Kai’s smirk widens slowly, like he has been waiting for that exact moment to land, and he leans back against the wall again, lazy and smug and utterly infuriating. “I knew where Rafe was going,” he says, his eyes glittering with quiet satisfaction. “I didn’t know why.”
He tilts his head slightly, watching the panic unravel across my face. “Now I do.”
The motherfucker smirks.
20
RAFE
Four days have passed since I walked out of the compound—four days since I’ve touched him, four days since I watched him lose his goddamn mind without a hit, without my mouth, without the sound of tape ripping off the roll—and now I’m out here rotting in a car that smells like fast food and rage beside a man who could kill a room full of people with a pen and still ask where the fuck his coffee is.
Julian’s still in my hoodie. I know that because I check the feeds. I’ve seen him sniff it, cry into it, come into it, and every time I replay the footage I feel like something inside me is going to snap—not just because it turns me on, though it absolutely does, but because I have never wanted anything the way I want that little fucker under me, screaming into my hand while I ruin him.
And I haven’t even fucked him yet.
That’s the part that kills me. I haven’t even had him, and somehow he already feels lodged under my ribs like a splinter I can’t dig out, chewing through my lungs and clawing his name into the soft meat of my brain.
So yeah, I’m tense. And that tension spikes the second I see Nathan Grant. Former captain of the Toronto Vultures. Husband. Father. Public hero. Private parasite.
I watch him step out of the coffee shop like he doesn’t have a death sentence walking quietly behind him, his hair shorter now—maybe dyed—but the face unmistakably the same. The same jawline Julian used to kiss. The same smug curve of his mouth thatappears at the end of the tape, the one I’ve watched in slow motion, frame by frame, trying to pinpoint the exact second he decided to sell Julian out.
“He’s pretty,” Misha comments around a straw while sipping some sugar-coated iced shit that makes me want to commit crimes.
“Pretty dead,” I growl, my voice low and dangerous as I struggle to keep it steady. I want this finished. I want to go home. I want to drag Julian into my lap and tell him it’s over, that the man who used him is fucking gone, and I want to wipe the past off his body with my mouth.
But mostly—God help me—I want to fuck him hard and brutal, with my hands around his throat and my name burning itself behind his eyes.
Misha chuckles like he knows what’s running through my head, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what Nathan did, doesn’t know about the blackmail, the tape, the wreckage Nathan left behind. Only Kai knows now, because that bastard dragged the truth out of Julian while he was tied down and bleeding it out like poison. Misha, meanwhile, just keeps sipping his drink like we’re watching a movie.
Nathan heads into the motel without looking back. He doesn’t look over his shoulder when he unlocks the shitty motel door. That’s the first sign he’s gotten too used to being untouchable—men who know they’re prey always look back. Men who know someone’s coming for them don’t stroll into a room with a paper cup of coffee like the world owes them safety. He walks in humming under his breath, flicks on the light, drops his keys on the table. And that’s when Misha pushes the door wider with one big palm, silent as sin, and I step in after him.
Nathan doesn’t notice until Misha slams the door behind us so hard the cheap artwork rattles. The sound makes him jump like a kicked dog; he whips around so fast the coffee spills down his sleeve. His eyes hit mine, and he freezes. And for a single, pathetic moment—I can see it. The recognition. The twitch of fear. Then ego kicks in, like it always does with men like him. Like he believes the world is built to cushion his fall.
“What the hell?! Who the fuck are you?” he shrieks, voice cracking up an octave I didn’t think a grown man could hit. Jesus. Julian is braver while bleeding out on the ice.
“Sit down,” I growl.
If he’d been smart, he’d have obeyed. If he’d been cautious, he’d have stalled. But Nathan Grant has spent his whole life cushioned by PR teams and NHL lawyers and a wife too kind to leave him. So he lunges toward me, like he thinks he can shoulder past a man built out of bone fractures and regret.
I don’t even shift my stance. I just let my arm fly and my hand connects with his face so hard the crack echoes off the thin walls. His head whips sideways, body following, and he collapses onto the floor like wet paper. His coffee hits the carpet first. He hits it second.
Pathetic.
I’ve seen Julian in withdrawal, shaking so hard his teeth chatter, still stand taller than this man does right now. I’ve seen Julian bleeding, drug-starved, screaming threats that would make god lean in. Nathan can’t even take a slap without curling.
I crouch, grab his hair, yank his head back, and tear a strip of black tape off the roll I always carry. His eyes widen, but he can’t form a word before I slap the tape across his mouth, sealing the panic in his throat. Then I drag him upright—he weighs less than I expected—and shove him into the motel chair, binding his wrists to the armrests, ankles to the legs.
He tries to yell something through the tape—some garbled attempt at authority or innocence or negotiation. I don’t give a shit.
“Ready to pay for your sins, Mr. Grant?” I murmur, leaning down. “You’ve got a long list. And I’ve had four days to memorize it.”
Behind me, I hear the soft creak of springs—Misha drops onto one of the motel beds like he’s settling in for a show. He kicks off his boots, crosses his legs, and starts spinning his gun around his finger, whistling off-key.
Nathan writhes in the chair, breath coming in fast, terrified bursts, his hair sticks to his forehead, sweat beads along his brow. He feels it now—finally—that he’s not walking out.
I lean close enough that he can smell the smoke on my jacket. Close enough that he understands he’s not dying because he’s unlucky—He’s dying because he fucked with someone I should never want, but do anyway. “You touched something that wasn’t yours,” I whisper. “And now I’m here to break you the way you broke him.”
Misha chuckles softly behind me, low and appreciative. “Boss means business tonight,” he mutters.
