Page 70 of When Sinners Dare

My head was tilting for a better view, and my feet pulled me up and made me move closer. I just kept losing myself in the action. I was thinking. Imagining. Aching. Even fucking smiling.

By the time they were taken back to their cages, Dragon came back from wherever he’d been. He looked down at me whilst he ate a burger, offering me one. Something about that twisted my stomach up more than the goddamn show ever could have. His teeth and mouth ripped at the meat like he was entitled to anything he chose to devour. I felt that in me, too, while I was watching women get handled roughly. Entitled. Even damn well aroused myself with it.

Still, I shook my head at the burger and looked around for an exit. “Air?” I asked.

He nodded at a corridor and let me leave, being careful to leave a warning with it. “Run, and I’ll find you. You won’t like that kinda happy ending.”

Yeah.

So now I’m standing outside in the dark, my hands planted on a wall, and I’m trying to hold the vomit inside me. It’s not that I couldn’t handle it, but now I’m out of it and thinking straight again, it seems different – wrong. No goddamn way am I showing weakness around him, though. Like he said, this is the way in. I don’t even know if I want in, but this is as close as I’m getting to respect given this family and what I’m considering. And what’s really fucking with my brain is she knows this. She’s part of this. The woman I thought I knew – the same one who held onto me and touched me softly, soothed me – is okay with the crap I’ve just witnessed. Not only is she okay with it, she damn well provides it.

My forehead grates the wall, and I rub at the wound in my stomach. “The hell am I doing.” Let's not even think about the pain I'm already in because of the beating I took from her brothers for her.

“You alright?” his voice asks.

I look sideways at him in the doorway, watching as he eats the last of my burger, too. “Yeah.”

He crumples the wrapper up. “Good. I need to go get Bella.”

“What?”

“Sounds like she decided to play out of her league. I’ve left it for a while so she gets the fucking message about safety.”

I lift off the wall and glare at him, pulling the anger back front and centre. “What do you mean safety?” He walks off towards a Mustang, as if that’s answer enough. It isn’t. “Hey. What the fuck do you mean? I’ve been trying not to throw up, and she’s in trouble?”

Sliding into the car, he nods his head at me to get in. “I doubt it, but you never know with Chance. I’ve left it long enough.”

The journey’s fast and furious, with barely any talk on the way. Everything inside me that was thinking about what the hell I’m doing, disintegrates en route. There’s only her in my train of thought again. Which proves at least one thing, I’m starting to not give a damn what any of her life means to me. In fact, with the amount of jealousy and possessiveness rising inside me about what I might find when we arrive, I’m damn close to being all in whether she wants that or not.

Freeways go by, and he ends up pushing this Mustang to its max to get wherever we’re going. It’s not fast enough as far as I’m concerned, and all that adrenalin starts flooding me. With him as company, it isn’t hard to let it all start building. And isn’t this the exact same shit I’ve been trying to avoid? There’s no Viper here telling me to calm down. There’s only a guy who’s probably as intent on killing anything that gets in his way as I could be.

“Close your eyes,” he says.

“What?”

“Do it. I don’t want you knowing where we’re going.”

“The fuck? You think I give a damn about-”

“Now, Kai. This is for your benefit.”

“Jesus.” My eyes close, and doesn’t that just bring on more fucking images to contend with about her being in some kind of trouble. “Who’s Chance?” Nothing’s said in response, so yeah, everything in me amplifies the same kind of imagery I’ve just been watching. “If he’s fucking touched her, I’ll kill him.” Still no reply, and after a few minutes I open my eyes with no fucks given to the consequence of that. Screw his orders.

He blows smoke from his lungs and glances at me. “Better.”

“You just told me to-”

“Nodding like a dog in this world gets you nowhere. Try pissing on people. Works better.”

Right.

Another few minutes of screaming around corners and jumping lights and he pulls up into an old warehouse on the outskirts of San Antonio. I’m out and walking for what looks like doors straight away, but he heads off in another direction. “Doors?” I call.

“That’s the front end. She won’t be in there.”

Jogging to catch up, I fall in behind him and try keeping some sense about me. Works reasonably well, until two guys guarding the back entrance try stopping Dragon. He’s all over one of them instantly, and without a second’s thought I’m backing him up so we can clear the road of shit and go where we’re needed. The one I’ve handled is moaning like a bitch by the time I’m done, and whatever damage Dragon did means the other is either dead or out cold.

He looks at me, as we make our way in, and everything that was relatively calm about him changes to that killer mode I know he’s used to. Pissed as hell features glower around the corridors, and doors get slammed open until he’s looking in rooms with fuck knows what happening in them. Blood-stained mattresses. Women crying and screaming. Cameras.

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