I’m about to type that, but he continues, “You’re nothing more than a cunt that he could get in the hundreds if he as much as wants to. What’s so special about yours?”
The audacity of this motherfucker. You messed with the wrong person today of all days.
But before I can type a few choice words, he steps into my space, trapping me against the wall of an old closed pub.
“You’re distracting him from what’s important, and we can’t have that. Without Landon plotting mayhem, our club won’t survive.”
That’s a good thing, if you ask me.
But preppy boy Rory doesn’t seem to agree, because his eyes narrow on me in their bloodshot glory. “If you’re gone from the picture, everything will go back to the way it’s supposed to be.”
I type with jerky movements, then show him. “You sure you want to hurt me? One, your balls will be in jeopardy because they’ll be brutalized by yours truly. Two, Landon won’t take kindly to that.”
“Who said anything about hurting you?” A knowing smirk lifts his lips, completely unhinged and entirely evil. “Violence is never really the answer when something a lot tamer will make a better impact. See, Lan might dote on you, but you are and will always be just a phase, and I’ve figured out exactly how to end his irrational fascination. Do you know the one thing Lan doesn’t care for? No? Let me enlighten you, then. He completely loses interest in soiled goods.”
I’m still processing his words when he leans in, pushes my pigtails to the side, and sucks on my neck like a disgusting hyena.
I shove at him, but he’s surprisingly strong for someone who’s made of bones.
So I lift my knee and hit him as hard as I can.
His howl rings in the air as he falls back. I immediately slap a hand on where his lips touched my neck. Judging by how much it aches, the bastard got me good.
He comes back, face red and fist raised in the air, but before he can attack me, my bodyguard immobilizes him and throws him on the cobbled street.
Rory falls on his ass but quickly stands up, snarls at me with the animosity of an unruly animal, then runs away.
My bodyguard inspects me. “Are you okay, miss?”
I nod, still clutching my neck. For some reason, I don’t want anyone to see what the asshole has done.
“Do you need me to go after him and break his legs?” my bodyguard asks.
I shake my head and sign, “I already brutalized his balls as I previously promised. Just drive me home.”
Any desire for a walk has completely disappeared. I just need to hide this stupid mark first.
We ride to my apartment in eternal silence.
I pull up Landon’s texts and type a few of my own.
Maya is just being a little shit. Never mind her. Like you and Bran, we’ve always been overprotective of each other.
You’re right. Fuck the forbidden love concept.
Also, what Rory said just now was a lie. You know that, right?
I delete each and every one of them. I sound guilty when I did nothing wrong.
Instead, I type.
About that statue you made for my birthday, I think I’m ready to see it now.
I stare at my phone for the rest of the journey, but there’s still no reply.
My shoulders drop as I exit the car and get inside the apartment, still having a glaring competition with my phone.
He hasn’t even read it.
Don’t tell me he really believed what Rory said. Worse, was Rory right and Landon loses all interest in soiled good, as he so disgustingly put it?
“Where were you?”
I startle at Maya’s uncharacteristically monotone voice. She’s been waiting by the corner, in darkness, I now realize. All the curtains and blinds are pulled.
After I slide the phone into my pocket, I hit the light switch and sign, “I just got back from class.”
She releases a shaky breath and inspects me like Mom would. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. You’re being weird.”
Her brows knit together as she looks at my neck. “Was that Landon?”
I shake my head. “Some other asshole who has a death wish. Speaking of Landon, why did you pretend to be me? We agreed you wouldn’t do that again after you tried to vet everyone who had an interest in me during high school.”
“Well, they clearly didn’t deserve you since they couldn’t even tell us apart.”
“But Landon did.”
She makes a face. “He’s so perceptive, it’s annoying. Apparently, we don’t have the same eyes. He figured me out from the beginning and pretended he didn’t, just to see what I was up to.”
I smile to myself. That sounds like something Landon would do. He’s such a manipulative asshole, it’s attractive at times.
Only at times, though.
“Why are you smiling like some proud girlfriend? He’s still bad news, Mia.”
“Maybe I’ve always wanted bad news,” I sign. “You know I never liked all the nice boys at school and found the bad boys too shallow. Landon is neither and maybe I like that. As long as he doesn’t hurt my family, I’m ready to see where this goes.”
“You’re…serious.”
“Yeah. I like him, Maya.”
“Ugh. Of all people it had to be him?”
“It’s because it’s him that I like him. I can tell him things and not feel judged.”
“Things like what? You…can’t possibly have told him about the kidnapping, right?”
“Well, not all of it.” But certainly more than she knows, which I feel bad about.
“You can’t possibly trust him, Mia. Besides, Niko will be pissed.”
“Niko has no right to control my love life. Landon already announced a truce that he’s been keeping despite his destructive instinct. So maybe Niko and the others should do the same.”
“You and I know that’s not how it works.” She rubs my arm. “Just…be careful, okay? You know I’m here for you, right?”
“Always.”
She nods, then retreats to her room and closes the door. I hear her talking on the phone, something about wanting to see someone, but I don’t linger around to eavesdrop.
I think she has a new relationship going on, and I have a most probable suspect, but I’ll let her be until she lets me know herself.
I go to my room and gasp when I see the large hickey on my neck.
Fucking Rory will have more than his balls brutalized the next time I see him.
I apply foundation, but the angry purple is still visible, so I put on a choker, but even that doesn’t hide it.
As a last resort, I put on a scarf that’s so against my usual fashion choices, but at least it hides the atrocity.
Again, I check my phone, but there’s still no reply from Landon.
You know what? I don’t need his permission to go and see a statue that’s supposed to be my birthday present.
I’m going back to where everything started on my own.
LANDON
There are times when the beast becomes so loud, I have no choice but to let him and his demon minions come out to play.
Sometimes, a mere disruption of other people’s lives is enough. Other times, that doesn’t cut it and there needs to be full-on anarchy. Perhaps arson here, destruction there, and burying seeds of chaos everywhere.
At this moment, however, my beast is not in the mood for small-time felonies. No. It’s not about satiating its urges and sending it back into hibernation.
This is about making someone pay.
In blood.
With his fucking life.
He dared to not only look in the direction of what’s fucking mine, but to also touch her. Fucking. Touch. Her.
If there’s any time I refuse to put my beast on a leash, this is it. In fact, on my way here, I smashed the shackles that kept him in place, so he’s out in his full glory.
I’ve been patiently waiting for the fucking bastard who’s living on borrowed time by the corner opposite his flat on the tenth floor of an old building. I don’t get agitated, don’t pace, and I certainly don’t lose my cool. The rage that rushes through my veins doesn’t turn me irrational; it turns me deadly calm.
Calculatively murderous.
I’ve always had impeccable control over my emotions and have never displayed strong ones. In fact, I looked down on the peasants who allowed their distorted feelings to guide their decisions.
Having lived my life preying on other people’s sentimental rubbish, I’ve perfected the art of never allowing them to use mine.
My target appears at the top of the staircase, walking to his flat with nonchalance and looking so happy with himself. Rory has always been a spoiled brat with nothing in his head but drugs and the immense need to seem more grandiose than his rat-like presence.
The reason I’ve kept him close is because he belongs to my circle and is a useful pawn. But that ended the moment he dared to do the unthinkable.
I wait for him until he’s close, my body humming with thoughts about snapping his neck. But that’s too little of a punishment. Death is a peace that I won’t allow him for the foreseeable future.
The moment he’s near the fire escape staircase, I stalk out from my hideout at the corner and slam my body against his from behind. He loses balance and releases a surprised noise, but he turns around, his sunglasses fall and smash to the ground, and I’m met with his hideously bloodshot eyes.
“What the fuck—”
His words end on an oomph as I grab him by the collar, push him against the metal railing, and slam my fist into his nose. Pain explodes in my knuckles, but I do it again and again.
Rory’s face swings left, then right, then left again under my powerful blows, but he manages to spit out, “Is this about my little visit to your flavor of the week?”
My Mia is everything but the flavor of the week, but I don’t tell him that.
“I knew you were daft, but I didn’t think you’d be this daft, Rory.” I kick his shins and he falls on his knees so that he has to look up at me as if I’m his god. At this moment, I might as well be. “You of all people should know by now that I can destroy you and your entire fucking family if you get in my way. Aside from the information I have on you, I can gather more dirt and figure out weaknesses that you have no idea existed, and I would use them one by each one to ruin you until I make you go bloody insane.”
I punch him again and blood explodes in his split lip and drips on his T-shirt and the floor. Rory snarls with bloodied teeth like an injured animal. “You should’ve kept your part of the deal and stopped ignoring us like we were an afterthought.”
“News flash, motherfucker. You are an afterthought. In fact, you’re so fucking useless that I forget you exist sometimes. The Elites is a club I started for my own entertainment and every one of you is a fucking pawn on my chessboard, so when I tell you to jump, you ask how high. When I tell you to throw yourself down a well, you do that with eyes wide open, like you’ve been doing all along.”
“You fucking…” He starts to stand up, but with my merciless grip on him, he only manages to make it halfway. “You said we were partners.”
“And you believed it? But then again, you were never that bright, were you, Rory?”
“I was bright enough to make your girl’s acquaintance. She was soft and delicate. I can see why you’re so obsessed with her.”
Blind rage rushes to my head and I lift him up, then wrap my hands around his neck and push him back against the railing so that he’s hanging halfway outside. “You don’t seem to have any self-preservation neurons in your barren brain, so I’ll make your suicidal wishes come true.”
His fingers claw at my hands with frantic, desperate movements, but they do nothing to make me loosen my grip. If anything, I tighten my fingers incrementally. First, he gasps and chokes on nonexistent breaths. Then, his face transforms to a deep red, his bloodied lips turning blue.
I can feel the dire gurgles of his last breaths beneath my fingers as his body fights for a chance to live.
Kill him.
Finish his miserable life for daring to touch what’s yours.
The voices grow in intensity, clashing and mounting until they’re all I can hear.
But I ignore and loosen my hold on Rory’s neck. Death is still too good for the twat and I refuse to let him go down in peace.
I keep him on the edge, hanging, close to falling ten stories and losing his miserable life as I say, “You’ll leave the island and will never, and I mean never, show your fucking face here again or else we’ll have problems. And by we, I mean you.”
He nods countless times like a broken toy, and I pull him up, then release him.
I kick him one last time, then turn around to leave.
“I left you a souvenir with Mia. Hope you like it.”
I stop dead in my tracks and release a long sigh. Seems that he truly is in the mood to fuck with me today. What am I if not a good sport?
Let’s hope this rage will be dissipated once I’m done with Rory.
Otherwise, Mia will be in deep fucking trouble.