Page 54

Her fingers curled, and I grinned. I wondered how much effort it was taking to mask her frustration with me. Her hatred. I enjoyed toying with her—how her skin flushed as she slowly simmered.

As I predicted, she finally snapped.

Sutton stood with a curled lip, abandoning her drink. “We had a deal. I’m cooperating. If you don’t know his name, just⁠—”

Her words cut short as I tugged her to me, turning her by the waist so she faced the entire club to observe. Even seated, I towered over her body—small, delicate, and too fucking perfect. Sutton trembled, but I knew she wasn’t frightened.

She was furious.

“Do you see these people?” I asked, and curled around her shoulders to gesture toward the crowd. “I know every person who walks through my doors. I have the power to give them exactly what they want, but I also have the power to ruin them. I know who’s cheating on their wives, who’s hiding bastard children, and even those gambling with money they don’t have. More importantly, I know what happens when they can’t pay.”

She said nothing, only looked around with heavy breaths.

“I know who your stalker is,” I continued, “but I won’t be giving you his name—not until you tell me what my father has on you.”

She faced me, slow and careful, with barely an inch between our bodies. So close that the scent of her perfume filled my nostrils and I inhaled like a dying man. Her hazel eyes shone with absolute rage as she glared up at me.

It wasn’t the kind of fury most would expect from someone not getting their way. No, this was a kind that encompassed dark souls and stole time. It settled in her stare like retribution for a promise unkept. She almost looked as if she wanted to murder me, and I held back a grin.

Sutton was too beautiful to be real.

“I did what was expected of me,” she said slowly. “Now give me a name. It’s what we agreed on.”

I settled my hand right below her jaw and squeezed until breath tangled in her throat. Her lip curled, but she didn’t fight me. Others' attention began to shift toward us, but at this point, I didn’t care. In fact, I knew no one dared approach me, even if she was in my grasp. Most people in our club turned a blind eye.

But gone was the fear from when I’d kidnapped her, replaced with a blazing inferno of hatred. Good. She needed to hate me.

“Your first mistake was trusting me,” I said.

Sutton chuckled, low and disbelieving and a sound that had my blood running hot. Yet the longer I gripped her throat, the more I wanted to crash my lips against hers. It should have shocked me, that tug-of-war of wanting to devour every inch of her mouth, but it was all I could think about as the days went on.

“You know what,” she whispered with narrowed eyes. “Maybe we do have some things in common. We both have fathers who don’t give a fuck about either of us, and mothers who get fucked over and over by the men in their lives. Looks like we⁠—”

I shot to my feet with a curled lip, forcing her back a few steps. The music died in my head, overtaken by a low buzzing between my ears. I shook from snapped control, my hand trembling on her neck. Rage and pain and pressure.

So much fucking pressure.

It returned to my chest with fierce intensity, and I blinked hard, willing myself to leash it. And yet the need to snuff the air from her lungs blazed through me.

Still, Sutton held my stare with conviction.

Out of the corner of my eye, Axell and Vince moved closer. Even though lingering guests shot wary glances toward us, their whispers rising with the music, I couldn’t let her go. Memories I wanted to forget, and emotions I’d swallowed for so long stole my air as they shot to the surface.

I wanted to drown. To disappear. I wanted to throw myself off the nearest building for any semblance of relief to the ache in my chest. But Sutton clamped her jaw and stood there with an admirable amount of confidence. She didn’t fear me. Not in the way I wanted, at least.

A sharp exhale escaped my nose, and I shut my eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you, Sutton, but say another word and I’ll rip your tongue right out of your mouth.”

She needed to believe it. She needed to be scared.

“Manic,” Axell clipped.

He broke me from the violent trance threatening to pull me under by tugging on Sutton's arm. I held firm, even as my breaths sped up and darkness blanketed my mind.

The impulsive urge to squeeze tighter.

When I finally opened my eyes, a small, knowing smirk pulled at her mouth, but with it was a softness I wasn’t accustomed to seeing. Like she understood what I was dealing with. Regardless of that violent urge, the pounding of my pulse dulled to a quiet thud beneath my ribs the longer I stared at her. Studied her.

It was like looking in a mirror where all my dark truths stared back at me—grief and heartache I hadn’t fully dealt with. Emotions I’d buried. But time had already locked into place, and it was a clock I refused to reverse.