Cruel Crown: A Dark Romance (Sekten Book 2)

by C. Lymari

  She stopped talking because I slammed into her, and her legs wrapped around my waist. My hand went to her throat, choking her as I slammed into her, trying to imprint our bodies in the sand.

  “You’ll what, baby?” I taunted her, my body pulling back, my dick at her entrance—teasing her.

  “Gideon,” she breathed.

  “Say I own this pussy.” The grip I had on her neck became tighter. She bit her lips and closed her eyes, her hips trying to force me back in. She would never be submissive and give in, and it was part of the reason I was so attracted to her.

  “That’s okay, Petal, I’m about to show you.” I slammed in and out of her, keeping her tethered to the edge, her body becoming tenser by the second. I kept doing it until she couldn’t take it anymore. She gasped for air, it felt so good, but it hurt. Her eyes were watery, and her face flushed her pussy slick.

  “Stop…” she managed to say as I slowed my pace, hitting that spot I know was making her eyes roll back.

  “Please, stop,” she begged, her voice hoarse.

  I stilled my movements and brought my finger down to her clit, adding the slightest pressure.

  “Stop,” she croaked as her legs wrapped around me held me like a vice. I rose a bit and removed my hand from her throat and instead grabbed her hands in mine. I fucked her hard, showing her exactly who owned that pussy as she cried out her release, her moans soothing me more than the ocean waves. As she convulsed violently around me, she took me with her.

  “Feel that, Petal?” I mumbled around her lips. “That feels like you’re mine.”

  She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me slowly and gently until we fucked again and again, and when she left this time, I swore that we were done playing by her rules. The next time I saw her, I would make her play by mine.

  Location: Sweden

  “Again,” I barked as the girl tried to hit me.

  Her lips trembled, but there was defiance in her eyes and fire in her soul. She straightened her shoulders and ran for me with a war cry that I somehow found amusing. I almost felt sorry when I jumped and kicked her, sending her flying backward and on her ass.

  “And you said you’ve been training,” I mocked her. To my surprise, she only took three seconds before she got up again.

  The young girl Gideon had helped me save was now a woman. A little taller but not much since she was malnourished, drugged, and abused. Her skin had some color now. The pale was now a lovely olive tone, and her hair looked healthy. She was still skin and bones, but that was because she pushed herself rigorously.

  “That’s all I ever do—train for what? For nothing.”

  And we were back to the argument we’d been having for a while. I called her Cam since she couldn’t remember her name, nor where she came from. Too much damage had been done to her, and sometimes it was better to forget our darkest days.

  Not for me though—I never wanted to forget whose blood I washed my hands with, and whose bones I stepped on to get where I was today. I never wanted to forget whose heart I ripped out to get my kingdom. My crosses, my sins, and my lies were all I had left.

  “You’re not ready,” I told her for the thousandth time.

  Cam’s face filled with rage and I liked seeing it there. It was better than the empty look she used to have. Like the one Rebeca had when I dropped her off with Franco.

  “When will I be ready?” she yelled at me. “When will I be allowed to go out? I train and train and fucking train, and I am a prisoner. I traded one cage for a bigger one.”

  Cam was short for Chameleon. She was good at adapting, so since she couldn’t remember her name, I had to call her something, right? I was a bitch, but it had to be done. I walked up to her and started to attack her until she was up against the wall.

  “When the touch of a man doesn’t scare you anymore…” I said with a harsh voice as I brought my hand between her legs. “And when you don’t freeze when someone touches your sex. Then you’re fine to go out and be on your own.” I pulled away quickly, not wanting to traumatize her more. “While you’re here scared, your master is still out there. He’s partying. Drinking. Fucking…and he doesn’t give two shits that he broke you. He doesn’t care about you…”

  Cam whimpered for me to stop, but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.

  “He’s living his life while you’re too scared to own up to yours.”

  With those words, I walked away, leaving her to let her rage slowly start to consume her. Yates was her kill to make, so for now, I let the bastard live large. His day would come, and if it weren’t by her hands, then it would be by mine.

  The basement was decked out with a state-of-the-art gym. She would be down there for hours, punching out her frustration. The mind and the body had to be equally strong. While she worked on her body, her mind was slowly catching up.

  Walking up the stairs, I went to my room and grabbed my phone. It had been three weeks since Colombia, and Bastian had yet to make an appearance. I got a thirty-second phone call saying he was okay, but he didn’t explain more.

  Not that I was worried, but this was unusual. Or maybe not at all and it was just me. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I let myself think about him. Was he alive? Captured? Dead? Would any of the outcomes matter?

  Picking up my phone, I called him.

  “Hello?”

  “Why haven’t you made it to the safe house?” The question came out accusatory, and I wanted to hate myself for it, but I was tired. So fucking tired.

  “Damian had a job for me to do. I’ll see you at the palace.” Bas hung up without another word.

  I sighed, and as tired as I felt, I knew I had to be alert at the palace. It’s an actual palace—the palace I grew up in, and if that wasn’t enough to be laced with shitty memories, the fact that most Sekt operatives would be there was enough to make it feel like hell.

  Once a year, we all locked ourselves together for a month. We shared all the essential information with each other and had a rundown of the who’s who of the world. That way, we all had the most up-to-date information. We performed physical and psychological tests—nothing but the best for the Sekt.

  We were one well-oiled machine.

  I brought one of my knees up to my chest and rested my chin upon it. Looking at Cam always reminded me of London, maybe now more than ever because of what I had done.

  Dawn would break soon, and I couldn’t stop staring at him. I sat on the chair by the bed, still wearing his shirt. I was used to functioning on little-to-no sleep. When you live with monsters, you learn that rest is a luxury you can’t afford to have, not when you might have eyes on you.

  Right now, my eyes were on Gideon. He was sleeping, and he looked—peaceful. Like he had no care in the world. Sometimes I forgot how young we really were because the weight of our lives made us wiser.

  My fingers itched to run them over his hair, trace all the tattoos, and ask him what they meant, but up until now, I had refrained. The less personal information we knew about each other, the better. It was always the little details that stayed inside your mind and stabbed at your heart. We were both better off without them. We had enough demons on our own to take on each other.

  When the screaming pierced the air, I smiled to myself as Gideon jumped off the bed naked with his gun in one hand, a blade in the other.

  It took him a second to realize I wasn’t in bed with him. When he saw me, his eyes lit up, the whiskey shining bright against the few sunrays that came through the window. As for my smile, it was long gone.

  “Petal,” he murmured affectionately.

  It angered me because for so long, I had wished my family would talk to me in that way, and now the only person who had done it was going to leave. I was going to force them to leave.

  “Thanks for your help,” I said as I stood up. “You need to leave now.”

  I picked up his shirt—the one I had worn until the last minute, the one I’d handwashed so the delicate fabric wouldn’t get ruined with the w
ashing machine—and I threw at him.

  “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” he spat at me.

  “You know the way out.” I walked away and didn’t look back at him. I waited at the top of the basement stairs with my ear pressed against the door, ignored the yelling, and waited until he left my cottage.

  It was better for him to hate me than get killed over me.

  Look how good that turned out. One way or another, death always found me. I walked to the bathroom and poured water on my face. It couldn’t be in vain, all the lives lost, all the blood. I was so close to taking it all, and for the ones I had to betray to get here, I had to make sure that at the end of it all, I was the one standing.

  Location: Chicago

  We had come to a building on lakeshore drive because to kill someone like Morozov, you needed someone else to make the heat go away and not tip over the precarious balance the underworld stood on.

  The plaque in the office read Estacado Enterprises.

  “Just because you’re wearing glasses doesn’t mean they won’t recognize you. Should I call you Clark?” I asked Bastian.

  He didn’t even tell me to shut up. We came to a halt in front of a desk where a cute receptionist stood guard before two wide red doors.

  “I need to speak with Mr. Estacado,” Bas informed the woman, who looked at us with an open mouth. “Now, sweetheart,” he barked when she didn’t move.

  Wordlessly, she nodded and went into the office.

  “We’re here to see Giovanny?”

  “No, we’re here to see his son.”

  Ah, yes. If my memory served me correctly, he was now the underboss, which was interesting because he was still very young.

  “Let’s go,” Bas said, clearly having had enough.

  I shrugged and followed after him as the receptionist was coming out. Her eyes widened as she saw us.

  “Yo-you c-can’t go in there.”

  Bas ignored her, and I smiled at her. “I suggest you take your break now, love. Make it a long one.”

  We barged through the office doors, and a man sat in the far corner, his back to the floor-to-ceiling windows that faced Chicago city.

  He was young, mid-twenties, tan skin, dark eyes. He wore a black dress shirt that was rolled to his forearms. Carmine Estacado held a pen in one of his hands. He stared us down as we walked into his office. His father had trained him well. He didn’t cower, looked surprised, or give away anything; instead, he leaned back on his seat.

  “Well, there’s a face I never thought I’d see again.” He looked at Bastian. “When Katia showed up dead, we all figured you would follow,” he said smugly, his voice deep but smooth. “Who are you?”

  Before I could answer, Bastian did. “He’s my boyfriend.”

  Carmine raised a brow but didn’t miss a beat. “I always thought Katia was too flat-chested; the only thing she had going for herself was a nice ass.”

  At that moment, I got it. Why Bas was the way he was. He wasn’t gay or bi, but like his bitch master, he learned to exploit sex in different ways. A lot of straight, homophobic men or men who said they didn’t care if you were gay tended to get rattled in the presence of two gay men. Bastian wanted to rattle Carmine, for Carmine was trying to disturb him by bringing up his sore subject.

  “Is there a reason you come to my city and barge into my office?”

  “My apologies, mate,” I smirked at him. “I wasn’t aware Chicago was renamed in your honor.”

  “We need all the information you have right now on Yoro. As you said, this is your city, so can you tell me where he’s at or where will he be today?” Bas demanded of him.

  Carmine smiled at us. “Now, why would I do that?”

  “Because I’m going to kill him,” I said, my voice with a lethal edge.

  “If it were that easy, he would have stopped being a problem a while ago, not that I know any of that. I’m just a businessman.”

  “And I’m just a British tourist.” I grinned.

  The reason Yoro was untouchable was that he had the Sekt at his back, but that changed the moment he double-crossed Damian.

  Before Carmine could speak, someone else walked into the office. “Did you piss off another of your secretaries?”

  Both Bas and I turned to look at the younger Estacado. He was tall but leaner, with sunken eyes and sharp cheekbones.

  “Do I know you?” He pointed at Bastian.

  “Carlo, you remember Kingsley, don’t you?”

  Carlo looked at me. “And who are you?”

  “His boyfriend,” Carmine said smugly.

  “You want to be rid of your Russian problem, give me the information I seek. As for the reason he was untouchable, it no longer applies.” Bas pulled a card from his jacket, throwing it on the desk.

  “What do we need you for?” he asked.

  “Because he touched something that wasn’t his, and the only way immunity will work is if I am the one to do it,” I told him, and contained my smirk when I saw some shock on his face.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Bas and I started to walk away, aware both brothers were looking at us. Just before I walked through the doors, I turned around and spoke.

  “If you’re wondering who bottoms…it’s him.” I pointed at Bas, who cursed me under his breath and watched Carmine roll his eyes at me.

  Once we were in the elevator, Bas and I started laughing. Two hours later, we had the information we needed.

  I’d thought about killing Yorovich many times since Chicago. I never acted on it because I thought it was Daphne’s right to get her revenge, but if she couldn’t do it, then I was more than happy to be the one to end his miserable life.

  Now we were eating some Portillo’s with cheese fries as we waited for Yoro to come to one of the warehouses he operated on the south side of Chicago. The location couldn’t have been more perfect. It was full of warehouses, some of them vacant, and the spaces remote.

  “It’s going to be a bloodbath,” I warned Bastian. It had been far too long since I let my demons run loose, and I was about to remove their leash.

  “I know.” He shrugged. “I know all about you, wolf. You like to play with your food, drive it insane, and then at the end, when you kill it, there’s no mercy.”

  My reputation preceded me, and for some, that was more than enough to be afraid of the mention of my name. As for Yoro, I hoped he didn’t have the first clue about me. Before the night was over, he would wish for the devil than for me.

  Dusk fell, and I saw the blinding lights of a car. Grabbing the binoculars that were next to my drinks, I brought them and smiled when I saw the license plate on the tinted car. It was one of Morozov’s cars.

  “Is it weird that I’m hard as fuck right now?” I said, running my hand over my stiffy.

  Bas snorted.

  “Oddly, I’m not surprised.”

  We both waited for Yorovich to get out of his car. My blood hummed with anticipation at seeing him, knowing I was about to end him. He was tall, with a rough face, strong jaw, and brusque nose. Everything about him screamed danger, and I almost came in my trousers, knowing I was going to fuck him up.

  “Show time,” Bas said as he drove to where Yoro had parked.

  When we passed side by side to Yoro’s car, I got out and opened the passenger door of Yoro’s car. The chauffeur had barely raised his gun at me when I grabbed the blade I carried and stabbed the side of his neck. Not once but three times, each sounding louder than the last. When I pulled the blade away, my chest was heaving, and I had specks of blood on my face.

  I opened the door and pulled the driver out as Bas quickly loaded him into the trunk of the car we had borrowed, and by borrowed, I mean stolen.

  Then he drove the car to the parking lot across the street. My heart was thumping loudly as I kept watch. Yorovich was just coming back out when Bastian was already at the side of the car. I had never been more grateful for tinted cars than I was at that moment. I pulled down the pa
ssenger window just a bit so I could hear the exchange.

  “Yoro, it’s been far too long,” Bas greeted.

  The Russian fucker halted his step for a second but seemed to be aloof.

  “I wasn’t aware we had a meeting.”

  Bas tapped the roof of the car. “We didn’t, but I have a message for you. And you know how Damian is, he doesn’t like to drag things out.”

  Right now, Bas was toying with Yoro because the fucker was guilty. He just wasn’t sure if Damian knew it or not.

  “What is so important that couldn’t wait?”

  “Daphne has displeased Damian, and he wishes to know how soon will you want her back in your services so he can prepare for her absence.”

  I white-knuckled the steering wheel, knowing it was all for show, but when I saw the smile on Yoro’s face, I wanted to go out and kill him right then and there.

  “Get that bitch on the first flight to the US,” Yoro replied with a sadistic grin.

  Bas tapped the roof twice. “Sweet, I’ll let Damian know right away.” He pretended to pull out his phone and make a call. I waited here for all of this to be done with; I just wanted to feel his blood on my skin already.

  “Mind taking me back to the city? I stole a car and don’t want to risk it.”

  Yoro extended his hand, telling him to get in. I grabbed the chloroform and a rag, soaking it and throwing it back as Bastian climbed in.

  Through the mirror, my eyes met Yoro’s, and I saw his widening as he noticed the blood on my cheek.

  “What is this?” he demanded.

  Bas was already cocking his gun.

  “Did you think we wouldn’t know?”

  I locked the doors and drove away as Bastian said that. I started to hum as they fought in the back, Bastian forcing Yoro to inhale.

  Tonight was going to be a good night.

  “When you told Damian you could kill freeballing, I didn’t think you were serious?” Bas teased from the chair he was seated on.

  I cut him with a glare as I finished removing my shirt. I stood in my jeans and boots, with an assortment of tools in a nearby chair at my disposal. My dick was still hard, my heart racing and blood pumping.