Page 14 of Karma

I tighten my lips. We’re not the same. I’m trying to protect people!

A little voice in my head hums.

No, you want vengeance.

No, I want both.

A piece of me wants to give him grace for stopping Sam’s attack on me this morning, then stopping his friend tonight. My mind clouds with ideas of how him being out there has to be a mistake. Someone can’t be kind and horrible at the same time. But wolves don’t always attack, and that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.

This man is a part of whatever larger organization altered my brain chemistry with what they did to my father. His momentary kindness doesn’t negate what needs to be done. It can’t.

After I force as much information as I can out of him, then kill him, I will have avenged my father’s death the best way I could. In the only way I know how. An act of violence shaped my teenage years. It was in the back of my mind every single day as I grew up. It’s a ball of negativity, growing and darkening inside me. It’s why I could kill the man who was suffering. It’s why I could kill Knox’s rapey fucking friend.

But it wasn’t enough torture for me or my dad. And that’s where this guy comes in.

The need for revenge meets opportunity.

Iwake up chained in a bedroom. Smacking my dry lips, I try to pull some moisture from beneath my tongue. I must have been drugged. I remember telling that girl I should have let Adam do what he planned to do, but then I remember nothing else. A warm feeling coats my mouth. Did they fucking chloroform me?

I look around the room. I’m handcuffed to the bed’s metal footboard. The room’s warmth causes my balls to stick to my thigh. A night light emits a blue glow from the corner and leaves a similar hue dancing across my skin.

My skin? Why am I shirtless? Why am Inaked? And where the fuck am I?

All I can think about is Petey. Luckily, I left him with extra food and water in case I ran late after the party. Or if, god forbid, I ended up dead at the party, because you never truly know with them.

Karma comes into the room, eyeing me and my testicular glory. I’ve never been an insecure man, but there’s something humbling about your naked human form chained up on the floor. No matter how good you think you look, that goes away in this position. Nothing sexy about a limp dick resting on a pair of nuts.

She’s so superior to me right now, and she’s looking down at me like she knows it. It’s fucking hot.

Stop thinking she’s hot. She abducted you.

She’d look pretty chained up on the floor. Naked. Her tight little slit resting on the old hardwoods. Maybe she’d leave the wood nice and wet afterward. Well, that thought takes care of my limp-dick problem. And I wish it wouldn’t.

I put my arm over my erection. She doesn’t need any more of my power.

“What do you want, karma?” I ask, raising my hardened stare to her face. “Or why don’t you tell me your real name? I know you recognize me because I recognize you.”

“I’m not telling you anything about me.”

“That little interaction in the parking lot told me enough to know that you’re letting some asshole who doesn’t deserve you make you into this?—”

“He isn’t making me into anything. This ismychoice. I appreciate what you did in the parking lot and that you didn’t shoot me when you had the chance, but it doesn’t changeanything.”

“Don’t make me regret my decision to let you live. What. Do. You. Want?” I’m losing patience with her.

“I want you to spill your guts about whatever this is.” She gestures toward the black wolf mask sitting on top of my clothes.

I can’t give her what she wants, though. That info is well guarded. Anyone caught sharing anything about the Exodus ends up on a list like mine.

My list.

I look at my clothes again. Where is it? Has she seen it? I wish I could tell her I’m just a pawn, nothing more and everything less, but that list, with its bloody, crossed-out names, makes me look like more than what I am.

“I can’t,” I say.

She walks over, lifts her heel, and stomps down on my cock and balls. “How about now?”

I open my mouth in a soundless scream as pain rushes to my lap and seems to work its way through every muscle in my body. “No,” I choke out.

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