Page 143 of Beautiful Scars

But Kill’s not a mind reader. What he hears must sound like the verge of a hysterical breakdown. He pulls back, cupping my face in his hands. “What?” he demands, eyes narrowing.

I can peach him, but it didn’t work the last time I tried, and he doesn’t ever give a fuck whether I want him inside me or not. “My curlers,” I say through a dramatic whimper. “It really fucking hurts.”

He grabs my waist and props me up against his headboard like a toy doll. Then he sits back on his heels and studies me for a moment as his chest rises and falls. “Then take them out.”

“But—”

He reaches for me, and I hold up my hands. They’re trembling—but not with fear.

God, he can make me angry. But I do as he says, because I know how this ends. How it willalwaysend.

Cillian Hendry always gets his way. Whether it’s fucking me, doing a drug deal, or bribing a high-level politician to abort new legislation, the world runs how Kill wants it to run. And that pisses me off. Because I’ve always just had to go with the flow, even when I could see I was headed for a waterfall.

The last curler is barely out before Kill lunges at me. Somehow I manage to get my legs up, and he crashes into my feet.

I kick, channeling all my rage, all my frustration behind it.

There’s the sweetest moment when his eyes go wide and his lips part, and then he’s toppling off the side of the bed. The crash he makes when he hits the ground is both terrifying and exhilarating, and it gives me the rush of adrenaline I need to leap off the bed and flee, my bridesmaid dress flapping around my chest until I manage to shove my arms through the sleeves again.

I make it into the hall before he catches me. One minute I’m running, the next I’m falling. My breath whooshes out of me as he bears me to the ground, but I’m scrambling up a second later.

For some reason, the odds are in my favor. And I have no idea why until I remember that he’s been drinking. Heavily, taking into account the faint slur I’d heard earlier.

Sadly, it makes our chase through his mansion less magical. I’m no longer darting around like a light-footed deer hunted by a grizzly bear. Instead, I’m just crashing less into the wall than he is because me and Sarah never got to that third bottle of champagne.

I almost tumble the last few steps, but I manage to get my feet under me and charge into the kitchen. Convinced he’s right behind me, I grab a chef’s knife from the wooden block and spin around, holding it overhead.

Kill emerges into the kitchen a second later, nostrils flaring and hands in fists. He slams one of those fists into the fridge, denting the door. “Put it down,” he rumbles.

“Not a fucking chance,” I say through my teeth. Somewhere on the way down here, I made up my mind about a few things.

Sarah? She lives in some kind of la-la land where men who hit her love her deeply, and Kill’s apparently head over heels for me.

Lies and bullshit.

Cillian takes a step forward and I lift the knife a little higher. I even manage to get my hand to stop shaking.

“I’m leaving,” I say, and then point at him. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

His body loses some of its rigidity, as if he’s deflating. Doesn’t make him any less scary though. In fact, now that there’s a crafty, calculating look in his eyes, he looks a lot more like Cole than I’d thought possible.

Just my imagination.

But I can’t shake the feeling that somehow, they’ve swapped places. That this beast of a man, who turns to face me as I edge my way around the kitchen, keeping the granite island between us as a kind of buffer, is in fact his psychotic twin brother.

“Stay,” I murmur, when it looks like he wants to dart around the counter and make a grab for me.

“Heel, stay,” he shoots back. “Want me to beg next?”

“If you want. But it won’t change a thing.” My heart’s pounding in my chest as I step backward, trying to remember the house’s layout so I don’t bump into anything. Because that’s all it will take, and I know it. If I lose focus for even a second, he’ll be the one with the knife.

We make it all the way to the living room. In fact, I almost make it to the front door. But then curiosity gets the better of me.

“Early night,” I tell him. I’m pretty sure it hasn’t even passed eleven yet, but I could be off by an hour or so. “Let me guess. The stripper didn’t put up enough of a fight for your liking?”

“I didn’t stay for the show.”

I quirk an eyebrow at him, and bring the knife down a little so it’s aimed right at his heart. If he wants to get at me, he’ll have to go through the blade first. “I guess you couldn’t give a shit if you waste money or not.”