Page 115 of Villains Never Die

That month was the best I’d had in a year. I bounced back from the fire at the warehouse like nothing had ever happened. I pulled in more money, I made deals with more desperate people, and I worked the full moon gala like royalty. I was back to my old self.

The day after I met Amy, Owen knocked on the frame of my open office door.

“Yes?” I asked without looking up from the paperwork that had begun to blur my eyes. He’d filled Gray’s role in a way I was still adjusting to.

“Delivery for you,” he said, placing a package on my desk.

“Thank you, Owen.”

“No problem.” He didn’t linger, didn’t chitchat, didn’t urge me to get some rest.

And he brought nothing to fill my rumbling stomach.

I finished the stack of papers in front of me an hour later and finally picked up the box, blinking away the tiredness in my eyes. It contained a velvet jewelry box. I opened it on tight new hinges.

Inside were a pair of lifeless hazel eyes and a note.

I fucking warned you.

I slammed the box shut and scanned the room, as if the bastard might be lurking nearby. I picked up my phone, set it back down, picked it up again.

Fuck you.

Rook: You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Or did she satisfy you?

If you have a message, deliver it yourself.

He didn’t respond, but when I went home that night, every bright light in the penthouse was on, the whole place lit up. The living room was empty, but I knew who was there.

“You can’t just walk in here whenever you want!”

He crept up behind me and pushed me into the wall, his forearm heavy against my shoulder blades. “It never stopped me before.”

The rumble of his voice made me shiver—it had been too long since I’d heard that voice—and I know he felt it when his dark laugh ghosted across my cheek.

“Miss me?”Yes. Fuck, yes.“You can’t have missed me that much. You had a good time with…what was her name?”

“Amy.”

“Mmhmm, Amy. I told you no one else was allowed to touch you or look at you.”

“You didn’t say I couldn’t touch or look at anyone.” I pressed back against him and he dug his elbow harder into my back.

“I didn’t think you needed to be told.”

“I don’t know what you’re so pissed about!” I gritted out. “You were the one who didn’t want to be together, so why the fuck do you care?”

He kissed my neck, right below my ear, and the motion was so soft and unexpected that I relaxed.

“I never said I didn’t want to be together. I told you why we can’t, so until you decide what’s important to you, deal with it.” He loosened the pressure on my back and reached forward, skimming his thumb along my forearm, tracing the line of the ‘R.’ “You’re still mine.”

“What if I don’t want to be?” I drove some snark into my voice and the way he tensed at my back sent a little thrill skittering all over my skin. He pressed his erection against my ass and my breath stuttered.

“You don’t get a choice.” He turned me, pressing my back against the wall now, and kissed me like it would be the last time, but it wouldn’t. Rook wouldn’t let me go.

And I didn’t want him to.

I bit his bottom lip hard enough to make him yelp and fall to his knees in front of me, unfastening my pants in a hurry.