and then forces her to her hands and knees while she cries silently.
“That was a piss poor effort if I ever saw one,” Alexander says.
He pushes himself inside of her from behind and grabs a fistful of her hair. He’s fucking her, but his eyes are on me. It’s like gasoline to his hostility.
It’s turning him on like nothing else can. Imagining that I’m her. Taking out his hate for me on Katie.
It only gets worse. His delusion enters a point of no return when he starts calling her Ten. Ten the whore. Ten the cunt. Ten the filthy slut.
Katie screams, and he muffles it with a hand over her mouth.
He’s getting off on the memory of that night. The way he smothered me into unconsciousness and left me for dead. He’s reliving the high with Katie.
The binds cut into my wrists and my heartbeat thrashes in my ear. The sounds are too much. The light hurts my eyes, and the chair is stabbing into my skin. I’m hyperaware of every thrust. Overstimulated and under-oxygenated.
Rory’s voice is the thing I grasp onto. His words from this morning at the gym.
Telling me to stay calm. Always stay calm and think about your next move. He told me I would make a mistake if I let panic win, and he was right.
I seize a mouthful of air and drown out the noise in front of me.
Duct tape.
Mack told me once about the duct tape. How if you bring both of your arms down with enough force, it will break on its own.
She showed me, and she made it look easy. And it’s never as easy when you’re doing it yourself.
With my arms behind the chair, it’s a strain to get the momentum I need. But while I’m shifting around, there is a physical incentive pressing against my calf. My sheath is still where I left it.
Either Alexander didn’t notice it, or he already removed the knife.
I won’t know for sure until I can reach for it.
Time is running out.
His grunting is louder, and his violence is too.
Katie isn’t moving. She isn’t breathing. Her face is ashy and wrong. One of Alexander’s hands is still wrapped around her throat, the other clapped over her mouth and nose.
Nothing else exists to him outside the clutch of his violent fantasy.
I scream at him and he bashes her face into her floor. Over and over again. Fucking her while blood spatters across the room.
It’s too late.
I’m too fucking late.
Katie falls limp against the floor, and Alexander collapses on top of her, groaning out his release with one final thrust into her dead body.
My heart beats faster and a rush of rage spiked with adrenaline floods my veins. I overextend my arms and thrust down as hard as I can.
It has to be now.
He has to die now.
The duct tape breaks with an audible sound, and Alexander is moving.
Crawling towards me- covered in Katie’s blood- with an expression on his face that I won’t soon forget.
I’m next.
He’s going to do me next.
My fingers shake as I reach for the sheath and yank on the Velcro strap. I’m stumbling, shaking, grasping… and it’s real. The handle is real, and it’s in my palm.
Alexander reaches out for me when I bring the blade up and plunge it into his chest.
My fist squeezes around the wood and recoils, yanking it from his flesh. He retreats and touches the place where I stabbed him. The place where blood seeps from his wound and drips onto the floor below.
A series of emotions flashes through his eyes.
Disbelief. Shock. Hate. And then rage.
I have wounded him, but it isn’t enough.
I slash the bloody knife between my ankle and the chair, severing the tape.
There is only time for one before Alexander comes at me again, still clutching his wound. This time, I aim for his balls with my foot and I don’t miss.
He doubles over, and my other ankle is free.
The knife is a mess of blood and glue and my hand is sore and stiff. This isn’t going to work.
I bolt from the chair and pull up my pants, seeking out alternate weapons with my eyes. There’s a mug on the counter and I move for it while Alexander crawls after me.
I throw the mug at his head and it misses.
But the next item, a frying pan, hits him in the shoulder.
“Cunt,” he roars. “You will beg for your death.”
A fork sails through the air and bounces off his forehead, which does me no favors.
He’s wounded and bleeding, but adrenaline is powerful. He’s on his feet now, clutching at the counter as he moves around it.
I don’t even know what I’m throwing at him anymore. I reach for anything I can find and hurl it at his face.
Until I grab hold of something metallic and heavy.
His gun.
He left it on the counter next to his keys, and what a fucking rookie mistake. It’s heavier than my revolver was and I use both hands to hold it up and aim in his direction.
Our eyes meet, and I wonder if he knows that I couldn’t hit Ethan when I tried because he’s laughing at me.
He lunges, and I pull the trigger.
It hits him in the gut, and he collapses.
But he’s still cognizant and his teeth are bloody and he’s fucking smiling at me.
My hands are clammy, and I’m fumbling with the trigger, huddled in the corner I backed myself into. The knife fell in the chaos and there are no other weapons in my reach and the gun won’t fire again.
It’s jammed or… I don’t know how to get it to work.
I’m screaming for it to fu
cking work, desperate in a way that I’ve never been before.
My eyes are blurry and distorted and my ears still ringing from the shot.
But when I look down again, all I see is blood stained tile.
Alexander isn’t there.
And after arming myself with several kitchen knives and checking the apartment three times over, I realize he isn’t anywhere.
“Jesus,” Mack says again.
“I know,” I say again.
The apartment is a blood bath.
I still can’t bring myself to look at the body lying in the middle of the floor. I can’t even think her name, because that makes it real.
I’ve already vomited twice since Mack’s been here.
There is nothing left in my system now.
Nothing but regret and emptiness.
“You know I’m going to need some answers,” Mack tells me. “Right, Scarlett?”
“I know. But I just can’t… right now.”
“I don’t like keeping secrets from Lach,” she says.
I’m quiet, and for a minute I think I’m on my own again. That she’s not going to help. Her loyalty lies with them and I don’t blame her. But then she speaks.
“I’ll call Fitzy,” she says. “He’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Just do me one favor.”
“What?” I ask.
“Please don’t be alone tonight,” she begs. “Come to our house.”
“Thank you,” I tell her again. “But I have somewhere else I need to be.”
Twenty-Three
Those days are over. I have to be won all over again every time you see me- F. Scott Fitzgerald
There is one universal truth about men.
They want to feel like Kings.
They want to eat like Kings. Fuck like Kings. Sit on the sofa (AKA throne) and watch TV like Kings. If they fixed something around the house, you better damn well tell them they are a fucking King. Because in their hearts they are sensitive little beasts who want to be regarded as the Alpha by all their brethren and any woman who might stumble into their path.
Rory is no different.
So it is with little surprise that I find him in the VIP lounge at Slainte.
The VIP lounge is dark. Crimson and black and sultry. Men are meant to feel like Kings here while women take off their clothes and dance only for them.
There is a dancer up on stage and she’s beautiful, and I respect what she does because I used to do it too, once upon a time.
I also want to rip her heart out.
I don’t know if Rory is watching her or not. It’s difficult to tell from behind him. But I watch him in the shadows for some time.
If I just left, then things would go back to the way they were. We wouldn’t cross paths, except for the rare occasion. There would be no drunken phone calls filled with regret because Rory and I aren’t those people.
He would go back to having quick fucks to satisfy his appetite, and I would go back to my revenge, either accomplishing what I set out to do or dying in the process.
I should go.
He deserves better than this. Better than me. That imaginary family he’s building his home for. He should have those things.
I’m good at leaving.
Pushing people away. Keeping everyone at a distance and burning anyone who flies too close to me.
But I’m bad at leaving Rory.
Tonight, I am broken and tattered, and in my heart I am selfish. I want his body and his warmth and the calm that exists only when we are together. I want those things even if I fucked up and pushed him away and I am willing to play a role to get them.
I move around him. And he isn’t watching the dancer on stage. His head is tipped back and his eyes are closed, and he is napping. There is a full bottle of Jameson beside him. He came here to feel like a King, but I still haunt him.
I’m no good at being helpless, so I do what I do best.
I climb onto his lap and his eyes open slowly.
“Scarlett.”
He’s pissy with me, and I don’t blame him.
But I’m pissy with him too.
And with the whole fucking world for that matter.
“Enjoying the show?”
“What do you care?” he replies.
“I thought we’d already established that you were mine to play with?”
My hands move up his chest before he traps them between us.
“Well, I’m done playing. So find another victim.”
My chin trembles, but I continue on with the charade, because it’s the only way I know.
“Did you know that I used to be a dancer too?”
I grind my ass into his hard on for emphasis.
His eyes darken and I lean into him, laying claim to his lips with mine before he yanks me away again.
“No,” he says.
“I know you want me,” I argue. “I can feel how much you do.”
He doesn’t answer. Or give in. Not even a little bit.
And the threat of tears is real, and I can’t let him see me cry. Because you don’t ever let them see you cry.
I bury my face in his neck and breathe in his scent. Nothing has ever smelled so good.
“You’ve messed me up real good, you know.”
He doesn’t respond, but he does touch my back.
“Is that a truth or a lie?” he asks.
“It’s the truth this time,” I swear.
He isn’t convinced though.
“Please.” My voice breaks. “Just for tonight. Then you’ll never have to see my face again.”
There’s a long moment where I hold my breath, unsure what happens next. But one hand on my back becomes two, and he wraps his arms around me, pulling me in. His lips are at my ear, stirring the primal need in both of us when he whispers.
“So dance for me then.”
Only, he doesn’t let me go.
I reach up and tangle my fingers in his hair, tipping his head back so I can kiss his throat while I roll my hips over his erection.
I am desperate for this. For him. I am desperate to feel something good. Anything to take away the hurt inside of me.
Rory takes it away like nobody else can.
He leans forward and captures my mouth with his. And we kiss like we’ve never kissed before. This thing between us is a force of nature.
I want him.
I want him so fucking much, and I tell him so.
He takes me by the hand and drags me out the back door to his all-black Dodge Challenger. Like most men, Rory enjoys the vibrations and the sounds these babies make. And I will give him this.
He’s hot as fuck driving it.
He isn’t as flashy as Crow with his blue GranTarismo Sport because Rory is a classic. He doesn’t need the bells and whistles.
All he needs is someone who gets him.
And I’m here, and I tell him not to take me back to his place.
“Let’s do something crazy,” I beg him.
“What did you have in mind, Satan?”
“Show me what this car is made of.”
He smiles, and it’s all dimples. “Does that get ye hot, sweetheart?”
“Only one surefire way to find out.”
I relax my head and settle in while Rory drives. Far away, to an empty stretch of highway. I want him to keep going, forever and ever, with one hand on my thigh, the other on the wheel.
I toy with the radio and find a good station.
Wreak Havoc by Skylar Grey comes on.
I turn it up and Rory switches gears and lays down on the accelerator. Seventy. Eighty. Ninety and climbing.
He rolls down the windows and my hair whips around my face. I laugh and scream and push my face out the window. He pushes his hand between my thighs and inside of me.
“No knickers?” he yells over the music and the wind.
“No knickers.”
I spread my legs for him and unbutton the
top of my dress. I’m wet for him, for this, for the adrenaline high I needed so badly.
He gives it to me hard.
Fucking me with his hand while he drives.
“This fast enough for you?”
“Faster,” I tell him.
The speedometer climbs and so does the tempo of his hand. I’m close, and I could get off on this. Only this.
I unbuckle my seat belt and climb over the gear shift instead.
“Jesus Christ,” he grunts when I straddle him.
“I’ll do all the work.”
“Scarlett.”
It’s a half-assed protest cut short when I peel down the top of his jeans and fetch his cock.
“Keep your hands on the wheel,” I tell him.
And then I use him to get me off. Grinding all over him, but not letting him inside.
The vibrations of the car rumble up beneath the seat while the vibration of his groans rumble against my chest.
I don’t want it to end.
Rory wants desperately for it to begin. His cock is plump and painfully swollen, leaking pre-cum as I rub against him.
He licks at my collar bone and then bites me. And for a split second, I let him grope my tits before I make him put his hand back on the wheel.
“I’m going to fuck you like a King,” I tell him.
“Scarlett?”
“Yes?”
“Get the fuck on my cock. Now.”
I get the fuck on his cock.
“Christ,” he groans. “Now fuck me like your life depends on it.”
I lean forward and whisper in his ear. “Keep your hands on the wheel. Satan’s about to take you for a ride.”
I dig my fingers into his shoulders and fuck him into oblivion. It’s wild, and it’s loud and there is nothing else in the world as hot as the two of us together. The combination of the speed and the adrenaline hurls us both over the edge.
He comes hard and then hits the brakes, skidding onto the side of the road.
We are breathless and still clawing at each other. Kissing and groping and thrusting and grinding.
I yank him back and kiss his throat, sucking on the skin until I leave a mark.
“Tell me I can’t be outdone,” I demand.
“Scarlett, what in the bleeding hell is going on with you?”
“Say it. Tell me no other woman will ever please you the way I do.”