Paunchy Guy yanks me to my feet by my arms. By some miracle, my legs manage to hold my weight and I remain upright. His grip on me is brutal and bruising, and he drags me into the room, kicking the doors shut behind him.
Fear makes me want to avert my gaze or close my eyes, anything not to face this reality, but I fight against my baser instincts and yell at myself to keep my head up. There’s no use pretending I don’t know what just happened here, I’ve already seen too much.
There is no saving me now, but I won’t cower.
If he is going to kill me, I intend to look him in the eye when he does it. To humanize myself so as to appeal to any shred of mercy he might have buried inside him. Although, with the way I just watched him clinically dispatch the now dead man into the afterlife, I doubt he has any.
Think, Tess. How can you get out of this?
I feel my bravado slip the closer I get to him. We come to a stop when just a few feet separate us and he’s so much more terrifying up close. His physical presence dwarfs me. Even with my heels on, the top of my head only reaches the tip of his chin.
My gaze hovers around the collar of his suit jacket until I feel composed enough to look up.
Finally, I peer into the eyes of death. A lethally black gaze stares back at me with unbroken intensity.
Gold eyes soften a chiseled face. He’s got sharp cheekbones, a nose that’s been broken before, a square chin. His eyes are like a big cat’s looking at its prey — unfeeling and callous. Tattoos burst out of his collar and tentacle up the entirety of his neck, including the underside of his jaw, and continue into his hair. There’s a rose tattooed vertically on his face, right next to his ear, and the outline of a teardrop etched below the corner of his left eye.
His entire appearance is rough, from his broken knuckles and the daggers on his fingers, to the trace of scars visible on his neck and face. He’s no gentleman — he’d probably consider that an insult — and nothing like any of the men I grew up around. Fear should be the only thing I feel, and it’s definitely there, but there’s also that same pull from earlier.
He sucks on something, a sweet of some kind that he rolls from one side of his mouth to the other. His mouth parts slightly and his tongue peeks through, wetting thick lips. The juxtaposition between the gore and violence I just witnessed and the almost juvenile act of sucking on a candy chills me.
I’ve never seen someone so unforgiving yet attractive at the same time. The revulsion and hatred my mind feel completely oppose my body’s visceral reaction to him. The more my brain labels him a sociopath, the more lust unfurls in my belly, powerful and unrelenting.
He looks almost amused by my perusal of him and watches me watch him. I get the sense that he’s toying with me and I realize I’d be a fool to underestimate him — he’s not just a mindless brute, there’s a shrewd mind lurking behind those dead eyes.
I carefully avoid looking at the body.
When he’s had enough of me scrutinizing him, he utters two words that make my blood run cold.
“Hello, Tess.”
His voice is deep, his accent wrapping deliciously around the one syllable of my name like he has any right to know it, let alone speak it. But he says it like he owns it, like it belongs to him.
“How do you know my name?”
I’m pleased at the perfectly even tone of my voice. I was afraid it’d come out shaking and broken.
“Let her go,” he orders. I’m immediately released. He nods once at the two men, keeping his eyes on me. “Leave us.”
I don’t know how I feel about that command. The last thing I want is to be alone with him, but if it means Paunchy Guy who pointed a gun at me and is currently still glaring in my direction will go, I won’t fight it.
“We’ll be right outside,” Paunchy Guy says, shooting me one last glare. I don’t know what his deal is — his boss is the one with the gun and the sociopathic tendencies, not me.
He and Younger Guy exit, closing the door behind them, and instead of seeming bigger, the room feels like it compresses down around us.
“I looked for you after Firenze,” the devil answers. His words are said dispassionately and yet they reveal that he was also intrigued enough by me to look into me after that night. “Do you know my name?”
I nod and his eyes darken. Goosebumps roll across my skin at his reaction.
“I know who you are.”
Everyone in London knows the name Thiago da Silva. The rule of violence and destruction he’s rained down on the city are all anyone’s talked about for the last year. He’s never photographed and he obviously isn’t invited to society events so I’ve never seen his face until now.
His reputation is a lot uglier than he is. Knowing who he is now, I’m surprised he didn’t use the machete on my father. Cutting up people is certainly a signature of his.
He’s everything I hate. He’s part of the ruling class in the seedy underbelly of the city I love, colloquially referred to as the Underworld. He thrives in this bastion of criminality, running drugs and guns and most likely women. Murder is just one in a long list of offenses I judge him for.
“And who am I?”
“A criminal, a murderer, a sociopath, take your pick.”
He’s going to put a bullet between my eyes before I blink next if I don’t shut my mouth.
I find that I can’t seem to control myself anyway.
A malevolent twinkle shines in his eye and he takes a step towards me. It takes everything in me to stand my ground and not stumble backwards.
“All of the above,” he agrees. “Say my name.”
“Thiago.”
It just slips out, more breathless than I’d have liked. A pleased hum rumbles up his chest and hits me right between my legs. This is dangerous territory for me, probably more dangerous than the gun still clutched in his hand.
“I saw what you did to my father.” I mention it to show him that I’m not scared, that he can’t intimidate me. Maybe he won’t kill me if he realizes I didn’t snitch last time I witnessed him assault someone. “I was there that day, standing right outside his office.”
He cocks his head to the side and smiles.
He fucking smiles.
“Really? And you didn’t intervene?”
I shrug. “I don’t want to die.”
His smile stretches into an outright grin now, revealing rows of pearly white teeth. “Fair enough.”
His answer leadens my heart. He doesn’t contradict me, doesn’t tell me he’s not going to kill me. I guess I really have nothing left to lose.
Thiago pushes the candy around his mouth as he eyes me thoughtfully. “Is there a reason you keep stumbling upon conversations that will get you killed?”
Is he getting off on this, scaring me to death before he actually kills me? Didn’t his Mum teach him it’s bad manners to play with your food before you eat it?
“A lifetime of bad luck?” I reply pluckily.
Thiago laughs in response, the ink on his face creasing into the corner of his eye.
“Your luck doesn’t seem to be improving.”
The tattoo smooths back out when he catches me staring at him.
“Why do you have that teardrop on your cheek?”
I’ve surprised him with my question, I can tell that much. He looks pleased with me, happy to give me an answer even.
“It’s a death I owe. Blood to be spilled.”
“For who?”
“For a man who took someone I loved from me.”
Ah, yes. Adriana.
Anger festers in my belly. Why would he look at me the way he did, the way he is even now, if he’s hellbent on getting revenge for another woman? And why, in the context of what I just witnessed, do I fucking care?
He waves his hand casually around the room.
“You’re taking all of this surprisingly well,” he notes.
Oh god, I momentarily forgot about the body. Wide-eyed, I stiffen in sudden realization and he recognizes it.
“Don’t look at him, it’ll upset you,” he predicts matter-of-factly.
I look only because he told me not to and he’s right. It does upset me. Bile rises in my throat but pure stubbornness keeps me from being violently ill.
“You’re a fool,” he adds, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “Brave, but foolish.”
“You don’t scare me.”
That’s a lie.
He laughs again, sharper this time.
“You should be more afraid of me than anyone.”
I freeze, my gaze slowly shifting back up to meet his. He’s unmoved, his devastating stare still stuck on me.
“Why?”
He comes towards me again, a lazy, unassuming-looking step that’s anything but. This close, I can look into his eyes and see the blackened abyss that is his soul. There’s something unhinged in his gaze that he doesn’t bother to tuck away behind the pretense of civility. I guess with a lifeless corpse laying a few feet away from us courtesy of his left hand, he doesn’t need to.
A loud crunch tells me he’s crushed the candy down to dust between his teeth. He sucks briefly on the pieces, then swallows. My eyes track the leisurely movement of his throat, then fly up to meet his gaze when he speaks.
“You’ve caught my attention.”
My breath catches in my throat at his declaration. I shake my head. “I don’t want it.”
“It’s not up to you, amor.”
He might as well have branded me with a hot poker. His lips roll over that ‘r’ like they’ve been commissioned to do so. Something much more dangerous replaces the crazed look in his eyes.
Hunger.
His gaze drops slowly down to my neckline where my breasts are still obscenely on display thanks to Dagny. I watch as a storm rolls through his features, twisting them with desire so potent that this time I do take a step back.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
He lifts his gaze back up to mine, that same aroused look still stamped on his face. “How am I looking at you?”
“Like…like you’re picturing me naked.”
He inhales like he’s absorbing my perfume and his eyes close briefly. When they open, the pupils are so dilated the golden color makes up nothing more than the outer ring of his iris.
“I’m not picturing you naked,” he purrs.
Shakily, I say, “Good.”
“I’m imagining how pretty you’re going to look on your knees, wide-eyed and staring up at me as I fuck your mouth. Yes,” he adds throatily in response to my open-mouthed reaction. “That’s exactly the face I’m picturing you making.”
I take another step back and he follows, those same lazy steps looking far more predatory than before. His gaze drops seductively back down to my neckline.
“Now I’m thinking about how I’m going to fuck these tits and cover them in my cum.”
I put a hand out to keep him from coming any closer. My fingers graze his chest and a jolt thunders up my arm. I pull my hand away at the burn.
My back bumps against one of the enclosed exhibits. I have nowhere to go, I’m truly trapped.
“And I’m obsessing over how you’re going to moan for me when I sink into your tight cunt for the first time.”
Absolute shock stabs through my chest. No one’s ever spoken to me that way before. My treacherous pussy clenches in response.
“I’d rather you kill me.”
“Would you?” he whispers, reaching for my face.
I duck under his arm and turn back around to face him. I gulp when the hand holding the gun moves, but he simply holsters it.
“Don’t touch me,” I snarl. “Everything about you disgusts me.”
He snorts, laughing at me. “Is that why you came looking for me? Because I disgust you?”
