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“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Cara glared at me as she lifted Maddie down from the cross. “She was obviously manipulated, Emrick. Please.”
Maddie dry heaved before dissolving into dramatic sobs, gripping onto Cara in a way that made my blood boil, watching her traitorous hands grab onto Cara’s shoulders, snagging on the loose tendrils of her hair that had fallen from her ponytail.
“I won’t do it again, I swear,” Maddie pleaded before having the nerve to turn to me. She was unable to hold my eye contact for long as I stared her down, the gun still warm in my hand. Cara may believe her bullshit, but I didn’t. “Please, Emrick, I don’t know who hired me, and I won’t do it again… please.”
“Leave.” I grunted out the word.
“What?” Maddie sobbed.
“Leave. I can’t let you stay here, not now.” When she went to argue, I growled at her. “You’re lucky I’m not fucking killing you, bitch.” Crossing the room, I snatched at what was left of her clothes. “I should be torturing the answer out of you. So, you leave, or we’ll start playing roulette again.”
She heaved through another dry sob, an act I wasn’t buying at all, before racing past me. I could hear her fighting with the lock, trying to get out while I stared hard at Cara, who hadn’t moved, pinned under my gaze.
When the door closed behind Maddie, Cara opened her mouth to speak. “Shut it.” Even though she closed her mouth, her jaw tightened against the urge to argue with me. “Don’t youeverinterfere with my business again.”
“She’s my friend.”
“I don’tcare.She stole from me, and she had information.”
“She didn’t know anything!”
“You don’t know that!” I roared at her.
“IknowMaddie. I’ve known her forever, and if she said she didn’t know anything, she didn’tknowanything. Please, you did the right thing.”
There it was, the tiniest flicker of doubt across her perfect features. Was it doubt in me or doubt in herfriend?
“You keep saying that. Who are you trying to convince there’s something worth saving in me? Because I already know the answer you seem to be in denial about.”
“There is good in you.”
But her voice was small as though her conviction was fading. She was blinking up at me, so close her breasts brushed against my chest. She was aroused, the fabric of her dress doing nothing to hide her hardening nipples, tight little sensitive buds that would make her scream if I sunk my teeth into them. Those wide, innocent eyes, eyes she claimed hid darkness of their own, but I had yet to see real evidence of that beyond a feeling I had about her. All she had tried to do was change who I was to fit some misguided image she had built up in her head.
Worse, she was interfering with my business now. Twice she had made me act in a way I shouldn’t, to give people second chances when they had done nothing to prove they deserved it.
Maybe she needed a reminder of who I really was.
When I swept a hand over the back of her neck, her lips pouted, expecting a kiss that never came. I had made a mistake kissing her, but this wasn’t about that anymore. The softness she had brought out inside me needed to be stamped downhard.
If I were to bring my business back into line, I needed to get Cara out of my system.
My lips met her neck, licking and biting at her skin as she groaned. Before she could lift her hands to touch me, I stepped away.
“Take your clothes off,” I snapped.
“What?” she asked, having the nerve to look incredulous at my demand.
“You heard me, take off your clothes.”
“Why?”
Her tone was somewhere between defiance, arousal, and confusion, and her facial features reflected the mixture of conflicting emotions. I had pushed her away, and here I was telling her to strip for me, and I didn’t give a damn she was confused. I had tried to do theright thingby getting her away from me, and she kept forcing herself back into my life.
If she was so damn sure she understood my darkness and she wanted it, then I’d give it to her.
“Because you need to be taught a lesson for continuing to interfere…” I whispered, grabbing her face and squeezing her cheeks together, forcing her lips to pout, “… and because you seem to want me, darkness and all, so I’ll give it to you.”
