Page 184 of Rage

Brian’s eyes blow wide before mumbling an apology in my direction.

Z stands, pacing back a few feet. “Brian here has something he wants to tell you.”

I stare at Brian, waiting for him to speak as blood trickles down his chin from the corner of his mouth. He stares back at me with a look of disgust before flinching when Z takes a step toward him.

“It was me,” he blurts out, spitting blood on my hardwood floor.

Confusion blooms at his confession. My eyes dart over to Z, standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a stare thatcould burn a house down. I ask Brian to clarify, and he curls his lip before speaking again.

“The shiner under your eye. It was me,” he says before clenching his jaw and settling his gaze on Z.

A whimper leaves my lips as I press the back of my hand to my mouth. Last night when Z asked me to tell him that Ross gave me the mark under my eye, I couldn’t, because I didn’t know who did it. I went to a work party with him a week ago and woke up on my couch, unsure of how I got home.

“Continue,” Z hisses, bringing me back from the memory.

Brian runs his tongue across his bottom lip before turning his attention on me. “Ross slipped a roofie into your champagne at the dinner last week. He lost a bet with me and some of the guys and the prize was you. We thought he was joking, but he delivered you to my hotel room, and…”

Tears roll in thick streams down my cheeks as I listen to the story unravel.

“And what, Brian?” I ask through the sobs.

Brian rolls his eyes, as if annoyed that I’m crying. He glances from Z back to me before finally settling his gaze on the floor. “I had my way with you, exactly how I wanted. But you involuntarily hit me while you were unconscious, and I let my temper get the best of me. So I… I hit you back.”

I fall back into the wall and slide down, gasping into the palms of my hands.

“Get up,” Z snaps from beside me, grabbing my upper arm and pulling me to my feet. “Do not let them see you fall,” he whispers in my ear. His words have me scrambling to gain my composure, because he’s right.

“While you were asleep last night, I did some digging since you wouldn’t tell me who marked you,” Z says while casting a glance in my direction. “Thanks to a friend that doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty, I ended up finding text messages fromthis sorry excuse of a man to your supposed fiancé about the encounter.”

Brian spits at Z’s feet before laughing. “And what are you going to do about it? You’re so scared of us that you won’t even show your face.”

A grim laugh leaves Z as he swiftly reaches out, grabbing Brian’s face in a forceful hold. “The mask is for your protection, not mine, pretty boy,” he says before he thrusts Brian’s head back, earning a cry of pain from his victim. With an audible grunt at the sound, Z brandishes the same knife he pulled on me yesterday, along with a gun from his back pocket.

Contradictory to the smart mouth he just had; Brian now looks like he’s seen a ghost as he begins to jerk wildly in his chair.

Z places the items on the end table and grabs my face with his hand.

“I found him, but his punishment can only be decided by you,” he says, before tilting his head toward the weapons on the table. “You can let him walk out of here, or you can deal with him however you see fit, Duchess.”

My eyes skim over the weapons on the table before glancing back at Brian, who is sweating profusely and mumbling incoherently with his head hanging down.

Z gently jerks my face to focus on him again. “You’re the one building the fire, Mavis. I’m only here to provide the gasoline and other essentials to keep it going.”

“Mavis, don’t be the dumb bitch that Ross makes you out to be. Let me go and we both can act like this never happened,” Brian says from the chair, where he’s now as white as a ghost.

Act like this never happened?

“You assaulted me,” I say while glaring at him. He groans and rolls his head, “It was just pussy, Mavis. Great pussy, but pussynonetheless. Come on, I heard you gave it up all the time in college anyway, what’s the difference?”

The flame that had begun to build in my chest yesterday was now an inferno. The thought of all the men in my life thinking I’m nothing more than a pawn to throw around sends tremors through me.

Z releases my face as a maniacal laugh escapes from the deepest part of my soul. “You’re right, Brian. It’s just pussy,” I say, picking up the knife from the table. The fear in his eyes brings my heart rate so high that I can hear the swooshing in my ears. I can see Z casually leaning on the back of the couch as he watches.

“Butmypussy ismychoice,” I hiss before slamming the blade of the knife into his thigh. His scream a sweet symphony to my ears as I drop my head back, taking in a deep breath. “And I wasn’t given a choice on who shoved their dick inside ofme,”I say calmly, while pulling the knife from his thigh and slamming it into the other.

The blood dripping onto the floor sends my senses into overdrive as the coppery smell floats up my nostrils. I look over at Z, whose gaze is already set on me with a look of admiration and hunger. As if he can tell what I’m thinking, he chuckles, standing to his full height. “I know how to dispose of a body, Duchess,” he says confidently.

I smile, looking back at Brian who is now whimpering, the smell of urine floating in the air. The poor fuck pissed himself, after all the shit talking he did.

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