Page 38 of Ricochet
Her chestnut-colored hair was tickling my face —the same scent, the same feeling —it felt like somebody shot me in the chest. I was breathing hard as I kept her pinned with her face pressed to the wall. She wanted to run from me, but I wasn’t going to allow that. The animalistic urge to own her, punish her, keep her with me, was rushing through my body. She had to pay.
“Are you scared, birdy,” I asked her as I ran my nose over her neck. Vanilla and almonds. She smelled good enough to bite. “Is your heart beating fast? Are your hands clammy, does your body know what is about to happen?”
Do you know I am going to kill you?
Her breath was coming out in short spurts, small puffs blowing against the hair that fell over her face.
“Can you feel that, Ophelia? Your chest caving in, your knees shaking… Do you know what that is?”
“Am I supposed to be afraid, Kieran?” She snickered. “Am I supposed to quiver under the hold of the great Kieran Nightingale? Do you feel like a man now that you have me in your clutches?”
I yanked her hair, tipping her head backwards. I could see the veins straining on her neck, but what unsettled me was the smile on her face. I squeezed her neck in warning, but she only smiled wider, her blue eyes dancing in delight.
Fucking psychopath.
“Careful now.”
“Or what? You’re going to kill me?” She beamed as if I wasn’t seconds from snapping her neck. “Go ahead then, kill me. Get it over with. That’s where this story is heading, isn’t it?”
“Shut your filthy mouth.”
“What would Ava say, Kieran?”
My hold on her loosened, a buzzing sound echoing in my head.
Did she just utter the one name that is forbidden to her? I turned her around, slamming my hands on the wall, caging her between my arms. The bitch enjoyed this. She wanted to rile me up, to make me lose control. Ophelia was always good at that— making me lose control, driving me crazy, pushing me to the brink of insanity. But not this time.
She started chewing on her lower lip, and I wanted nothing more than to bite on it as well. Instead, my hand took a hold of her chin, lifting her head closer to mine.
“You have no right to say her name.”
“I have more right than you do,” she whispered. “I have more right than any of you do.”
Her laughter, lack of fear, lack of any emotions at all, irritated me. When she first saw us inside the room, she seemed terrified. Now she just seemed indifferent, as if she flipped a switch. Such a good little actor. Such a good little whore.
I took a better look at her and noticed the red marks already forming on her throat from Cillian’s choking session. I didn’t like the emotions threatening to erupt at the sight of those. Her health, her safety, none of those were my business. She didn’t matter to me.
She looked exactly the same— the fucked-up girl, with nothing good to offer to the world. These ocean eyes of hers were such a contrast to her pale skin, and chocolate hair. To think that I once found her attractive, that I once loved her, made me sick.
She looked the same, yet completely different. There was fire in those eyes. Fire I never saw before.
I opened the doors of my soul to her once. I shattered my walls hoping she would be the one to save me from myself, and I would get to take her away from all of this. I let her in, allowing her to see every part of me.
What did I get in return?
A lifetime of regret and guilt eating me alive because I allowed the coldhearted bitch into my life. She loved her knives so much, she used them to stab us in the back. So what if she still looked like everything I desired? So what if I hated the redness on her neck, and how pale and gaunty her face looked? She wasn’t my problem anymore, and the only thing I wanted from her was her pain.
Her misery.
Her destruction.
I would revel in seeing her completely broken. That defiant look in her eyes erased, leaving her begging for her end. She thought she had the right to utter Ava’s name? I slammed her head against the wall, the echoing crack of her skull satisfying the beast inside of me. Her eyes closed at the impact and a frown appeared between her eyebrows. Her teeth clamped on her lower lip, ripping through it. Rivulets of dark red blood gushed down her chin, a stark contrast to her pale skin.
That’s right baby, take all the pain. Feel it, because that’s the only thing you’ll be getting from me.
She looked more like a demon than an angel. I was a blind man once, failing to see just how much the darkness had consumed her soul. She would fall, and with her, their whole empire.
The Syndicate and everything they had would be ours.
