Page 98 of Casino King

“Just interrupt me and say you need me and I’ll take care of you. Always.”

“Okay, then.” A small smile tugs at my lips and I pull him down to kiss him fiercely.

Chapter 34

Alec

I take Tessa down to the basement, and she squeezes my hand when we reach the initial door that leads to all of the others down here. I thought after a night of sleep she’d change her mind on wanting to exact a little revenge on her captor, but she insisted on coming down here. I least got her to call out of work today. She didn’t fight me on it like she did that first day she was with me.

Going through the security process, I hold the door open for her, and her eyes widen as she takes it all in.

Walking her through the first general meeting room area that resembles a living room in most respects, we go through the next set of doors that takes us to the complete opposite. Standing in a cement and cinderblock hallway that’s lined with heavy metal doors on either side, Tessa straightens her back and looks down each way.

“That way,” I tell her, lifting my chin to the right where one of my men stands beside one of the metal doors.

Stopping in front of the door, Tessa turns to me, her eyes guarded and unsure.

“You can change your mind. It’s your choice.” The other men in that warehouse who took her have all been killed and taken up to the Port of Newark for disposal. But this fucker…he’s been saved for a special kind of death.

“I don’t know if I can,” she says. “But I want you to. And I want to watch you.”

Her request has me reeling, and I kiss her hard, backing her up against the door.

“Leave,” I growl at the guard, going back to kissing my woman as he silently slips away.

“You want to watch me?” The image of her standing and watching me as I cut into the skin of our enemy like he did to her, and her enjoying it, has my cock hardening instantly.

“Yes,” she breathes against my lips.

Fuck. She was made for me.

Biting her lower lip, I growl against her and then pull away. I open the heavy metal door and let her step through first, with me right behind.

Sitting with his legs tied to the chair and his arms around his back, is Zhang Wu, the main enforcer for the Triads.

He lifts his head and looks at the both of us with the eyes of a man who knows his fate, but refuses to give in to it without a fight.

Tessa walks over to the small table in the corner and picks up the dagger with the dragon hilt Zhang used on her. She turns it over in her hands and then holds it out for me to take.

Brushing my fingers against hers when I take it, our eyes meet, and I see every emotion she doesn’t say. Anger, pain, fear, determination.

For her, I can become the monster I was trained to be. He doesn’t come out as much as when I was first starting out and had to prove myself, but it’s a role I can easily slip back into like a second skin.

“You thought you could cut up my woman and I wouldn’t retaliate?” He just looks at me, his nostrils flaring with barely controlled anger. “You don’t have anyone or anything to go back to, Zhang. The Chin days are over. Their little empire is being dismantled as I speak, with the pieces being fought over by whoever wants it.”

His body jumps, pulling at his restraints, trying to lunge at me.

Holding the dagger up to the dim lightbulb that hangs from the ceiling, I let it glint off the blade so he sees the freshly sharpened edge.

“No one touches my woman without dying. And that death can either be a bullet to the skull, or a slow and tortuous one. You happen to fall into the latter category. You put this blade to her perfect skin to get to me.”

Turning the dagger in my hand, I plunge it into his thigh, then rip it out. He only grunts, his mouth pressed firmly together to keep silent.

Plunging the dagger into his other leg, his eyes burn with fire, but he merely grunts again.

I feel Tessa behind me, her eyes trained on me. Feeling her here with me is an experience that fills me with pride.

Her acceptance of me, all of me, is something I never knew a woman would, or could, be capable of. She truly was made for me. Even the things that should pull us apart, bring us closer. And this fucker used her to get to me. He tried to take her away from me.

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