Page 79 of Brutal Obsession

Fuck.

Those green eyes are unhinged by anger and an emotion that resembles…fear. Something’s wrong. My head whips around,trying to find the danger, but Cian’s eyes remain fixed on my face.

He stands there, stabbing me with his eyeballs.

“C-Cian?” My panic ping-pongs through different scenarios. But when Cian wraps his massive fist around my forearm and proceeds to drag me back toward the motel with furious, virulent strides, I realize the problem.

The rage and concern on his face are for me. All for me.

I’m lucky he didn’t throw me over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes again.

Or toss me off the nearest cliff.

When we arrive at our motel room, Cian flings the door open and all but throws me inside, slamming the thing shut behind him with enough force to rattle the frame.

For a few agonizing moments, we just stand there, Cian fuming. I can’t take my eyes off his fists. He kills people with his bare hands.

I wonder if he’s going to grant my wish,a morbid voice whispers from deep within my soul. It’s the same macabre curiosity I’ve had for years. Every time I faced a man my father instructed me to target, I wondered if that was the way I would die.

There were times on assignments where I wanted to break character, reveal to the target that my father sent me here to get him killed, ask him to kill me as the perfect revenge on my father, but that shit only leads to imprisonment. Rape. Ransom notes. Being eventually saved by Kings, only to wind up under my father’s thumb again, more broken than before. So I kept my mouth shut.

When I look at Cian and all the power in his body, I know it would be nothing at all for him to murder me.

I should be more afraid of him as his entire frame trembles with fury.

But instead I spiral through the reality of how much I still want him. I might even want himmorethan I want to get away from the Kings, more than I want my freedom.

Exactly what did his monster dick do to me?

“What the fuckis itwith you?” I flinch at Cian’s thunderous roar. “De Luca foot soldiers are crawling all over this godforsaken island searching for your ass, and you sneak out anyway?”

Shaking the lust out of my head, I do my best to focus on Cian’s words. But it’s kind of difficult when he’s radiating rage like a faulty radiator leaks heat.

“I just wanted to?—”

“Trick me?” Cian stalks closer, but I refuse to be intimidated. “Ignore every fucking word I said and do what I told you not to doanyway?”

Irritation spears through my mind, cold and sharp as steel.

I scoff. “Look. You’re notin chargeof me, okay?”

His teeth grind, and he cracks his knuckles. “What if they’d snatched you off the street? Are you trying to get us both killed?”

But it sounds more like him saying,I could kill you, I’m so mad.

“Ineededto call my sister.” I exhale, bitter exasperation heating up my chest. “Couldn’t do it here. So I went out. What’s the big deal?”

“Bad things happen to women who don’t follow orders, Harper.”

Hurt pierces my chest. “Are you threatening me?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

A frigid glow darkens his green-eyed glare. The uncompromising edge to his demeanor, that impenetrable glower on his face… I’m reminded of my father so viciously, so terribly, I go feral with agitation and resistance.

Because Cian’s treating me like his own personal property.

Cian Mahoney actually has thegallto be upset with me for calling my own sister! Okay, yes, I tricked him with the shower to buy myself some more time. But it’s not like I had an escape plan figured out. I was going to come back here.

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