AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Good. Good. I regret waiting so long. If I had introduced myself sooner, you wouldn’t have left with Noah. Wouldn’t have let himtouchyou.” His words grow in volume, each one filling with more and more venom. “I could tell you didn’t want him that way. He’s forced you to be with him and to fear me! You can admit that to me, Tiny. I’ll always believe you. It’s why I tried to get rid of him! Nobody else believed you when you told them that!”
Pain surges through my chest. I see the man who dug that knife into the man that I love. Who tried to snuff the light out of his eyes and take him from me. Nobody is allowed to take Noah from me.Nobody.
“You’re right. He did. I’m so grateful for you.” I taste the bile in my throat. Each word burns. Lie after lie after lie. “He was standing in the way of us.”
His head nods frantically in agreement, a manic, proud smile stretching across his face. The space that separates us vanishes when he pulls me against him, taking my shiver of repulsion for one of desire. He groans in my ear, drawing in a deep breath of my scent.
“Even the smell of your cunt can’t come close to the way you smell right now. I can’t get enough.”
The mask I wear threatens to shatter under the weight of my fury. I close my eyes, allowing him to believe he has power over me. His cold fingers trace my waist and move downward, his heated breath assaulting my face.
Tension coils within me when he presses his crotch to my middle and his hard dick grinds into me, but I steady myself. He doesn’t truly have any power over me. I’m stronger than him, smarter too. I’m in this position because I’m allowing it. Every single one of his rough touches is happening in an attempt to give him a false sense of safety. To avoid even the slightest possibility that he could escape us and continue to terrorize everyone that steps foot in his path.
Had he not evaded Alec for so long, I wouldn’t have been so concerned with him slipping past us. But his unpredictability makes him dangerous.
I swallow and set my hands on his hips. He digs his groin into me harder and exhales a pleasured noise when he notices my touch, but I shove that into a locked box in my mind, never to be revisited again. Dragging my fingers over the front of his dirty jeans in search of a weapon before doing the same to his back side, I stumble over the hard object in his back left pocket. A knife like the one that hurt Noah, I assume.
Something white-hot tears through my chest and paints my vision red.Pain. It’s a pain so deep and powerful the world around me blurs into a distant, hazy backdrop. I have no choice but to surrender to it as I gasp for a relief that seems agonizingly out of reach.
Feeling the ridges of the same object responsible for Noah’s injury is enough to have me tearing the invisible mask from my face. Cole’s oblivious to my search while grinding into me, desire blocking his senses. I’m grateful for that.
In one quick movement, I pull the switchblade from his pocket and flick it open, taking in the mix of shock and betrayal that morphs his features when I press the tip to his side and push it in just enough to pierce the skin.
“Fuck!” he howls. His first instinct is to push away from me, and I let him, watching as he stumbles backward half a step, his jaw gaping as adrenaline tells him he’s okay, but the cold burn surrounding the blade does the opposite.
The weak punch to my jaw comes faster than I anticipated as I push the blade deeper into his side and thrust my hand upward, tearing through his muscle the way he did Noah’s. Warm, sticky blood flows over my fingers. I pull the knife out of his side and push my body back, managing to dodge his next hit.
“Why would you do that?” he cries, diverting his attention to where he’s bleeding and pressing his palm against the wet material of his shirt.
“Why?” I choke out, my voice dripping with venom. My grip on the knife handle is weak, his blood making it slippery. “You are a delusional, crazy bastard! There is something so, so wrong with you. I’d never want anything to do with you, you psychopath. I want you dead for what you did to Noah. That wound is only a small taste of what we’re going to do to you tonight.”
For the first time in my entire life, I think I feel true, undiluted fear when his hurt morphs into something dark. I stagger back and find myself enveloped in an overwhelming sense of dread. He seems to forget about the pain he’s in and instead focuses on the pain he wishes to bring me for this display of rejection.
On reflex, I duck to the right when his fingers flex and he shoots a hand in my direction. My jaw still throbs from his hit earlier, even if it was a weak one. The wound in his left side is dripping blood onto the cement, but it’s not enough for me. I want it gushing, draining his veins.
“You have to make everything so hard, Tinsley,” he chastises me, following each step back I take with one forward.
“I didn’t do anything. You did. You did all of this. I know what you did to my mom. Know that my dad beat your ass in an alleyway because of it. You were supposed to leave, but instead, you fixated on me. A child!”
Disgust fills his eyes, turning them a wicked blue. “I didn’t want you as a child. That came after, once I saw the woman you became with age. Your mother was nothing more than a mule carrying you for me. I see that now. We’re meant to be together. Why can’tyousee that?”
The door is still shut behind him. Noah’s absence is a distraction. He should be here by now, seeking retribution for the damage this man has caused the both of us.
I hold the knife in front of my chest, somewhere Cole can’t help but notice it. “No. We’re not. You’re nothing more than a low-life creep who gets off on watching from the shadows, but today, that ends.”
“It doesn’t end when you say it does, Tinsley. That’s not your decision to make,” he growls.
My laugh is bitter. “I’m not alone in wanting you gone, Cole.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You shouldn’t have touched Noah. Not only did you do a terrible job of keeping him from me, but you drew the attention of someone who’s been looking for you for a long while now.” I pin him beneath a brave glare and watch as he digs into my words, digesting them. “You think you know me, but you don’t. Not even in the slightest. If you did, you’d know that I’d do anything for Noah and that he’d do anything for me. You can’t keep us apart, even in death. But now . . . you’re going to pay for the damage you’ve caused.”
Cole curls his lip and darts his hand out in front of him in an attempt to grab my face. His nails sink into my chin before I dart out of the way. He’s too slow, his adrenaline beginning to lull. With a wince, he blinks hard and sways on his feet.
“You’re meant for me!” he bellows, his voice wavering as it echoes through the gym. So absorbed in his emotions, he fails to notice the door flinging open, and two tall figures stalk inside. My stomach soars at the sight of Noah. “Iwillhave you. Everything I’ve done has to be worth it!”
Noah’s voice is low and chilling. “The only thing you’ll have when I’m finished with you is my name on your bloody lips, Cole.” He approaches us, each step deliberate and commanding.
