by Hazel Grace
Stormi’s face blanches, still staring at me with her big beautiful blue eyes. Ones that I’d like to see glossed over in something other than fear for me, but that’s beside the point.
She doesn’t deserve my dick. I’d like to fuck someone worth my time, and I don’t play with my toys like that no matter how alluring and innocent they may seem.
You mean like you did the other night? And how you keep thinking about it every night since then.
“So—” I shift in my seat, twisting my body to face hers and pull every bit of patience into this conversation. “—how do you want to do this?”
“You’d...” Her bottom lip trembles, inviting, and full of bullshit lies. “Kids?”
“Yep,” I quip, leaning my elbow on the steering wheel. “So, what’s it going to be?”
She concedes slowly, inclining back into her seat. “Okay.”
“Okay, what? I need clearer communication.”
She gradually shakes her head, her blonde hair covering most of her face as she bows her chin into her chest. “I won’t do anything.”
I rustle the top of her dome like I would a dog. “Thatta girl.” She lurches away from me, and I chuckle, opening my pickup door and slamming it behind me.
It’s the first intake of air that I didn’t have to share with her. A fucking break from watching her nervously squirm and suck up all my concentration.
Leaning up against the quarter panel, I insert the nozzle, perusing our surroundings again for any upcoming vehicles down the road.
Oldies music sounds from the van on the other side of the pump as the kids inside continue to make a bunch of noise, antsy as hell like my passenger.
My cell follows suit, vibrating, and chiming off annoyingly in my back pocket. Pulling it from its place, I read the text that just came in.
Mills: You’re all set up the way you wanted.
Mills: Can you grab us something to eat?
Me: Thanks, man.
Me: And go fuck yourself.
Mills: Not very nice when I just assisted with your very specific request.
Me: I said thank you.
Mills: I haven’t eaten all day.
Me: You can leave when I get there.
Mills: But you might need help.
Me: She doesn’t need two babysitters.
Mills: I’ll wait.
Tap, tap, tap. Prying my eyes from my screen, I follow the sound, craning my neck to see small knuckles knocking onto the glass of my passenger window.
My nostrils flare. Maybe she does need two babysitters because I just said not to pull any bullshit, and she agreed. I even threatened violence on kids, and she’s over here self-preserving. What does she honestly think is going to happen?
Handgun versus an unarmed family—do the math. Except, why should I be surprised? She’s a liar, selfish, and a killer herself. She doesn’t care about people as long as she can cause a distraction to get free.
Glancing over to the passenger seat, I watch her little knuckles rapping away again at the window of the truck, trying to draw the attention of the dad who’s too busy yelling at his kids to stop fucking around.
Keeping the gas going, I lock it in place and slowly approach. She doesn’t notice me, should be looking out, but she must not have a lot of survivor skills in her apparently. Stormi hits the glass again, and the moment she goes to do it for the tenth time, I stand in front of it.
Jilting backward, she pushes herself over the center column, legs flailing around in the air.
A little dramatic, but whatever.
It’s not until sunlight fills the inside of the cab that I know she’s opened the driver’s side door. Maybe she does have balls after all.
Rounding my Chevy pickup, her bare feet have already hit the gravel pavement. Aware that I’m going to follow, her head jerks in my direction, followed by wide, doe-eyes, and horror stretched along her perfect features.
I guess this would be an ideal scene for a scary movie. My hand seizes her forearm, yanking her into my chest before slamming her back along the rear door.
“Do you have an underlying health issue with remembering shit, or do you really have early signs of Alzheimer’s?”
My shampoo fills my senses, followed by the uneven and erratic breathing of her rib cage brushing mine.
She doesn’t move, eyes locked on me. Perhaps she wins her battles with her beauty, blinking those magnificent blues at men and then fucks them to forget.
Movement from my peripheral warns me that someone is coming to check out the strangled howl Stormi just ripped from her throat like a wounded animal.
So, the only other thing that I can think of with why Stormi would be making any sort of noise because of me is simple.
My lips hurl into hers as she stills in my hold. Reaching down, I cup my palm around her upper thigh and raise it to my hip. She moans and—fuck me, dude—my cock jerks to attention at how velvety and real it sounded.
Mind you, it’s her bad leg, moving it got the reaction.
However, my dick doesn’t tally it up that way. It’s ready to hear more. It also serves the mini asshole wedged between me and the blue paint of my truck right for lying and telling me that she was going to listen.
I should’ve tied her up, but I didn’t want to take a chance on getting pulled over and taking out a pig. B723 can get me out of a lot of shit, but that’s when it’s government issues, not personal ones.
Stormi’s mouth finally begins to move with mine, gentle and uncertain. More than likely because if she makes another dumbass decision that I don’t particularly care for, I have her in the perfect position to do about a dozen things that will really make her wail out in pain.
I prop my arm against the window, blocking her face and any sort of terrified look she might be exhibiting right now. That, and I need my hands off her.
Then I listen for approaching kicks of stones and scuffing of tennis shoes. Nothing. “Is everything alright?” A female voice asks loudly over the music in the van. “Yeah, hunny, just a young couple fooling around.” I can’t help the smirk that lines my mouth.
And for added effect, I bite down on Stormi’s lower lip as payback for her meager stunt.
She whimpers softly, launching another twinge of excitement to my cock. The little fucker needs to learn that we’re not here for that. The only pleasure I’m going to get from her is when I finally kill her. However, it doesn’t cease the thoughts of what kind of sounds she’d kick back if I slid my tongue in between her plush lips. How much sweeter she’d taste if I got to mix business with pleasure and delve deeper into—
Small pebbles knock up against plastic and underneath tires along with the squeaking of brakes.
The family of pests are gone. Breaking the kiss, I recede back to give her some space and collect my own damn self. This chick is like Poison Ivy from Batman, one kiss has you all fucked up.
“Imagine what would’ve happened if you’d created more of a mess for me, sweetheart,” I offer, glancing down at my large shirt that hides her curves. “I’d have to go to extreme measures.”
Her lips are blemished a dark shade of pink at my kiss, sending another stirred up reaction in my pants.
She presses her back as close to the vehicle as possible to stay away from me, breathing haggard as hell.
“You’re fucking lucky,” I growl. “But listen to me when I say you try something like that again...I’m going to sever a leg. Try. Me.”
She outwardly cringes before bobbing her head. I step further away from her, remembering the saw I have in the bed of my pickup, and jerk my chin towards the still-open door. “Get your ass inside.”
She does what I say immediately, giving me a peek of her round ass as she jumps in the driver seat, closing the door promptly behind her.
Once she is situated, I exhale a breath that I didn’t know I was holding. Adjusting my semi-hard cock in my jeans, I finish up with the gas and jump back inside. She’s also back to looking outside the wi
ndow, and I return to being highly aware that she’s within touching distance.
“Where are we going?” she finally asks me on a quaky note. I don’t respond. We talk too much—I inquire too much and don’t receive the answers I desire, so why the hell should I give her anything?
“You’re making a huge mistake,” she continues off my silence. “I...I’m not who you think I am.”
Nope, sure aren’t. This role that she’s playing is about to get canceled because I’m tired of the repetitive dialogue and the persona that is clearly not her.
“Are we going to play like that, sweetheart?” I taunt, turning down the air conditioning. “More bullshit.”
“You have no evidence that I was there.” “No—” I crane my neck in her direction. “—just the simple fact that I saw you there. You were away from me for less than twenty-four hours, and you seem to ignore what I’m capable of. The waterboarding is child’s play; you should remember what happens when a sharp object lands in my hands.”
“I didn’t...forget.” I steer my focus back to the road. “Who were the men that took you from me?” “I don’t know.” I tighten my grip on the wheel. “How much longer are we going to do this because I recall telling you how hard it makes me to hear you scream.” I trail back to her face. “I haven’t jacked off in days. In fact...it was when you were in the room with me. My cum all over your pretty lips while—”
“ Stop .” Her features flush, and she pries her attention from me. “I’ve never seen those men before in my life.”
“But they sure as fuck knew you. The last thing I need is blood in my truck and a cop to roll up from behind us while I teach you a lesson.”
And many just rolled through my demented mind. She’s been trained to either keep her mouth shut, was paid a lot of money to do the job, or has something hovering over her head.
Regardless of the circumstances, it does nothing to solve my mystery in which her and Hollis are the only two people I have right now. And I won’t be letting her out of my fucking site again.
“I don’t know anything. Please believe me.” I feel her eyes on me, back to begging for me to be an idiot, and have faith in her.
“I do believe you,” I voice. “I trust that you recognize who either wants Reagan dead or recall who you spoke to about it.”
“That’s the exact opposite of what I’ve been saying.” “Torture has a funny way of making people remember.” I flick my eyes to her, holding her gaze as we cruise down the empty street. “And I’m going to love every second of it.”
“Fuck you,” Hollis spits, blood flying from his mouth through a grunt. Fuck me—yep. It’s been one of the most infuriating and frustrating jobs I’ve ever had. And the most personal since I offed Wade’s wife years ago.
But I won’t lie, it was beyond satisfying to cut that bitch up. For petty and pissed off purposes, I swing my Louisville slugger again, connecting with Hollis’s kneecap. A pitiful holler spews from his lips as he cowers over, the chains around his wrists keeping him still somewhat upright.
I don’t steal a glance at Stormi, allowing her to catch the full effect of how serious I am. How ruthless I can get when I’m impatient, which is way past its limit.
I’ve been too easy on her. It pricks and prods at my skin that I’m letting her tweak the way I usually do things. By now, she’d be arm or fingerless. I’d have her half-dead muttering for me to put her out of her misery.
Fuck that, I don’t keep people around for that long.
Take Demi, Wade’s ex-wife, for instance. She was a full-blown psycho who could lure any man into doing anything she wanted. Hell, she played good ‘ole Wade for years until B723 caught wind of her bullshit.
We warned her to stay away from Wade and my sister after she set Mama’s house on fire. I remained on standby—ordered to wait by my commander—while Demi continued to plot and plan her next move.
Then she did. And I moved quickly and not in a friendly or civil way.
Pacing over to Stormi’s father, his face is bloody and bruised from my men’s constant questioning. He pleads the fifth, but this isn’t a democracy. It’s hell that I built and led.
I hear the shuffling of feet behind me, aware of who is slowly approaching, and I don’t want to see her.
“Take another step, sweetheart,” I warn, keeping her at my back. “And I’m not going to stop when I start.”
She halts as her dad glares at me through one eye. The other is snapped shut. “Who hired you?” “Listen,” he starts. “I told your little buddies the same thing. I’m not in the killing business. I gamble, drink, and fuck.” I heave the end of my bat into his stomach before he angles forward, his chains binding him upright from the ceiling.
“I don’t believe you.” Actually, I kind of do. This man couldn’t run half a block, let alone kill someone and escape without getting caught. He’s overweight, like Hollis but older. He has to have at least a decade or more over his buddy at his right and is out of breath just from standing.
“Dad,” Stormi calls out to him. “Are you sure?”
“Keep your mouth shut, girl,” he snaps before looking up at me. “Even if I did, this little prick wouldn’t make me talk.”
Really?
I sweep around my waist and yank out my Glock then shoot. The top of his foot makes my mark, and he hollers so loud that I take a step back to keep from getting my eardrums blown out.
I may have heard Stormi cries somewhere in there too, but it only heightens my desire to do more.
This is the first time I’ve had leverage on someone, like their family member, to sway them into speaking. I don’t know what she thought I was going to do with him, only asked me twice where he was, but here we are.
And she can experience, firsthand, what I actually do when I’m not fascinated with my victims. I’m tired of this merry-go-innocent bullshit that she’s trying to feed me. My patience reached it’s limit days ago, and this all ends now.
“Do you want me to slit your throat in front of your daughter next?” I taunt. Just like his own flesh and blood, he says nothing to me. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, after all.
I holster back my gun before pulling out a six-inch blade that I carry with me. It won’t do much with one swipe, but shanking would do the trick.
“This was the knife,” I proclaim. “That I stabbed your daughter with.” My eyes flick to him. “Probably should keep it in the family.”
“You’re a bitch for stabbing women,” he carps out. “ A boy who needs to make himself feel like a man by holding men and a woman hostage because you think we did something. Did your Mommy not love you?”
She did—both of them—and their both dead now. I push my lips out and bob my head, keeping the small amount of composure I have at the forefront of my brain. “Says the bitches who tried drowning one.”
“I didn’t drown the slut!” “Please don’t—” That coming from Stormi, but I’ve already shoved the knife into his stomach and out. Then back in and out again.
I want to tell him that the slut he’s referring to is my fucking sister, but refrain it from leaving my lips.
He might not know shit, but it doesn’t mean that he and Hollis haven’t spoken about it.
A fist slams into my shoulder blade once before I pivot around to see a teary-eyed Stormi standing behind me. Her eyes are bloodshot as tears hit her high cheekbones.
She looks beautiful as fuck at this moment—vulnerable. The best emotion to tear out of someone when you need something.
“Stop,” she barely whispers, chin bowed into her chest while her frame quakes. Raising the tip of my crimson-colored blade, I lift her face to look up at me. “Why don’t you beg me with your eyes, sweetheart. I’m a fucking sucker for tears.”
Her jaw twitches once before she parts her lips. “Pl...please. Don’t hurt him.”
“Why?”
Her brows fall. “He’s...my dad.”
I shrug. “So.”
She’s my
sister.
“He’s all I have.”
“That doesn’t mean shit to me,” I quip.
“The person—” I’m shoved forward, knocking into Stormi’s chest.
My hands immediately hold her steady as I regain my footing. Jaw tight, I pivot, Stormi’s dad glaring at me, guilty as fuck.
Never judge a book by its cover—rule number one. He just raised his massive thigh up and bucked me with it. I begin to move, but a soft moan sounds from Stormi, stealing my attention back to her like a fly to shit.
Blood covers the tips of her fingers as she wipes it away from her chin. My blade, it cut her when I moved.
A cut I didn’t cause.
She’s mine, and I’m the one who decides what happens to her. I don’t remember moving, my fists land into his ribs and stomach, getting blood all over my knuckles. Grunts and moans fill the space between the dad and me until Stormi screams at the top of her lungs.
It somehow ceases me to move. I’ve never heard her scream before just whimpers and pleas of mercy and begging for me to listen.
Calmness washes over me slowly. She’s new to me, and I don’t like that. The women I’ve had to torment in the past were quick to talk. They let their fear spill out every truth I required to convict and carry out their sentence. Some I never needed to question, I just killed them within the confines of their homes, parking garages, and sidewalks. These were women B723 surveilled for months, guilty of espionage against the government, and needed to go quickly.
Stormi, she’s either the best actress I’ve ever met or...
“Get the fuck away from me,” I growl, not bothering to turn around to her.
I know she’s near, I can fucking feel her. I can still smell that shampoo off her body and hair, and it pisses me off.
That she got away. That she had the comforts of home. And even though she still hasn’t told me anything, it doesn’t discontinue any thoughts of my wanting to fuck her.
My eyes lock with her old man’s. “I’m going to take your daughter back with me. And we’re going to continue doing what we’ve been doing for days. Why don’t you tell him, sweetheart.”
