Page 62 of Collide

“Let me try. What harm can it do?”

I let out a sigh and threw my head back to stare at the ceiling,counting to ten before I exploded.

But she did have a point, what harm could it do to see if the girl’ssilence could be bought? As long as I had reassurances she wouldn’t go to the authorities, then it was something I could consider. I didn’t relish the idea of killing an innocent girl, I wasn’t atotalmonster.

“If you can’t convince her, Riley, then I have no choice, you have tounderstand that. That’s just the way it is.”

Anger flashed across her face for a split second but then her featuressoftened. “I understand.”

I stared at her for a moment, realization dawning that this was aturning point in our relationship, if you could call it that, I wasn’t sure what the fuck it was. But if I wanted her around, she had to understand how I worked, and she had to accept it. Her eyebrow arched as though she had come to the same realization.

“Take her to the girl,” I ordered Miles, breaking our stand-off.

I watched her go, her heels echoing around the room attracting theattention of every man in the room whose heads turned to watch her luscious ass sway in that damn dress. My already boiling blood was about to bubble over at the thought of them ogling her.

“Back to fucking work,” I growled at the remaining men in the room. The guards at the door straightened, as others darted off in differentdirections. I walked over to the room where Luis was currentlybeing held. The two men stepped aside and I tapped in the code to the lock and pushed the door open.

A wave of wicked glee rolled through me at the sight of Luis hangingby his wrists from ceiling hooks. His face was bruised and broken, swollen so badly his eyes were forced to shut. Blood trickled from various wounds, and his leg was broken, evident from the unnatural angle it hung at.Miles may have fucked up, but he’d gone some way to redeemhimself with the damage he’d caused to Luis.

I stared at the man who was swaying slightly from where his feetcouldn’t touch the ground and I couldn’t help but let my mouth curl up into a smile.

I fuckinglovedthis.

“Kai, this is a misunderstanding,” Luis said when he managed to openan eye to see I was in the room with him. His South American accent was thick with pain which pleased me no end. “Let me down and I can explain.”

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this day, Luis.” I movedcloser to him, eyeing my prey like the predator I was.

His eye, because he could only open the one, followed mymovements as I circled him, removing my suit jacket as I went, and rolling my shirt sleeves up to my elbows.Luis winced in agony when he tensed his body up as I came to standin front of him, his eyes widened when saw the guns and knife in the holster I had been wearing underneath my jacket the entire time. I never went out unarmed.

“You can’t do this. My father-”

“I warned your father what I would do if you put a foot wrong, and youwere there when he shook my hand and agreed to the terms.”

I didn’t give him a chance to reply, with all my strength I punched Luisstraight in the gut. The wind flew out of him and for a few minutes after, he struggled to breathe. I’d probably caused some internal damage but I had no fucks to give,he wouldn’t be seeing another day. But I would make his final hours on earth as painful as possible.

It took almost a minute before he managed to suck air back into hislungs and as he took deep, gulping breaths, I thought of all the ways I was going to destroy this piece of shit.

“Let me tell you something, Luis, I’m a man of many things. I killpeople, I torture people, and I fucking enjoy every minute of it. But I don’t rape people, especially little girls. There’s a special place in hell reserved for people like you.”

“She wanted it!” he suddenly burst out, spittle and blood flyingeverywhere and unfortunately landing on my arm.

The anger I was struggling to contain erupted out of me like avolcano. Grabbing the knife out of the belt holster, and without giving it a second thought, I aimed at his shoulder and threw. With precise accuracy, the knife embedded into its target and Luis’ screams of agony echoed around the room.It wouldn’t kill him, I knew where to strike to avoid any major arteries,but it would hurt like a motherfucker.

“You…are…going to….pay for this,” he gritted out, clenching his teethso hard I was surprised they didn’t pop from his mouth.

I threw my head back and let out a hearty laugh.

The man was a comedian.

Striding over to him, I ripped the knife out of his shoulder, bloodspurting from the wound and ruining my white shirt. And then I let rip on his body.

See, I could have just put a few bullets in him and been done with it,but where was the fun in that?

Raining down punch after punch all over his body, his cries of painspurred me on and it didn’t take long until his cries became mere whimpers. It felt fucking good to let loose on him, I wasn’t just taking out his crime on him, but I was taking out Joe Mason’s crimes as well. I’d never get the chance to cause that man pain but this, this was good enough.With every punch I threw at Luis’s body, I pictured the look ofheartbreak on Riley’s face, and as crazy as it sounded, with every hit against his body, it felt like I was helping to heal Riley’s pain.

It was only the soft knock on the door that stopped my assault onLuis. Sweat rolled down my back and my chest heaved after my sudden burst of energy, but I felt fucking incredible, I loved the surge of adrenaline rushing through my body.

Luis was barely clinging to consciousness, I knew the right amountof pain to inflict on someone without them falling unconscious, after all, I didn’t want him to miss out on the fun.

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