Page 79 of Dirty Arrangement

“How easy it is to make demands with a squad of gunmen behind you,” I hiss. “Want to settle this man to man?”

He bursts into laughter, his mouth twisting in an ugly, wobbly line. I bare my teeth in a silent hiss, unable to fathom what Sirenna saw in him, or maybe it’s just my jealousy blinding me. It weighs on me to know that he’s still her husband right now, and he’ll continue to be until I twist his arm–literally–to sign the divorce papers.

Then I’ll fucking kill him.

“I’m so glad that you’re alive, you bastard,” Sirenna spits out from behind my arm, pressed against it. “I hated the idea that you could have died when I had so much to spit in your fucking face. So glad I get to take everything I have on you to the press before my lawyers fucking squash you in the divorce.”

One glance at her reveals that her eyes are burning, her face full of rage. She wants nothing more than to squash this piece of shit under her boot, and she’ll get what she wants soon enough.

Then I’ll kill him.

But first, I need to think of a way out of this situation.

Last time, at the club, I had an army outside the venue ready to intervene, plus a number of backup plans if push came to shove, but now it’s just me, half-naked, against the lot of them.

“Divorce?” Joseph blurts out before he breaks into laughter, his ribcage sounding like it’s about to disintegrate. “Oh, my dear, I’m afraid such an endeavor will cost you dearly. Especially now that every thug in New York that matters has written everything they have off to you. You’re officially the queen of the entire New York mafia, even though you don’t seem to grasp the enormity of it.” His nasty eyes find me. “Courtesy of your lover. Which reminds me–you’re an adulterous wife, too. That will make our divorce a particularly tangled business. Which is probably why your fuckboy here intended to kill me.

“But then, against all odds, the devil fell in love, and everything changed. Love makes the greatest men stupid, so fuckboy here started making mistakes. The worst of them was turning on his own people. It’s why The Order freed me.” His face fills with the bloodlust of a powerless, frustrated man as it angles to me. “To teach you a fucking lesson that was long overdue. I know that Sirenna here is a piece of work. She was never aware of it, but she has this unique effect on men, and clearly you weren’t immune to it either, even though I could have sworn from the moment I met you years ago that you were a cold-blooded reptile. But, in the end, she got the better of you, too. She succeeded in turning you into a love-struck idiot where the greatest starlets and models failed. I saw that unique ability in her from the start.” Then, turning a wicked gaze to Sirenna, his next words meant to hurt. “It’s the reason why I married you, you know? If you thought it was because of your brains, well, I’m sorry to burst your bubble.”

Sirenna stiffens behind my arm, her glare imbued with hatred. She’s prepared to spit something vitriolic at him, but I find myself talking before she does.

“The fuck you’re sorry. But you are fucking stupid if her seductiveness was all that impressed you about her. I bet all her other talents were competition to you, weren’t they? Oh wait, no. Competition would require some level of equality. But you have nothing of her brains, her cunning, her resilience. She was an enemy, and you had only one way to tear her down–break her heart. But as I told you the first time you showed her to me, before you’d asked her to marry you–one day, she’d leave you. I never told you why I said that, but I’m telling you now. It wasn’t because I thought she wasn’t good enough for you, on the contrary. I knew she would one day need a serious piece of dick, a man who would cherish her gifts, one she could rely on. An equal.”

She presses into my side, reassuring me of her loyalty.

I give Joseph a grin that talks about the sexy times she and I spent together, allowing the memory of her skin on mine to harden my dick, too. I wouldn’t mind dying with a hard-on that would claim her as mine even in the last moment of my life. It would stand as a symbol of mockery for her poor excuse of a husband.

“No wonder that she found refuge in alcohol to put up with you, and eventually found bliss in another man’s arms,” I say, twisting the knife in the bastard’s wound, even though the only thing that’s wounded is his pride.

Sirenna’s fingers turn from claws to a gentle caress up my arm, sending electricity straight down to my cock.

“Even if I die tonight, it’ll be after the best fuck of my life,” she says. “I don’t regret a thing.”

Joseph’s nostrils flare, rage twisting his features. If he wants to say anything else, his constricted throat won’t let him.

Top Boy uses the chance to step closer, having had enough of the show, his perfectly polished shoes clicking against the bare concrete floor.

“I have memories of my own in this place, almost as pleasant as yours.” He bends down and picks up the teddy bear that Sirenna discarded. “One of the main things I remember about you, Zayne, is that you were very smart. It’s what drew my attention to you in the first place. Your genius ass was better than the rest of us. And yet you didn’t stop to wonder what a brand-new teddy bear was doing on the floor in this godforsaken room.”

“Oh come on, Gordon,” I return with an evil smirk. “You never went after me because I was smart. You did it because I was pretty. You always had a weakness for beautiful girls and pretty boys. Or wait. You’re still not out of the closet?” As for the teddy, I’d just assumed Sirenna had brought it with her. She was holding it the moment I stepped in. Meeting her gaze for a moment, I understand that she, in her turn, thought I had put it there.

“Just a misunderstanding, then,” Top Boy says, trying to mask his anger at my words. “I suppose it’s no longer a secret that I put it there. It was to make you both worried and squeamish, but I suppose the thrill of love won.” He faces me with that permanent grin of his stretching even wider, the sound of his voice triggering fantasies about all the ways I’d like to torture him.

If I weren’t so acutely preoccupied with protecting Sirenna, my senses razor sharp to monitor all the threats around us, I’d probably take more time looking at him, see if all the time I kept him prisoner changed him. But whatever the changes, there are none in his essence. He drags those permanently shocked-looking eyes down my body. I could never tell if torturing me with the flat iron aroused him in the past, but seeing the scars he once inflicted seems to do it now.

“Your body is like an altar of pain,” he says with sadistic reverence. “My art, forever etched into your flesh. Maybe it’s time that we added to that, don’t you think?” He walks closer, and Sirenna tries to push through the barrier of my arm. I can sense her instincts fire up to form a shield between me and the man who started it all. The one who created this monster.

“I’ve been looking forward to this day, Zayne,” Gordon says, approaching more. “What you did to me and family, oh–” he laughs a disturbed laugh. “–it was such an inspiration. I’ve missed you more by the day, but you know how it is–you don’t get close to a rabid dog without a cage to snap around him. And once you have him in your power–”

He grins as the men step forward, their guns strapped to their hips and thighs, their gloved hands free to hold me down.

“Sirenna, get back,” I tell her, my voice low and calm, my eyes narrowed into killer slits. “Whatever happens, stay behind me.” She makes to grip my waist, but I keep her back with my arm outstretched behind me, watching the gunmen like incoming predators and Joseph’s vengeful grin as he draws close to Gordon.

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” she shrieks, noticing that I’m luring the gunmen away from the door and pushing her toward it with my back.

“Yes, you are. It’s the only way you can help me,” I hiss over my shoulder so that only she can hear me.

“Not the only way.”

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