by Mia Knight
There was only one reason for Jonathan’s appearance and they both knew it. In her eyes, it didn’t matter why. Jonathan wanted nothing to do with her now so what he said prior to the attack didn’t matter. “He wanted closure.”
“Is that right? And how did he think he was going to accomplish that?”
“He just wanted to know the truth.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“To move on and forget he ever met me.”
“Didn’t you warn him what I’d do to him?”
She shivered. “Yes.”
“And he still took the risk. He knew the consequences for trespassing, Lyla.”
“He doesn’t understand your world—”
“Our world.”
He closed in on her and her body locked against the need to run. Gavin was a natural predator. Fleeing would only make things worse.
“You fucked up today,” Gavin said.
“So did you.” The feeling of being hunted pissed her off. She shouldn’t be afraid of her husband, but she was. The polished veneer was what most people saw, but she knew about the beast beneath the pretty exterior. “You could have killed me.”
“If I didn’t love you so much, I would.”
Her breath whooshed out of her. “What?”
“I told you why I never committed fully the first time,” Gavin said as he backed her against the wall and planted both hands on either side of her head. “I didn’t want anyone to have such power over me.”
His will was so strong that she could feel it pressing in on her, willing her to submit.
“You have the power to save me,” he said quietly and rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip. “And the power to destroy me.” His eyes met hers. “Today, you destroyed me. You threatened to leave me for him.”
“Gavin, I couldn’t let you—”
His thumb slid into her mouth. Her lips closed reflexively before she tried to turn her head away.
“Gavin,” she garbled as his thumb slid deeper. What the fuck was he doing?
“Suck,” he ordered.
“We have to—”
He leaned down so their faces were inches apart. “Do it, Lyla.”
Her mouth watered as she held his feral gaze. He was on the precipice. One wrong move and he would lose it. Since his hand was in her face, she saw that his knuckles were swollen and ripped from God knew what. She raised her hands and felt him tense until she gripped his wrist. She brushed her finger over the cuts and then did as he asked. She sucked.
“I was so desperate to keep you safe, to get you away from those fuckers. I tracked you to that hotel, unsure why you were there and then I hear him say he can make you disappear.” The fingers resting against her jaw tensed. “There’s something you don’t understand about me, something you never did. When it comes to you, I’ll do whatever it takes to have you with me. I’ll steal you from another man, blackmail your father or threaten someone’s life to bind you to me.” His eyes met hers. “Or kill a man for coveting what has always been mine.”
She pulled back. “Gavin—”
He replaced his thumb with his pointer and middle finger and sank them deep so she stopped trying to talk. His fingers skittered over her tongue and thrust slowly in and out of her mouth. Lyla shifted restlessly. Why the fuck was this turning her on? And how could she be turned on when she should be pleading for Jonathan’s life?
“I’m not the kind of man you want to fall in love with you,” Gavin said quietly, eyes fixed on her mouth. “Men like me, when we find a reason to live, we hang on too tight. I know men who have killed their wives because they can’t handle how she makes them feel.”
Lyla dug her nails into his chest and felt his muscles tense in reaction.
“I never understood that feeling until today,” he said.
“Gavin—”
He wrapped one hand around her neck and pulled her away from the wall. He walked her backwards until the back of her knees hit the cot. The narrowing of his eyes gave her a split second of warning before he whirled her around and bent her over. Her hands landed on the thin mattress. Gavin yanked her sweat pants down and trailed rough, calloused fingers over her bare ass. Goosebumps rose over her body.
“What are you doing?” she demanded and tried to wriggle away.
“Don’t move,” he ordered.
“Gavin—”
“Don’t talk.”
Gavin placed his hips firmly against her ass and rocked as he bent over her. She could feel his cock pressed firmly between her cheeks. When he lapped the back of her neck with his tongue, she shifted restlessly.
“This isn’t right,” she said through clenched teeth.
Gavin worked the two fingers she had been sucking into her damp heat. Her mouth dropped open at the pleasure/pain. When his fingers curled, her back arched and she went on tiptoes, calves burning.
“If this is wrong, why are you wet?”
He rested his slick thumb against her asshole and she jerked, but that fucking mammoth hand on her back kept her bent over and at his mercy. She sucked in a breath as his thumb penetrated. She wriggled her ass to dislodge him, but he wasn’t deterred. He withdrew his thumb to replace it with the slick fingers from her pussy.
“Gavin, we need to talk.”
Lyla bucked forward as he laved the dimples above her ass.
“We’re done talking.”
She felt the head of his cock. Alarmed, she reached back to splay her hand on his rock hard stomach to slow him down. He gripped her waist and impaled her on him. Lyla let out a strangled shriek.
“That’s it, baby girl. Let me in.”
“I-I don’t think I can take—”
“You don’t have a choice.”
He pulled back before imbedding himself fully. Lyla screamed. Gavin collared her throat with one hand and her breast with the other and bowed her upwards.
“Gavin,” she gasped.
“You bring out the best and worst in me.” His bristly jaw scraped her soft cheek. “A man like me can’t have a weakness like you, but I do. Some think because I’m married and have a kid that it’s made me soft, but being with you has made me more dangerous than ever.”
She dug her nails into his arm as he began to fuck her ass.
“I’ve already thought of ten ways to kill him,” he said through gritted teeth.
Lyla tried to pull away. “Gavin!”
He didn’t miss a beat, he kept thrusting nice and slow. “Strangling him would make me happiest. Up close and personal.”
“Gavin, please—”
“I’m going to kill him. Nothing will stop me. I’m going to bathe myself in his blood until it’s cold so I know he’s really fucking gone.”
He pumped his hips hard enough to make her scream and then he bent her over again. His hand kneaded her breast before it skated down her abdomen to her clit. He grabbed her hair and wrenched her head to the side so he could kiss her. When he pulled back, she saw his eyes were filled with rage and lust.
“You think you’ve tamed me? You’re not even close. You can’t control me.”
There were no inhibitions, no rules. It was just her and Gavin and nothing else mattered. His hand sank into her hair and pulled as he thrust home. Gavin fucked her ass as if he owned it, which he did. Lyla climaxed, screaming and clawing the mattress. Gavin made her feel like a savage. He growled like a wild animal as he came, grinding himself against her before he pulled out abruptly.
Lyla collapsed on the mattress, panting. Gavin zipped up his pants and turned to her. His climax hadn’t cooled his temper. If anything, he looked angrier. Her heart sank.
“If I didn’t love you so much, I never would have stepped down from my position and my father and Vinny would still be alive.”
Lyla felt as if he punched her in the stomach.
“If we didn’t have Nora, I’d lock you in here,” he continued.
The pleasure he evoked from her body was replaced with despair. Lyla wanted to cu
Gavin said nothing. He stared at her as if she were something distasteful.
“You force me into your world, but I’m not a part of it and I will not bow down to it.” She lifted her chin. “I had to change. I understand that sometimes, people need to die. I don’t have to agree with what you do or how you do it, but I trust that you know what’s required, but in this... There’s a difference between killing a thug in the underworld and murdering a man who thinks he’s in love with a woman who doesn’t love him back.”
Tears burned her eyes. She rose, very aware of her throbbing behind, his seed leaking out of her and the way he tensed as she took a step towards him. She searched for the right words and willed him to understand.
“I trust you to do what needs to be done in the underworld. I trust that you won’t lose yourself, that you won’t cheat on me. I trust that you’ll find that fucker and you’ll avenge Manny and Vinny. I’ve changed since I watched Manny die, but I haven’t changed so much that I can ignore the fact that you’re killing an innocent man.” She held up a hand when he opened his mouth. “He. Is. Innocent. He dated a woman he thought was single. Period. He was nice to a woman who had no one and there are too few people like him in the world. What I felt for him can’t compare to what I feel for you.” She searched his eyes, looking for recognition or acceptance. “You married me and told me that you would do whatever it took to make me love you again. I love you, but if you do this, you’ll break me, break us.”
She reached out and even as fear coursed through her, she stroked a hand down Gavin’s imposing face.
“I love you,” she said.
No reaction from Gavin. The predator weighed every word out of her mouth.
“You can’t erase my memories by killing him. We’ve been through too much to let Jonathan rip us apart. If you do this, you’ll destroy us.”
She waited for a full minute for him to say something, but he remained silent. He was a living, breathing statue of a man who wouldn’t yield. As the silence stretched, she realized his silence was her answer. She dropped her hand as a tear coursed down her cheek.
“Nothing I say will make a difference, will it?” she whispered.
“No.”
She averted her eyes and walked towards the stairs. When she reached the door, she banged on it hard enough to make her hand ache. A guard opened the door and she walked out with Gavin on her heels.
Lyla walked towards the kitchen and let herself into the backyard. She welcomed the hard slap of cold air and paced across the cold tiles to a lounge chair. The last hint of light faded from the sky. She settled on a chair and stared blindly into the lit pool until it became a blur as tears gathered in her eyes.
Nothing had changed. Gavin would do whatever he wanted despite how she felt. She was as scared, pissed and helpless, as she had been when Gavin went back into the underworld when Vinny was killed.
She looked up at the blanket of black sky above her. There was no bird flying overhead or shooting star to signal that all would be well. This was the real world where good didn’t always overcome evil.
The back door opened. She wiped at her eyes and saw Blade coming towards her with a trench coat. She accepted the coat and wrapped it around her to ward off the cold.
“You’re in one piece,” Blade observed.
“Doesn’t feel like it,” she mumbled.
“You’ll get past this.”
“Why is it always me that has to get over it and not him?”
“Because he’s a badass motherfucker.”
“So?”
“So... no one can stop him when he wants something.”
“My life is always going to be like this, isn’t it?”
“Like what?”
“There’s always going to be an emergency and I’ll have to make decisions that will tear me up inside.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
She wiped away a tear. “And if I don’t want to?”
“You already know the answer to that,” Blade said and headed inside.
Lyla blew out a shaky breath and wrapped her arms around herself. Life was hard. Life as a crime lord’s wife was even harder. She wished Manny was here. A tear she couldn’t contain slipped down her cheek. If I didn’t love you so much, I never would have stepped down from my position and my father and Vinny would still be alive. That fucking killed her. Gavin was right. If he hadn’t stepped down for her, Sadist wouldn’t have made a play to become the crime lord. Vinny wouldn’t have volunteered to take his place and Manny would be traveling the world or browsing through antique shops if it wasn’t for her. The cost of her and Gavin being together was astronomical... and they were still paying.
She turned her head when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Gavin stood in the shadows. He came forward, the clip of his shoes loud in the hushed silence. He looked every inch the wealthy businessman and not a man with murder on his mind. He looked as flawless and untouchable as James Bond in his tailored suit, hands in pockets, expression nonchalant. In contrast, she felt as if she was on the verge of falling into a chasm from which there would be no return.
Gavin stopped in front of her. She couldn’t meet his eyes, not when he looked at her as if he hated her. There was nothing more to say. He would do what he wanted and there was nothing she could do to stop him. She felt so goddamn helpless. She thought the days of not being in control of her destiny were a thing of the past. Apparently not. Everyone sided with Gavin and thought it was his right to take Jonathan’s life. She didn’t agree. If he killed Jonathan, would she leave him?
The silence stretched. What did he want? His presence fanned the throbbing pain in her chest. Gavin was tearing her apart, but that was nothing new. She was always the one that had to conform, not him. No matter what she said or did, he wouldn’t change, so where did that leave her? Was this the beginning of the end for them?
She jolted when a calloused hand cupped her chin. Gavin tilted her face up. She kept her eyes closed. A tear leaked out of her left eye. She hoped it was too dark for him to see, but his thumb brushed it away before it could travel halfway down her face. Her breath hitched as another tear escaped. She wasn’t prepared for the gentle kiss he pressed against her lips.
Lyla opened her eyes, but he was already on his way back to the house. “Gavin.”
He didn’t stop. He walked back into the house and disappeared from sight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gavin
Santana's brother trembled like a plucked bow as Gavin held his head at an angle guaranteed to end his miserable existence. Santana's men scattered after Gavin executed their leader. Gavin thought he bought enough time to attend the hospital function and come back to finish gutting Santana's operation. Seeing those cholos in the elevator with Santana's brand on their neck sent a spear of ice-cold terror through his body when he realized that he had put Lyla at risk.
“How did you know to send men to the hospital? Are you tracking me?” Gavin bit out.
Santana's brother’s mouth flopped open and closed like a fish. Gavin bent his head a fraction more and he squealed like a stuck pig.
“How did you know?” Gavin bellowed.
“I-I got a call.”
“From who?”
“Stark.”
Everything in him went on alert. “Eli Stark?”
“Si. He’s an informant, sells information. He gave the location of hospital.”
“What else?” Gavin asked.
“That’s it, I swear.”
Gavin broke his neck, rose and stared down at the body without really seeing it. Eli Stark. This wasn’t the first time he heard whispers of Stark, but it was going to be the last. Once, he considered Stark a loyal associate, but that changed after Stark’s mother had been brutally attacked. Stark blamed him for not protecting her, which gave him motive. Selling information to a Mexican drug lord? It didn’t sound like Stark, but people changed. After his mother was attacked, Stark quit his position as detective and went on a bloody rampage to avenge his mother before he fell off the map. Well, it was time to draw him out of hiding.
Gavin dug through Santana’s brother’s pockets and found condoms, drugs and a cell phone. He used the dead man’s thumb to unlock the phone and debated whether to cut it off for future use, but changed the passcode instead. He scrolled through recent calls, most of which were unavailable.
He dialed his tech genius from the phone. “Z, it’s me. I need you to tap into this phone and unblock some numbers.”
Z didn’t ask questions. “Give me ten minutes.”
“And locate Eli Stark’s mother.”
A pause. “Sir?”
“I don’t know her name. She went into a coma almost three years ago.”
“I’ll find out,” Z said.
Gavin pocketed the phone and glanced around the room. The blood-splattered walls reflected how he felt on the inside. Bodies littered the ground around him. It took him less than two hours to track Santana's brother to a set of cabins on the outskirts of the city.
Santana was a sick fuck. Gavin made sure to clear out the child prostitutes they discovered earlier this morning. Gavin didn’t feel a lick of remorse for drawing out Santana’s death since he found the fucker molesting a baby. If he let the justice system do their thing Santana would get several life sentences and live off taxpayer’s money, reading books and educating himself about the legal system to see how he could get out. Or, he would join one of the gangs in prison and claim the lives of too many prison guards who were just trying to make an honest living. Fuck that. He knew Santana's brother would retaliate, but he hadn’t expected them to stage a public attack that cost four of his men’s lives and put Lyla and too many others at risk. Stupid fucker.
He was high on rage and feeling especially savage. The lethal fury racing through his veins hadn’t dissipated as he slay anyone who crossed his path. The fight with Lyla made him crazed. He couldn’t fault Blade for drugging him today. What he felt this afternoon when he walked into that hotel room was inexplicable. Blade had done his job and prevented him from doing something unforgivable to his wife. In the basement he lost control. He wanted to hurt her, to punish her. Lyla would lie to protect this guy, which showed how deep her feelings for Huskin ran. He wouldn’t allow it. Lyla was supposed to heal him, not break him. Hearing her cry and plead for another man’s life made him feel homicidal.
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