Page 59 of Rot

“You swallowed me down like a good girl, huh?” he muttered as he pulled his cock out of my mouth, smirking all the while. “How’d I taste?”

My lips curled into a smile as I told him the truth: “I’ve had better.”

“Mouthy,” he hissed, and then he smacked the side of the gun against my head, making me see stars for just the quickest of moments. “Get up and take your clothes off.” He didn’t need to elaborate; I knew what he wanted to do to me next.

I ran my tongue over my lips as I stood. He stepped to the side, giving me some room, his eyes never leaving my body as he watched me finger the bottom hem of my shirt. The hunger in his gaze was palpable; he wanted to fuck me bad.

But before I could lift my shirt over my head, the sound of the garage door opening alerted us both to the fact that we were no longer alone here.

Someone was home.

Chapter Twenty

“What the fuck was that?” the man asked with a scowl, hurrying to stuff his cock away and zip up his pants as he went to peek out of the nearest window. Whatever he saw, he must not have liked, because in the next moment, he stormed over to me, took me by arm, and dragged me out of the living room and into the kitchen.

The door leading to the inside of the garage was on the far side of the kitchen, perpendicular to the basement door. The man spun me so that my back was pressed against his front, and he held his free arm over my chest, pinning my arms to my sides as he held the gun to my head, waiting for whoever it was to come in.

My mother didn’t have the opener, which meant it could only be one of two people. Aunt Maggie, coming home from work to check on me—which I highly doubted—or my very heart and soul, the darkness to match mine: Elias.

A few tense seconds ticked by. I couldn’t move, but my eyes did dart around the kitchen, trying to find something to use. A knife, a glass, a dish, a pan; I’d take anything at this point. But there was nothing, which left me to stand there, waiting, hoping it was Elias, hoping that he’d gotten my message and left the school to come straight home.

The door to the garage flew open, though no one stood there that I could see. “Whoever it is, come the fuck inside, or I’ll put a bullet into this pretty girl’s head,” the man behind me growled out, pushing the tip of the gun against my head even harder.

I didn’t know what to expect, but when the person in the garage showed himself, my heart soared to new heights.

Elias took one step into the house, his wide shoulders squared and a look of pure murder on his face. His jaw was tense, his black eyes narrowed at the man holding a gun to my head. One look at me and my current predicament told him all he needed to know. He held onto something, keeping it against his leg, so close I couldn’t tell what it was.

“You’re the cousin, right?” the man behind me spoke. “Whatever you got there, drop it. No one’s gotta get hurt today. All I want is the money Penelope Karnagy owes.” He kept to himself the little tidbit that he wanted to take me with him and pass me around to all his colleagues.

Elias didn’t say a word to the man, nor did he drop whatever it was he held onto. He instead spoke to me, “Did he hurt you?”

I told him the truth, “He made me suck his dick.”

A muscle in his jaw clenched, the vein in his forehead popping out. If Elias looked murderous before, he looked downright devilish now. He wanted to tear the man apart; I could see the rage in his pitch-black eyes.

“Uh, hello? I’m the one with the gun here,” the man behind me jostled me a bit, reminding us both of the gun pressed against my temple.

“Yeah,” Elias growled out, “you are, but I have this.” As he spoke, he swung whatever it was up, like an expert.

It all happened so fast. I barely had enough time to register what that black item was, and that it was now aimed at us—or, rather, at the man behind me. A crossbow, a bolt preloaded. Elias barely took time to aim it. Before I knew it, that bolt soared through the air, straight into the shoulder of the man holding me, the shoulder with the gun.

The man wasn’t expecting a crossbow either, for in the moment of impact, he stumbled back with a howl of pain. His grip around me loosened, which let me push away from him and get away from the gun.

The crossbow had a few arrows attached to its grip, and Elias readied another bolt. The man tried to tear out the initial bolt, but he couldn’t, so he pointed the gun at Elias, seconds from pulling the trigger.

Elias was faster. He shot the man again, this time right in the stomach. He flew back with the impact, his back slamming against the wall near the table. “You fucking asshole,” the man sputtered out, aiming at Elias again.

My beautiful monster said not a word as he shot the man again, this time in the arm with the gun, pinning it to the wall and causing him to drop the gun. The metal clanged on the floor. I watched in awe as Elias stormed over to the man and lifted the crossbow inches away from his head.

“The moment you touched her, you became a dead man,” Elias whispered. And then, without saying another word, he pulled the trigger one final time, letting loose a bolt straight into the man's skull and pinning his head back to the wall.

Elias took a step back, slow to turn and face me. I split my gaze between the dead man and the blood dripping from his body and my vicious, vengeful beast. Elias was everything I could ever want and more. There’d never been any doubt.

I knew it in my heart: to do that, to shoot a man that many times and not blink… it wasn’t his first kill. It wasn’t the first time he’d aimed that crossbow at someone and pulled the trigger.

I wasn’t the only one with the rot in me.

Stepping closer to him, I whispered, “You killed for me.” My voice sounded amazed, but I supposed that’s because I was. Amazed he’d do that for me. Awed that I meant so much to him he’d kill for me.

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