Page 33 of Depraved (American Street Kings 1)

Of course, she squirmed. Of course, she tried to scream. By the time I had moved back in front of her, there was already tiny beads of blood at the corners of her mouth. God, I loved witnessing this newfound fight of hers come to the surface.

“I’m going to get you something to eat, and even if it means I have to force it down your throat, you will eat whatever I give you.” About to walk out, I turned halfway and winked at her. “Don’t go anywhere.”

It probably wasn’t necessary to tie her to the chair. But I had to do something in order to regain control. Even though I loved her fight, I had to show her who had the true power here. It was the only way. If there was even a tiny part of her believing she had the strength to fight me, I might as well just give up right here, right now. None of us were fucking saints. Me, the least. To lie, to cheat, to steal and manipulate in order to get what I wanted wasn’t beyond me. I’d do it all in a heartbeat. I’d do it all for her.

I stormed to the kitchen, flung open the fridge, and grabbed the first two things I could find. A beer and some leftover mac and cheese. I was sick of this shit. This woman needed to eat something. She needed to pack some meat on those goddamn bones of hers. Her dad was a fucking coward for not standing up to her mother, allowing it to get out of hand. The fucker saw how his daughter was starving herself, how her mother was pushing her. Fuck. I didn’t even live there, and I knew. It didn’t take a special kind of stalker to figure it out.

“Granite, there you are.”

I closed the fridge and turned to face Onyx. “What?”

“He’s on the phone.”

“Who?”

“The PC, man. It’s the call we’ve been waiting for.”

I cursed. The whole goddamn morning I waited for that fucking phone call, and the fucker decided to call now. Now, when I really, really wanted to shove some food down Alyx’s throat.

I glanced from the food in my hand to Onyx. “You take the call.”

“What?”

“I got shit I need to deal with now.”

“What? Like eating lunch? Come on, man, this is the call we’ve been waiting for. The PC specifically asked to talk to you.”

I gave him a knowing look before rounding the kitchen table. “You can talk to him. Just set up the fucking meeting.”

“Granite—”

“Onyx.” I stopped and looked at him. “You’re the fucking VP. Start acting like it. Take the damn call.”

I stomped off, and Onyx called out, “You’re crazy, man!”

“Yeah. Don’t I know it.”

12

Alyx

I refused to cry.Not again. He’d already stolen too many of my tears and didn’t deserve another. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself this couldn’t be it, this couldn’t be the man I’d been watching for years, the more he gave me reason to believe it was. It really was him. And I really was wrong. In my head, I made him out to be something he wasn’t. He was nothing but a man with evil running through his veins. A man who would take and destroy and not give a shit. A man with nothing but a cruel heart that beat inside his chest—that was if he even had one.

I pulled against the ropes that had me tied to the chair. My skin burned, and after a few violent tugs, I knew it was hopeless. I’d wear myself out trying to get free.

I let my head fall back. Why did he feel the need to tie me up when he could have simply locked the doors? Was he trying to prove a point? Trying to show me who was in control? Of course, he was. He wasn’t about to let a littleballerina girlchallenge him. That was why he grabbed me, hurt me…touched me where no one ever had before.

That was the part that confused the fuck out of me. He was being nothing but a dick to me, evil and heartless, yet my body responded to his violent touch. It seemed I was still attracted to him in some twisted, warped kind of way. How was that even possible? The man scared me. He elicited the darkest kind of fear in me, but the second he grabbed me between my legs, desire sprouted from within that same fear and took me completely by surprise. If it was any other man, I would have been repulsed by the touch. But it wasn’t just any man. It was him, the man I had been infatuated with for years. It seemed my body didn’t care that he was a psychopath. Even my skin erupted into tiny bumps as desire ignited like a fire over thatched rooftops. Just from one touch. One hard and fierce touch, as if he was claiming it. Claiming me.

I moved my head side to side, my neck stiff and sore. The back of my scalp still burned where he had grabbed a fistful of hair. Funny how it only ached now, but when he did it, it ached somewhere else. Somewhere way more south, right there where his cruel touch cupped me. For those few seconds while starring into his eyes, I wasn’t a captive. I wasn’t leverage to whatever game he was playing. I was a woman—or as Red would say, a masochist.

Everything was wrong.

“I see you’re still where I left you.”

I lolled my head down, annoyed by his sarcasm.

He pulled the rope out of my mouth and down over my chin.

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