Page 44 of Ruthless Commander
If he so much as looked at her fucking wrong, I’d take the sniveling worm out without hesitation. My pulse raced as those images filled my head. It was only because of Fin that Lazarus had stopped unleashing his rage on Zakharov.
He would’ve killed him…
And in any other situation, I’d've fucking let him.
As a man, I wanted beasts like him taken out. No questions. No debate.
Once a predator, Is a predator.
But as the overseer of the island and its fucking privileged occupants, I couldn’t.
I had to be the one who kept them from killing each other. It was a fucking rule…
I stepped through the doors and listened to Zakharov start up again.
“Get your fucking hands off me!” he shouted, wrenching his arm from Score’s grip. “You fucking touch me again and I’ll have you goddamn killed.”
“Oh, yeah?” Score settled that steely gaze on him, his lips curling in a sinister smile. “I’d like to see that happen.”
Damon Zakharov had no idea who he was dealing with. Score wasn’t just any goddamn former special forces soldier. He was a sniper of the highest fucking calibre. You didn’t just threaten a man like that, you made a promise…a promise for him to end your fucking life.
Score shoved him once more, sending Zakharov stumbling into the infirmary entrance. The soft thud of boots hitting carpet became slaps against the hard tiled floor of the medical wing. I followed them as Score drove him into one of the rooms.
"Sit.” Score pointed to a chair in the corner.
I stepped into the room and focused my gaze on the scumbag. Under the harsh lights, he looked even worse. Bright blood covered his face. One eye was already closed and the other one was closing. By morning, he wouldn't even be able to see. But it was his mouth that had taken most of the damage.
His bloody lips were split all to hell. Two front teeth were cracked. He looked at me wild and frantic as he sat on the seat…I had to hold myself back from smiling.
"So, you like to hurt women?" I stepped toward him as Score towered over him.
He flinched, his busted lips trying to curl. "Fuck you."
"Fuck me?" The desire to fucking end him hit me hard.
I licked my lips, envisioning someone like Damon Zakharov in all the many dark, foul places I'd seen over the years. All the squalors I’d encountered as a soldier where people like him hid. And all the houses where animals still held women hostage, beating and raping them. All because he couldn’t have it any other way.
"You have to prove it,” he continued. “It's my word against hers, and she’s a goddamn slut.” His eyes sparkled with rage.
I closed the distance with a lunge, grabbed him around the neck, and hauled him from the seat. “Let me ask this again…do you like to drug and rape women?”
Say no and I’ll fuckingendyou.
Responsibility or not. Xael pushed inside my head. Her pain. Her rage. That tortured moan she'd made still fucking lived there. I didn't flinch, didn't look away, just stared into the vile fucking piece of shit’s eyes and envisioned me finishing the job Lazarus had started.
"I only gave her what she wanted."
I drove him backwards until he slammed into the wall. His head rebounded with acrack.His mouth dropped open, exposing those cracked fucking teeth. My fingers clenched harder, driving into the flesh of his throat. All I wanted to do was to rip it out.
“Commander,” Score cautioned.
Hard breaths consumed me. All I saw was Katerina’s dazed expression, one I’d seen before in the eyes of a girl cowering in the corner of a filthy room.Do it…it’d be easy. I could even make it look like a suicide, say he hung himself, say he was full of fucking regret.
But there lay the problem.
Animals like Damon Zakharov wereneverfull of regret. Just hunger. Just unquenchable desire to inflict as much pain and terror as they possibly could. No one would believe it…no one who truly knew him, that was.
I could see it all, see the blood, see the life draining out of him, and in that moment, I wanted it I wanted so bad that it scared me. But if I took his life, if I dug the pit just a little bit deeper, then there was never any getting out of this, was there? They’d never let me escape this fucking hell.
