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Maybe I’ll just do something really stupid against The Order and get myself killed. It’s surely the best thing I could do for Sirenna. Freeing her of the monster forever ravenous for her.
Yet, instead of crossing the threshold as quickly as possible so she doesn’t have to put up with my closeness for too long, she stops. Her scent of wild lilies mingles with the coppery tang of blood, and my insides twist. She’ll hate me forever for what I put her through.
She looks up at me slowly, taking her time as her eyes rake a path up my frame. When they finally land on my face, it’s like she sees me for the first time. Then her mouth opens, just as slowly, as if she were having some kind of revelation. But whatever she wanted to say dies on her lips.
CHAPTER VIII
Sirenna
I’m in love with a murderer. One that enjoys torturing his victims.
It shouldn’t matter that he goes for people like those who hurt him. For bad people. That doesn’t mean anything when he blows a guy’s brains out right in front of my fucking face. My mind is stuck replaying that scene, relieving that dreadful moment.
The whole way to Rose Tower I keep rubbing my arms, unable to get rid of the sensation crawling up my skin. I know that the brain doesn’t feel any pain, but I swear to fuck, mine is about to crack inside my skull. I’m shaking uncontrollably, my hair caked with blood as I lean it against the window.
I can feel Zayne’s eyes fixed on me, though he doesn’t utter a word. What could he possibly say? This changes everything between us. I can’t look at him, and it’s not even because of what he did. It’s because I’m afraid that if I do look at him, my heart will still break. I’ll start thinking of justifications, trying to persuade myself that things aren’t that bad. That he’s not that bad, even though there’s a man riding in the same car with us who’s barely holding on to his life.
Boris Petrenko, whom I’ve known ever since I met Joseph, is bleeding heavily into the bandages wrapped around his arm. His penis has been bandaged too, and there are red stains on the white wrappings as well. His sweaty hair glued to his forehead, he’s barely still keeping his eyes open. But staying conscious is the only way to stay alive, and the human body being the incredible machine it is, gives him unnatural strength.
My mind flies immediately to the man next to him, of course, his powerful legs apart, framing mine. The scars on his body come to my mind like scenes from a tragic play. How often did he feel his skin come off his body and gritted his teeth through it to defy the boys who tortured him for fun? Was fantasizing about the day he would deliver gruesome punishment what kept him going?
The desire to dive into his pain and his motives tugs at my heart, but that is the fucking wrong thing to do. It hasn’t even been half an hour since he shot a man in the face, his brains and blood landing all over me. And part of me knows that he would have kept torturing Boris and Laredo even if they would have agreed to give him–or me–everything they owned in a heartbeat. He enjoyed doing it, I saw it in his eyes. He relished watching them taste their own poison.
Because it’s poison that these two bastards spread into the world, and I know that better than most people. They’re cruel like few humans are, especially when they never experienced the same barbarity they apply to others. That Laredo takes pleasure in killing the women he fucks–or has fuck him–is only one of the ways he enjoys making people suffer. He gets a kick out of killing his enemies in front of their families. As for Boris? I heard that he gets a kick from watching people die and even hard-ons from seeing them grapple for their lives. I don’t want to imagine how long he kept that skinny man locked up without food or water before he enacted his kink with him today.
By Joseph’s side, I discovered a world of evil that I swore to take down or die trying–the last variant being the most likely. But I never thought I’d fall in love with the greatest villain of them all. If anyone had told me the day I decided to turn to Zayne Thorngren for help that I’d end up head over heels for him, I would have laughed in their faces. And right now, I wish I could rip my heart out of my chest for still tugging me toward him.
“You need to get away from him ASAP,” an imaginary Mia says in my head, and she’s right.
This might actually be my one chance to escape him. After all, with Boris and Laredo in his power, there’s no one out there to hunt me down anymore. Ricky and Lorenzo wouldn’t risk getting within a mile of me without their orders, especially knowing I’m under Zayne’s protection. And I’m sure he would keep protecting me even if I ran away from him.
We walk inside Rose Tower, our steps echoing against the floor. Slowing down, I turn to Zayne, who has been trailing after me, dragging Boris by his arm while two of his men carry a half-unconscious Laredo, his arms draped over their shoulders.
I look Zayne in the face for the first time since we walked out of that basement, and the intense look in those blue eyes hits me like a shock wave. Not only because of the hellish emotions that are obviously wrestling inside of him but especially because of that strange feeling of recognition that keeps nagging at me. It started with that spark when we first met, but during these past few days, it’s been growing. Something like a low rumble deep within the earth has been rolling upward, like a rumble of tectonic plates, before they finally crack, and an earthquake ensues.
My eyes dart from Zayne to Boris and back again.
