Page 57 of Cruel Dominion

I felt the jar of the driver side door slamming closed and the thrum of the engine as it came to life.

“Ughhh,” I screamed through my teeth, giving the hatch one last hard kick and hoping I dented it as he drove off.

16

CARTER

Normally, driving along the oceanside highway was the highlight at the end of my workday.

Of course, it was harder to relax when I could hear Anna’s fists pounding against the trunk door. I should have bound her hands with my tie so she couldn’t hurt herself. She was already shaken up enough from earlier, and she was only going to upset herself more.

This wasn’t how I pictured bringing Anna to my home for the first time, but desperate times called for kidnapping the love of your life.

When Paulson called me this morning, telling me Anna had slipped out of his surveillance, I knew in my gut that something had gone wrong. Fortunately, Anna brought her phone with her, with all my tracking measures on it. I canceled all my meetings and drove right to her.

My hand tightened on the steering wheel as I remembered how I found her. Trembling and terrified, lost so far inside of herself that I could only see the phantom of her in her eyes. She didn’t have to tell me what happened; it was obvious that Jaden made a pass at her.

That he touched my little siren.

The rage I felt could have destroyed fucking worlds.

To be honest, I couldn’t remember if the filth was still breathing when I left.

I broke every finger on his right hand one by one.

By the time I broke the last one, he was delirious with pain and hyperventilating. His vocal cords too frayed to keep screaming. I might’ve left him like that if he hadn’t said what he did after I was finished.

“She’s just some rich slut, man,” he’d croaked as I turned to walk away. “Are you really going to go to prison for some?—”

I hadn’t let him finish repeating that heresy.

I wasn’t going to go to prison. I had friends in high places and powerful enemies in my back pocket. But I’d spend a life sentence behind bars if it meant I could systematically destroy every man who ever hurt her. Whoever touched her. Whoever had the fucking idiocy to think for one second that she belonged to them.

I’d go with a smile.

I left Jaden slumped and motionless on the floor, pausing only to make a quick call to my good pal Ruarc Monroe’s cleanup team before I left to follow my girl.

If Jaden survived and still had at least some mental capacity, he’d leave the state before I could come back and truly sate my frustrations.

But he’d have to wait.

Anna needed me.

I saw where she went in that studio and it wasn’t a good place. I remembered the darkest moments of our nights on the beach. The moments where she looked at the water like it might be a relief to walk into the midnight crosscurrent and let herself be taken under rather than go home.

After I brought her back from that place, she needed to be punished.

She couldn’t keep putting herself in danger.

She couldn’t keep slipping her guards.

And there was a part of me that wanted to punish her for more than that. I wanted to punish her for what she did six years ago.

Anna Vaughn acted like I ripped her heart out and walked away unscathed.

But no. When I ripped her heart out, I cut mine from my chest with it and buried them both in the sand. And every day I couldn’t find her was another day our hearts were left to decay in the dirt.

When I reached the road to my villa, I turned in smoothly. The gates opened automatically for my car, and my chest flooded with satisfaction when they closed behind me. Now, Anna was safe inside my impregnable security system. Nobody could hurt her here.

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