Page 9 of Tyrant (The Villetti Chronicles)

He was counting on me screwing up. I could see it in his eyes. He would take pleasure in causing me pain to prove a point. To show me I wasn’t in control. It was he who had the power. I’d given it to him when I accepted the terms of our deal.

“You want me to fail.”

He dragged his teeth over his bottom lip.

“People tell you failing is a bad thing, but they’re wrong. Failure teaches you how to succeed, but only if you’re willing to learn.”

He pressed a knee on the bed between my spread legs. My breath hitched at the direct contact. He brought his face closer. I fought against the urge to wrap my hands around his arms and hold onto him. To use him as an anchor because his mere presence was drowning me in urges I didn’t want to acknowledge.

“I hope you’re ready for your lessons.”

His unspoken words hung in the air. I would push his buttons. It was inevitable.

“Yes… sir.”

A chuckle escaped his lips.

“Such a troublesome little thing you are.”

He released me and straightened. I couldn’t catch my damn breath when his eyes flicked down to where my shirt had ridden up. The longer his gaze was fixed on me, the harder my hands fisted around the covers below me. He rubbed his hand across his jaw. My cheeks were burning so hot, I thought my body might overheat from embarrassment.

“Goodnight, Tink.”

He left without waiting for a response, closing the door behind him. I listened for the click of the lock, but it didn’t come. He wasn’t caging me in.

I scrambled off the bed to turn out the light before returning to it, burying myself beneath the covers. Tears sprung to my eyes. I’d killed a man tonight and indebted myself to an infinitely worse one. My uncle had been family, but Zayn? He owed me nothing. It made him dangerous, even if I wasn’t scared of him.

The thing I was scared of happened to be my reaction to his proximity. To his nearness. To his touch on my skin. I refused to voice it out loud. Refused to give it any weight. Instead, I pressed my legs together and tried to think of anything else but the way it felt to have his hand wrapped around my throat. The heat of his gaze. And how much I wanted him to stay, so I didn’t have to be alone on the night I killed my uncle in cold blood.

Five

Zayn

I tipped my head back, staring up at the ceiling with my fists clenched at my sides. This whole thing was fucked. However, I’d made my bed. I may as well lay in it. Suffer through my self-inflicted torture. Having a half-naked Arianna Michaelson pinned underneath me was my penance for deciding to keep her.

I gritted my teeth and almost shoved my fist through the wall, trying to erase the image from my brain. It was stuck on repeat. The way her legs parted without hesitation. How her breathing came faster as I stroked my thumb down her pulse. The way her nipples had hardened and poked through my fucking shirt. And how my only thought had been to make her call me…no, don’t voice that out loud.

One of my hands uncurled and rubbed across my neck, fingers brushing over the tattoo of the graffiti text I had there. My lips curved up, knowing no one could read the damn thing unless I told them what it said. And I wanted her to know, when I shouldn’t want that at all.

My feet carried me downstairs. I needed to be as far away from the girl as physically possible in my own damn house. Had to, or I’d go back into the room and do things I shouldn’t. She’d just killed someone. The girl didn’t need me pushing her too far. Not yet anyway.

I went into my study, poured a glass of whisky from my drinks cabinet and sat in the wingback chair by the fireplace. My fingers went to the remote on the side table, turning on the faux fire and watching the fake flames glow. I sipped my whisky before setting it on a coaster and pulling out my cigar case, extracting another cigarillo. I lit it and took a drag, exhaling a moment later. Then I adjusted myself, internally cursing my dick for reacting to her when it had been uninterested in anyone for months.

This evening had gone awry. I wasn’t going to allow some physical response to fuck things up further. It meant nothing. I could admit she was a beautiful girl. Emphasis on the word girl. Fuck, I’d known Ari since she was four and not even that well. Our level of interaction was always the bare minimum. I had nothing in common with the daughter of a gang leader. Her world and mine weren’t exactly the same.

And yet you still managed to give her a fucking nickname.

It wasn’t often I had a moral compass to speak of. I knew better than to get intimately involved with women twelve years younger than me. Especially ones whose fathers were gang leaders I did business with. Ones who were getting themselves embroiled in a fucking war I did not need to be a part of. My father would not be impressed, not that I cared what he thought, but the family interests came first. It had been drilled into me from a young age.

Family first. Business second. Everyone else last.

Ari wasn’t family or business. She should come last. Yet I’d gone out of my way to save her. It might have been for a price, but I didn’t save people. Unless it was Remi. I would always save her. So other than my sick impulses, why the fuck had I rescued this damn girl from her own stupid decisions? And why had I reacted to her closeness? I’d never looked twice at her before. Now was not the time to start.

I knocked back my entire glass of whisky. Then I puffed on my cigarillo, trying to get my fucking head on straight.

Ari was not someone I could fuck. Toy with, yes, but that was it. No further.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I fished it out, checking the message. Rising from my seat, I walked out into the hallway towards my front door. I took a drag as I opened it to reveal my Fixer standing on my doorstep with a wry smile on his face.

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