Brad gets in the car, along with Ringo, and starts the engine. I hear a gunshot in the distance as we pull away, and two more just as we round a corner.
“Feel better?” Brad asks, looking at Danny in the rearview mirror.
Danny doesn’t reply, but he takes my hand from my lap and puts it in his, holding it as he stares out of the window.
And I wonder what it must feel like to put an end to someone who has affected you so terribly.
“The person who raped you . . . who was it?”
“You know nothing.”
“I know everything.”
I couldn’t look away from him as he took the power back. Vengeance. He does know. Maybe not everything, but he understands violation. He understands destruction. He knows hate.
And tonight, while he fought hate, I was there silently cheering him on. And when he sought me, I let him take my hand. He took comfort from me.
Chapter 13
DANNY
* * *
A weight has lifted from my shoulders. One that has sat there for years and pulled me down, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it. A weight on one’s shoulders suggests the presence of a problem. For me, it’s always represented a need. A need for vengeance. A need to look that motherfucker in the eye and know in that moment he felt how he wanted me to feel all those years ago. It doesn’t matter that I was never scared. It doesn’t matter that he couldn’t hurt me. The point is, he wanted me to feel scared. He wanted to hurt me. He wanted me to look in the mirror every day and remember how I got my scar. The latter is the only one he achieved, and unlucky for Pedro, it just made his death more brutal.
When we pull up at my mansion, Rose still hasn’t murmured a word. I’m thrown that she didn’t bolt having been given the perfect opportunity. Instead, she came into the alleyway and watched me calmly carve that man up. And when I was done, I found she was rapt. Riveted. I could almost hear her silently encouraging me. I could sense her . . . peace. For me?
Brad opens the car door for me, and I get out, looking down at my hands. They’re stained red, as is my shirt. “I need a shower,” I tell him, climbing the steps to the door. “Meet me in the office in half hour. Have the men there.”
I start to pull my tie loose as I ascend the staircase and work the buttons of my shirt as I wander down the corridor. By the time I’ve made it to my room, I’m bare-chested. Dropping everything I’ve stripped off into a heap by the door, I kick my shoes off and head for the bathroom, removing my trousers as the water warms.
The spray has never felt so good, and I stand under it for an age, arms limp by my side, head dropped, watching the red-stained water swirling around my feet as the last of that weight is washed from my body and pours down the plughole. His face, the fear, the moment he realized who I was. Magic. I close my eyes and see my father’s face on the day I met him. The tiny smirk he gave me when I proudly boasted it hadn’t hurt when Pedro’s sidekick sliced my cheek open. How Pops looked into my eyes and told me the next time I see Pedro, kill him. Well, I did, Mister. You brought him into my path, and I did what you told me to do. And it felt good. Right.
Final.
I’m still lost in my thoughts when I hear movement behind me, and I slowly cast my eyes over my shoulder, finding Rose is naked by the door. Her clothes are in a pile at her feet.
I’ve killed two men today. One quickly and cleanly, the other I made a bloodied mess of. She saw both and hardly twitched. She’s fucking immune to my world. She also had a chance to escape in between each kill. Yet she didn’t. I don’t have the energy right now to try and figure out what that means. The woman is a fucking enigma.
Turning back to face the tile, I continue relishing the shower raining down on me. It’s still not clear around my feet, red tinging the water. “Come to clean me down?” I ask, feeling her closer. My voice is rough, short, and unfriendly. Not that it will penetrate Rose’s thick skin.
I feel her hand slip between my hip and my arm, reaching for the shower cream on the shelf before me. Her cheek meets my shoulder as she stretches, her wet breasts pushing into my back. The temperature in the stall goes from hot to scorching, and I reach for the wall before me, resting some weight on my braced arm.
I hear the lid of the bottle flip, the squirting of some cream into her palm. Her hands. All over me. “I have a washcloth,” I tell her.
She says nothing, massaging the soap into my skin. Air is suddenly hard to find. So is my sense. Resisting her is a challenge like no other I’ve faced. She wants me. That’s been proven more than once. I’ve had a yes, even if she’s not actually said it. So what the fuck is stopping me now?
Fear.
I’ve never been scared, yet this woman frightens me. How resilient she is. How fearless. How she tells me I’m the devil but looks at me like I’m a god. How she isn’t scared of me. How fucking beautiful she is. For the first time in my life, I’m fucking scared. Because she could be my ruin. My Achilles heel. My weakness. Everything I’ve fought for could be wiped out the second I give in to my desire. I never truly appreciated how powerful desire is. I’ve had the desire to fuck a woman. I’ve had the desire to kiss one. But never have I had the desire to want to know one.
The circling motions of her hands across my back seem to be raising my body’s heat a degree with each rotation. My insides are blazing, and when I look down, I see the heat has woken up my dick. The urge to wrap my fist around it is strong. So is the urge to turn and face my biggest nemesis. But no. Stare ahead. Ignore the feel of her working her hands all over my skin. Or, better still, tell her to get the fuck out of my room. Why haven’t I done that?
“Get out,” I say quietly, turning to face her. Her hands, covered in suds, are now on my pecs, her arresting eyes gazing up into mine. Tiny drops of water hang from a few of her lashes, and one from the end of her perfect nose. Her cheeks are deeply flushed. Her perfect skin perfectly flawless. Her nipples are wide awake. Her body is wonderfully naked and wet.
But . . . no.
“I said, get out.”
She backs up, showing rare wariness. But she doesn’t speak. Twice in one day she’s practically laid herself on a sacrificial stone for me to take. And twice I’ve denied her. Twice I’ve forced myself to reject her. Twice I’ve ignored my body’s craving. Twice I’ve fought my mind’s demands to take her.
I won’t manage a third time. I need to send her back to Adams, because this game isn’t a funny distraction anymore. It’s getting dangerous.
I open my mouth, set to order her out of my home, as well as my life, but she turns and walks away before I can muster the words. When she makes it to the door, she looks back at me as she scoops up her clothes. “You should have sliced the asshole’s throat too.” Then she’s gone before she has a chance to see my reaction.
Which is to fall back to the wall and gather myself before I stop her from leaving and fuck the fucking daylights out of her.
* * *
“Drink?” Brad asks as I enter my office a while later. It’s taken me an hour of standing under the spray to gather myself.
“Do I look like a need one?” I take my chair and run my hand through my wet hair. That move alone answers my question, and Brad hitching a brow tells me he caught it. Although if he thinks my stressed form has anything to do with me bludgeoning a man tonight, then he’s wrong. I won’t correct him. “Where’s Adams?”
Brad points to my phone, just as it starts to ring on my desk.
“Clever,” I quip, answering the call. “You have good news for me, don’t you, Perry?”
“How’s Rose?” he asks immediately, ignoring my question. Brave man. The fucker has some explaining to do, though pointing out I heard his threat on my life will also point out that I heard his conversation with Rose. Firstly, he can’t know that I know he has another investor. Secondly, I need him to trust Rose.
“I didn’t take your call to talk about your whore,” I say calmly, ignoring Brad’s poorly concealed look of incr
edulity at my reference to Rose. “I asked you a question. You have good news, don’t you, Perry?”
“Not exactly,” he says nervously. “We have a problem.”
“I don’t like problems. They make me cranky.”
“I managed to get the Jepsons on a plane back to the States.”
“Good.”
“To finalize the deal.”
“Good.”
“They took off last night.”
“Good.”
“The plane went down in the Pacific.”
“Not good.”
“They’re dead.”
“Really not good.” I flick my eyes to Brad who’s already on his mobile checking out Perry’s story. Someone up there seriously doesn’t want me to have that marina. “So who’s in charge of the estate?”
“Their son.”
“Good. Then have him sign.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Don’t piss me off, Perry,” I warn. The thrill of my recent kill is disappearing by the second. “Why?”
“Well, first off, he was on the private jet too. He’s alive, but he’s in a coma. Second, even if he makes it, he’s ten years old and the estate is held in a trust until he’s twenty-one.” The second Perry finishes, Brad gives me the nod. His story checks out.
“Motherfucking God,” I breathe, landing Brad with disbelieving eyes. It’s one fucking disaster after another. “Then let’s hope he doesn’t make it,” I say without thought, earning a stunned look from Brad that I ignore. “I’ll check in again soon.” I’m about to hang up when I hear Perry blurt my name, panicked. “Rose is surviving,” I tell him before he can ask. “Just.”
“What have you done to her, Danny?” He’s between anger and emotion. It’s quite sweet. Shame she doesn’t feel the same way about him.
“Nothing she didn’t love and beg for.”
He inhales, the sound whooshing down the line. “What happens if the Jepson kid makes it?”
I nod toward the cabinet across the office, deciding I do need that drink. Ringo has one in my hand quickly, ice and all. “Then you’d better get creative, because you’re not getting Rose back until I get that marina, and even if I do release her, you won’t get to indulge in her perfect pussy again because you’ll be dead.” I hang up and down my drink in one fell swoop, gasping in appreciation. “I want every detail from the crash investigation.”
“Got it,” Brad confirms. “Do you think he had anything to do with Vegas?” he asks as I study the side of the crystal tumbler.
I keep coming back to desperation. Adams is in the shit, would do anything to get himself out smelling of roses. But with Rose in the line of fire? No, not Adams, but that doesn’t mean his contact wouldn’t. Perry’s up to his neck, caught between me and . . . who? I don’t know, but he’s a brave fucker. And a light reminder to Perry that I’m the greater of two evils won’t be missed. “Send Adams her little finger.”
Watson, the sadistic bastard, has his knife out before I’ve even registered my own words, and I momentarily frown, wondering what the fuck he’s doing. “You sure about that, boss?” Brad must have caught my confusion, his probing eyes watching me across the table.
“Yes, I’m sure.” I stand and approach Watson, taking the knife from him. “But I get the honor.” I leave the office, feeling Brad’s worried stare rooted to my back, and pace through my mansion, spinning the blade in my grasp as I go. What better way to prove to anyone, including myself, that she means nothing to me?
My breathing is labored as I pause outside her door, my hand on the knob. My palm’s sweaty. My heart is thumping. My fucking head could explode. Just do it. If anything, it’ll truly make her hate me. It’ll halt these insane moments of rhapsody that are quickly followed by reality. It’ll show her that she’s here for one reason alone. I push my way into her room, determined, the knife poised . . . and freeze when I find her sitting on the edge of the bed in her underwear, a razor blade plunged into her forearm.
My head that was feeling like it could explode, goes right on ahead and detonates. I see red. Rage sails through my body like fucking wildfire, unstoppable and damaging. Like nothing I’ve felt before.
She finds me vibrating by the door and quickly gets up, running to the bathroom. I’m in pursuit quickly, flying after her. She goes to slam the door in my face, but it hits my foot and bounces back open. Fucking hell, I feel out of control. She walks cautiously back, a fear in her eyes that I’ve not seen before. And I’m not surprised, because I must look beyond my usual murderous self.
Her hands go behind her back, resting on the vanity unit. “Don’t you know how to knock?” she murmurs, her pathetic question doing nothing but turning my already burning blood into rivers of lava in my veins.
I can’t even speak. All of my focus is centered on helping me to breathe through my fury. The drops of blood hitting the tile floor are deafening. I stalk forward, my whole face aching with the tenseness of my tight jaw. She can’t even look me in the eye. Her head’s dropped, focusing on anything except the psycho slowly closing in on her.
When I make it to her, I push my front to hers, if only so she can feel how madly my heart is pumping. “Give me your hand,” I grate, looking down at her. She shakes her head, refusing to look up at me. “Give. Me. Your. Fucking. Hand.” Another shake of her head, and further defiance by keeping her face down. I seize her jaw, squeezing hard, probably too hard. I know she feels it because she flinches, trying to pull away. That’s a novelty. She actually feels something. Without moving, she fights me with all she has, pulling against my pushing, but I win. She’s heaving by the time I get her eyes, the blue pits to her soul overflowing with anger. “Give me your hand, Rose.”
“Fuck you, Danny,” she mumbles through her squeezed lips.
I reach behind her and grab her hand, squeezing it tightly into a fist as I pull her arm around her front. Now, she doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t cry out. She doesn’t try to pull away. I look down and see blood seeping out the cracks between her clenched fingers, and I damn myself for feeling brutal and cruel.
I pry her hand open until I’m staring down at the razor blade, the metal glistening with blood. Her blood. The only blood I’ve ever seen and wished I hadn’t. I breathe in, trying to gather the will to speak. I can’t. This woman, at every motherfucking turn, strips me of normal capabilities. I tip her hand, sending the blade to the marble floor with a little ping. It’s a ludicrously pretty sound for something so ugly and damaging. Taking in oxygen, I turn her arm over until I have her forearm, where a neat slice stretches across her perfect skin, blood bubbling from the opening on her flesh. It’s only now I see them. Maybe a dozen white lines marring her tan skin. All neat. All clean. All done on purpose. I look up into her eyes, eyes that are welling. Not because she’s hurt. Not because she regrets hurting herself. But because I’ve found her doing it. I’ve found a weakness. Or it could be a strength. It could be her way of dealing with things. But dealing with what? The unknown is a true killer. It physically hurts me. It’s slowly driving me mad, and I’m astounded by my lack of ability to know what to do. I’m fucking stumped. Instinct is all I have, and before I register my moves, I’ve stepped back, away from her, and placed the blade I took from Watson on my forearm.
Her eyes snap from the knife to me. “Tell me why,” I demand, the blade resting on my skin.
She shakes her head.
So I draw the knife slowly across my arm, opening the flesh, and her mouth falls open as blood trickles toward my wrist. “Tell me why,” I repeat.
Another shake of her head.
So I move the blade and drag it through my flesh again, parallel to the first slice. “Tell me why.”
She swallows, her eyes wide and haunted. And another shake of her head.
This time, I yank the knife violently, and the collection of blood from my three wounds gathers and swells and starts dripping to the floor. “Tell me why,” I say again calmly, setting the knife on a fresh p
iece of my arm.
“No,” she says, eyes batting back and forth between my face and my arm.
I slash once more, my arm now drenched, pouring with blood. “Tell me why.”
“Danny, please.”
My jaw’s going to snap, the muscles becoming tighter with each refusal she gives me. Another cut.
“Danny,” she whimpers.
Another cut. “I’ll keep going, Rose,” I promise. “This doesn’t hurt me.” I cut myself another two times until she lunges forward and seizes the knife, tossing it to the floor and grabbing my arm. I make to retrieve it, not taking her horror as anything more than that. She still won’t tell me. Which means my arm is going to look like a patchwork fucking quilt very soon.
“No!” She kicks the blade away, out of my reach, and yanks my body upright.
“Talk,” I grate as she grabs a towel and wraps my arm, applying pressure, looking uptight and stressed. She has nothing on me.
“I haven’t done it for years.” She takes her hands away and moves back, and I can see her intention to walk away, her gaze passing back and forth between my arm and the door. No. I block the doorway and yank the towel off.
Looking up at me, she shakes her head mildly again, as if she thinks I’ll accept her silent plea for immunity.
“So why now?” I kick the door closed and rest my back against it.
“Why do you care?”
Her question throws me. It’s a damn fucking fine question, one I hadn’t asked myself. “I don’t.”
She laughs, quietly and disbelievingly, and I can’t blame her. “You don’t care?”
“I care that you’re alive for me to use as bait.”
“Liar,” she whispers, stepping forward. “You’re harboring so many demons and—”
“Now you’re one of them,” I say, and she recoils. I look away, unable to face the questions in her eyes.
The Brit Page 15
