Page 22 of Tempting Fate

When I headbutt him again, he slaps me across the face. I wobble on the spot and he slides his hand to the apex of my thighs. Using the weight of his body to pin me against the wall, Alex finally releases my throat.

I draw much-needed gasps of air as I pray this is over.

Instead of letting me go as I’d expected, he rips the crotch out of my panties. I try to slap his hands away, but Alex easily pins me to the wall again. He strokes between my legs with surprising softness. My entire body shudders in disgust while I try my hardest to block out the memories his vile touch is dragging to the surface of my consciousness.

I can’t go through this again.

It’s like he can read my mind because the second that realisation hits, Alex grins. Seeing his smile is the final straw. I mentally admit defeat, my head sagging against his shoulder as I try to drop to my knees.

“Stop,” I whisper, tears streaming down my face. “I’ll bend. I’ll kneel. I’ll do whatever you want… just not that. Don’t do that to me again.”

He leans away from me, widening his stance to put some space between us, even as he holds me against the wall and refuses to allow me to kneel like he demanded. “Too little, too late, angel.”

With two fingers, and clinical precision, he thrusts inside me. I scream, fighting to get away as he pumps his fingers into my body again. My skin crawls. My mind rebels. I hiccup, unable to catch my breath. The walls I built around my trauma crumble. The dirtiness, emotional, mental, and physical, the poison Alex left inside me five and a half years ago, it floods me. Drowns me in memories. I smell his cologne, feel his hands clutching me to him, violating me.

Trapped between past and present, the future ceases to exist.

Alex licks his fingers, grinning at me the entire time. “Still taste like honey.”

My stomach revolts.

My mouth waters.

Bile burns my throat.

I vomit down the front of his shirt and all over his shoes.

“You dirty, disgusting?—”

“Venom’s here.” Hugh interrupts us before Alex can finish his vile character assessment, and all hell breaks loose at the news he announces. “Alone, by the looks of it.”

Whatever humanity remained in Alex is extinguished. He punches me in the face, and as I wilt from the blow, scoops me into his arms. He hurries through the house, throwing me on the bed before spinning around to lock the door. Jabbing at the wall, he pops open a hidden control panel and arms the room. When he hits a second button, the shutter on the solitary window lowers and we’re left in the dark for a moment.

I expect Alex to attack me after he flips the switch, and the bedroom is filled with light, but he doesn’t. Instead, he glares at me. I’m in no state to defend myself, emotionally spent and physically drained, however, I still smile in the face of his desperation.

“He’s going to kill you.” My grin widens. Blood runs down my chin as I glare at him with one eye. “You’re going to die a failure… with my vomit all over you.”

Alex doesn’t acknowledge me. Instead, he hurries into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind himself. When I hear the shower turn on, I curl into a ball on the bed, rolling onto my side to take stock of the security measures protecting the room. I spot motion-sensor cameras in each corner and one above the door. A telltale red dot on each wall that denotes perimeter lasers. I’m familiar enough with the system because of the state-of-the-art setup Cub installed at the Shamrocks compound to know that I’m not getting out of here while Alex is in the shower.

My only hope is for Zeke to reach me before Alex comes back…

4

VENOM

The air smells of burning rubber as I skid to a stop in the driveway of the home I share with Lily. The smoking back tyre of my Harley and the black mark on the concrete are a testament to my wild ride from the Fremantle cop station. I manage to kick down the stand on my bike, barely offering the pinging overheated machine a second glance to check that it didn’t land on its side, before I’m running to Lily’s SUV to pull the door open.

It doesn’t budge.

Locked.

I peer through the tinted window.

Empty.

Dashing to the base of the elevated deck surrounding the house, I take the stairs to the front door two at a time. The hair on the back of my neck stands up, an eerie feeling of being watched dawning, as I stop to fish out the handgun I stashed under the loose board in the patio. Most of my weapons are back at the compound, no doubt tagged as evidence by Joseph Kingsley’s cops. They’ll try to withhold them for as long as they can, but Gabriel will work his magic, and our registered guns will be returned while the weapons we run remain safely stashed away from the prying eyes of the authorities and out of the pilfering hands of the Maddison clan.

This temporary inconvenience wouldn’t generally rattle me.

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