Page 27 of Tempting Fate

Got to appreciate a man who doesn’t beat around the bush.

Even if he’s hooked up with the Maddisons.

“Is that right?”

“Yeah.” Hugh grins wide. “He’s locked her away in a safe room. There’s only one way in and one way out… not that Alex will be looking to leave anytime soon. They’ve got some catching up to do—” He winks then licks his lips. “—if you catch my drift.”

Most of the time, when I reach breaking point, I step outside myself. Observe as I wreak havoc from above and below, even as my hands are coated with the blood I’m spilling. Almost like I’m conscious of what I’m doing, I can feel everything, yet I have no control over my actions. My surroundings fade to a blur. My hearing becomes a roar. My vision turns hyper focused—almost like there’s a radar homing device between me and my prey. Nothing exists, except me, my rage, and the target of my fury.

It’s alien.

Mechanical.

Animalistic.

A combination and a contradiction of all three.

No one can snap me out of it, bar Lily. Conversely, nothing can trigger an episode like knowing metukà shelì is in danger. Yet, in this moment, as I watch Hugh admit that Alex has my woman trapped with him inside the house behind me, the depersonalisation that usually occurs when I lose control doesn’t eventuate.

Nope.

This time, I’m fully cognisant as I shoot Hugh St. James in the gut.

5

LILY

Ican’t stop shards of pure, unadulterated fear from embedding themselves in my chest when Alex steps out of the bathroom naked. One by one. Stab after stab. Cut after cut. Terror floods me, slices me, strains my nerves, until I’m coiled so tight that I’m scared I’ll shatter if Alex so much as looks at me.

My memories are too raw. Each heartbeat causes a new surge of the poison he infected me with. My skin is coated with his filth, dirty to touch, contagious to anyone who gets too close. The ache between my legs from his vicious fingers is impossible to ignore.

The one thing keeping me sane is the knowledge that Zeke is here.

Somewhere.

It settles me as much as it fills me with dread.

Because I know that Zeke’s presence has also made things worse for me. His potential rescue, coming in five minutes or in an hour’s time, isn’t going to save me from Alex’s wrath now.

I can feel the anger vibrating from him, growing more palpable by the second, as he stands over me where I lay curled in a ball on the bed. When I look up at him, I discover that there’s murder in Alex’s eyes. It chills me to the bone. My death. Reflected back at me in the evil gaze of a monster who’s already come close to killing me once before.

During his shower, he worked himself into a frenzy.

“He’s here for you, metukà shelì. To take you from me.”

I flinch when he butchers the pronunciation of Zeke’s pet name for me. Alex prides himself on his perfection, so willingly exposing that he can’t speak flawless Hebrew is enough to chill me to the core. It’s another indication that he’s about to lose control. A sign. A challenge to me. A vow that he’s going to make me pay for what he sees as my betrayal.

The man that I dated for a hot minute when I was seventeen is going to blow in the next few minutes.

“He’s a dead man walking.” Alex drags his thumb over the scar that runs the width of his neck, drawing my attention to it. Once he sees that I’m looking, he touches the corner of his mouth where the remnants of Zeke’s underworld calling card have been lessened by plastic surgery. “I won’t toy with him like he did me.”

When I was examining him earlier, he was dressed. The collar of his shirt hid the jagged line on his neck, just like his clothes concealed the other marks he bears from the night he tried to kill me. Wide eyed, I catalogue the scars he has. I stabbed him. Shot him. Zeke beat him. The slash across his throat must’ve happened later.

Seeing his damage buoys me.

I am not as powerless as my traumatised mind would like me to believe.

I’ve made Alex bleed before.

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