Defiant Queen Read online

  He catches his breath, his hand cradled in front of him, and the begging in Spanish comes again. He should save his breath. He’s not walking out of here tonight, and everyone in this room knows it.

  When I remove my hand from my pocket, my fingers curl into a fist around my 24K-gold-plated brass knuckles. I pull back and deliver a single punch to his throat, crushing his windpipe and snapping his neck. The raised letters on the brass knuckles leave an impression: Mount.

  His body slides to the floor as I step back and return my knuckles to my pocket, flexing my hand.

  “Have someone take out the trash,” I tell J before I reach for the door handle and pause.

  I turn, meeting the horrified stares of each person in the room. I have no doubt they feel the brutality emanating from me, and I will have no problems resulting from this night. If anything, my legend and their fear will grow.

  Satisfied, I open the door to the main room and shut it behind me before finally reaching into my pocket to pull out my phone.

  I have eight texts from V, and six missed calls from the control center.

  Mount

  “Where the fuck is she?”

  “Her apartment. She got out, and somehow we missed it because . . . well . . . we were watching what was happening in the blackjack room. But we started trying to reach you as soon as we realized it,” L, one of the control-room staff explains over the phone. “V is on his way there already. He wouldn’t wait.”

  V’s getting a motherfucking raise.

  “What the fuck happened? How did she get out without you seeing?”

  L doesn’t dance around the issue; he knows I accept no excuses. “We fucked up, boss. Didn’t have her tracker up on-screen because she hasn’t tried to run. Didn’t expect her to try.”

  “I’ll deal with you later,” I grind out, and disconnect the call.

  Nothing matters right now but Keira.

  I don’t read the eight texts from V, but I guarantee between those and the missed calls from the control room, I would have known she was gone a lot fucking sooner if I hadn’t been finding an outlet for my frustration that didn’t include fucking her into submission.

  I head to the garage where a few of my cars are kept and grab the keys to the Porsche 918 Spyder. I’m not fucking around, and it’s the fastest car I own at the moment.

  The engine is already revving when I press a button on the steering wheel, accessing a private camera feed only I have access to. When it flickers to life on the small dashboard screen, I press the button again, toggling through various feeds until it shows Keira in her apartment’s bedroom. I wait for a few minutes and watch as she finds the box and flings it against the wall, cursing me. And then curses me again when she realizes what’s inside.

  I knew a day would come when she’d escape or I’d let her return to her apartment. I’ve wanted to tell her a hundred times that it was me that night at the masquerade, but I knew it wouldn’t make her hate me any less. So, why did I leave the evidence? Because part of me has always wanted her to know the truth.

  The fact that I thought she was waiting for me and not that fuckwad Brett still burns.

  The engine roars and the tires of the Spyder roast as I tear out of the garage and onto the empty street. I know the fastest route to her apartment easily, because I’ve driven it more times than I would ever admit over the last several months.

  I may be a brutal man, but one thing I’ve learned over the years is that patience is its own reward. Obtaining Keira has been the ultimate exercise in that lesson.

  I swerve around random pedestrians and run a red light, yanking the steering wheel and cursing as the rear end breaks loose as I round a corner. Keeping one eye on the road as I drive like a man possessed, I continue to monitor the screen until she leaves the bedroom, and I tap the button to switch over to the living-room camera feed.

  I floor the accelerator, the engine screaming through the streets, at what I see. Brett Hyde, that worthless piece of shit, has come back from the dead.

  One thing I know with absolute certainty—his new lease on life won’t last long.

  Keira

  The door to my apartment flies open again for the second time tonight. I spin around as the dim light of the hallway spills into my living room where I’ve been pacing back and forth in the dark, a butcher knife clutched in my right hand and a hammer in the left.

  Brett had a gun. I didn’t. We all know who wins in that equation. But he didn’t shoot me because, apparently, he doesn’t want me dead. No, I’m more useful to him alive.

  My sight blurs with tears at what I’m about to do, but it doesn’t stop my banshee battle cry as I rush toward the shadowy intruder, the knife above my head and the hammer swinging. The knife is batted away and clatters to the floor, but the hammer connects. He grunts before ripping it from my hands. It lands with a thud as I’m flipped around to face the wall and my wrists are grasped and pinned against my hips. A hard chest slams into my back as I’m pressed against the peeling paint. I jerk and attempt to yank away, but he has me in a human straitjacket.

  “Let me go, you motherfucker! I already said I would do it. If you hurt my parents or my sisters, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

  Instead of Brett’s smarmy voice in my ear, all I hear is a grunt. I breathe in, and the scent coming off the man holding me captive isn’t the one that haunts my past and my present. But the grunt is familiar.

  “Let me go!” I demand again, and he gives my wrists a shake.

  I blink back the tears in my eyes as I crane my head around, almost afraid to see if I’m right. Scar’s profile is visible in the watery wash of light.

  A sense of relief I probably shouldn’t feel while in the arms of the man who has been instrumental in keeping me captive sweeps through me, and I stop struggling. My lungs still heave, but my body relaxes a few degrees.

  “Let me go. I won’t run. Or kill you. Probably. Maybe.” At this point, I don’t know what I’m capable of. Definitely more than I ever thought possible.

  Scar waits several beats before releasing his hold on my wrists. I spin around, rubbing the spots where his hands shackled mine as I back away, never taking my eyes off his face. When the back of my knees hit the couch, I collapse. Tremors rock my body, and I wrap my arms around my middle like I’m holding myself together.

  “He didn’t even bother to come himself?” My voice shakes like the rest of me, and I’m pissed off that I care that it’s not Mount I almost killed. “I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m not important enough for him to leave his little fortress.”

  Scar doesn’t respond verbally. Instead, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He types something into it, and a few seconds later, his fingers fly again.

  From the table across the room, my phone dings with a text, and my eyes lock on Scar. He jerks his chin toward it.

  I stand, my knees still wobbly as I cross the room to snatch it up and find a text waiting for me.

  Unknown Number: Boss is on his way.

  My gaze lifts to Scar. Instead of the information calming me, it creates a firestorm of emotions inside me, springing from the vivid flashback spawned by the discovery of my note and the thong I wore to the Mardi Gras ball. Mount expected me to learn the truth all along, the manipulative bastard. Maybe not this soon, but eventually.

  “Did you know about his plan all along?” When I think about all the things Brett told me before he left, my temper burns hotter and faster.

  Scar’s expression goes blank, and he doesn’t move to type a response. Instead, he flips on the lights I turned off as soon as my not-so-dead husband left, worried Brett would come back. I wanted every advantage I could get if I had the opportunity to take him on.

  “I hate both of you,” I say to Scar, conviction backing each word like steel plating.

  For the next several minutes, I sit in silence because there’s no point in asking more questions I know won’t be answered. With each passing second, my shoulders tense and my spine straightens in preparation for the inevitable confrontation.

  Mount is coming. It’s only a matter of time.

  Footsteps thunder down the hall as if someone’s running, and my apartment door crashes open again.

  His black eyes burning and chest heaving, Mount stands in my doorway looking like he’s ready to commit murder.

  I don’t think before I act. I launch off the couch and fly across the room until I collide with him. His arms move to wrap around me, but I’m not seeking comfort. Not from him.

  My hands curl into fists as I beat against his solid chest. The tears I’ve been struggling to hold back all night flow in rivers down my cheeks.

  “How could you do this to me, you bastard? This is my life, not a game! How much do you have to hate someone to do this to them?”

  I pound on him hard enough to leave bruises, but he doesn’t stop me. My arms burn and the impact lessens with each strike until my voice, hoarse with emotion, quiets to a whisper.

  “Why me? Why not someone else? Anyone else?”

  I drop my forehead against Mount’s chest, not caring that I’m soaking his shirt with my tears. It’s a torrent, but I feel no shame. This man was responsible for turning my life upside down before I even knew he existed.

  One of his strong arms wraps around my waist and his free hand cradles the back of my head, pressing it against his chest. “Shhhh.”

  “Don’t tell me to shhhh.” My shaky response is weak but still snappish.

  “My little Irish hellion. You’ll fight to your last breath.”

  “So would you.”

  Something presses against the top of my head, and I think it’s his chin.

  “You’re finally starting to understand.” He keeps his tone quiet and steady, but his words set me off again.

  I shove both palms against his chest and he drops his hold on me, allowing me to go free.

  I’m under no illusions anymore. Nothing in my life happens without his permission. Well, almost nothing.

  “I don’t understand anything, obviously, because if I did, I wouldn’t have seen a ghost tonight when my dead husband showed up at my door.”

  Mount’s expression, which for a flash of a moment held something soft, hardens. “He was supposed to stay dead.”

  I take another step back in the direction of my bedroom and cross my arms over my chest. “He said you paid him. The loan that you used as leverage on me, he said you gave him that money on the condition that he’d disappear. He said you faked his death! Is that true?”

  “Yes.” Mount steps toward me without a hint of remorse in his expression.

  Tremors threaten my body again as he comes closer. I swallow, not sure I want to ask the next question, because I already know the answer. But some stupid part of me needs to hear him admit the truth.

  “That night, at the masquerade, when I wrote that note for Brett to come, it was really you, wasn’t it?”

  He takes another step toward me. “Yes.”

  My hands clench into fists. “Why? How could you do that knowing I thought it was him?”

  Mount’s expression, already hard, turns to granite. The muscle in his jaw ticks. “I thought you knew it was me.”

  “That’s impossible.” The answer comes out on a stunned breath.

  His dark eyes narrow as he shakes his head. “I got your note. Not Brett. I assumed you were instructed to write it. I thought it was part of the game, and you were the gift left for me.”

  I haul back in shock at his words. “A gift? Like you’re some kind of warlord people deliver women to as prizes?”

  Instead of answering my question, Mount turns to look at Scar and jerks his head toward my apartment door. “Wait outside. Make sure we’re secure. Handle any threats.”

  “What—”

  I don’t even have a chance to form a question before Mount prowls forward, stalking me until we’re in my bedroom. He kicks the door shut behind him.

  I’m trapped in my room with the man who thought I’d been given to him as a gift.

  And to top it off, my dead husband isn’t dead.

  Nothing makes sense anymore, especially the fact that I’m more scared of the man I married than the brutal stranger towering over me.

  Mount

  “Tell me everything.”

  My words are a razor-sharp demand as I turn on the light. Seeing her in this shithole apartment, shaking in fear, fuels my rage against the man who never should have gotten close to her again.

  Hours ago, she was perfectly dressed in designer clothes, defying me like an empress, and now her hair is tangled in her face and her eyes are red from crying. All because of him.

  If he fucking touched her . . .

  Keira laughs, a harsh edge breaking through. Instead of bouncing off the walls, the sound is absorbed by cracked drywall and peeling paint. Her ceiling fan clicks as it rotates while I wait for her to respond. She wraps her arms around her middle, and I wonder how close she is to her breaking point.

  “Don’t you know everything?” she snaps back.

  I whip my phone from my pocket and hold the screen toward her. The secured website only I can access with the camera footage of her apartment and rooms in my home is up on the screen, just as it was in my Spyder as I broke every law to get here as fast as possible.

  Keira jerks her head back. “What is that?”

  “Video feed. I can either watch the rest or you can tell me what happened. Either way, I’m getting every detail. Now tell me, did he fucking touch you?”

  Fury blazes in her green gaze. “How dare you invade my privacy? Where are the cameras?”

  “Did he touch you?” My question comes out as a dull roar, but in this neighborhood, the residents wouldn’t dare interfere.

  I wait for her answer, ready to repeat it again. I have to know. I have to hear it from her.

  Her jaw muscle ticks before she replies. “No, he didn’t touch me. He doesn’t want me! He never wanted me. No one does.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  That hard-edged laugh of hers grates on my nerves before she speaks once more. “I’m just a game to you.”

  Her words are fuel on the fire already burning in me.

  “You don’t have a goddamned clue what you are to me. You don’t know a fucking thing.”

  “Bullshit.” The word is a challenge, and her green eyes flash like emeralds before she continues. “I bet right now all you want to do is beat me until I tell you everything you want to know.”

  I move toward her, one measured step at a time, until her spine touches the wall directly across from the door of her tiny bedroom.

  “Wrong. I want to spank your ass for putting yourself at risk, and then I want to fuck the hell out of you so there’s no question in your mind about whether I want you. Maybe then you’ll finally realize who you belong to.”

  Her nostrils flare. “I don’t belong to anyone. I’m not a goddamned dog.”

  “No, but you’re still fucking mine.”

  Her hand flings out just before her palm cracks across my cheek.

  Keira

  Holy shit. I slapped him. I actually slapped him.

  Before I can snatch my hand back, Mount captures my wrist.

  “Only you would dare.” His voice rumbles even deeper than before as I attempt to dart around him, but he snatches my other hand and pins them both against the wall over my head. “Fucking hellion.”

  His declaration from moments before roars through my mind like a freight train at top speed.

  “I want to spank your ass for putting yourself at risk, and then I want to fuck the hell out of you so there’s no question in your mind about whether I want you. Maybe then you’ll finally realize who you belong to.”

  I should be feeling terror as this brutal man pins me against the wall, but raw emotion claws at my insides, and it has nothing to do with fear. No, it’s anticipation at the thought of him following through on his threat.

  He’s turning me into someone I don’t recognize.

  “Let me go.” I voice the demand, but there’s no power behind it.

  He lowers his face to mine and whispers a single word. “Never.”

  Mount’s mouth collides with mine, his teeth closing over my bottom lip and tugging at it with a sharp nip. When my tongue slips out to soothe it, he steals inside, angling his head to gain better access.

  The kiss is pure chaos. A wild, angry tempest of a storm. It strips away all my inhibitions and sparks a recklessness in me I don’t recognize.

  With my wrists pinned over my head and his chest pressed against mine, he owns my mouth, taking it over and over with certainty, but completely lacking in the clever skill I would have expected. This is no tried-and-true move he’s cultivated over the years. This is something completely unpracticed and unhinged.

  I said I’d never kiss him. What the hell am I doing? He’s breaking all my rules. Stealing every bit of my control over my body and my emotions. How can he do this to me? I can’t pretend I don’t want it. Want him.

  Before I realize what’s happening, Mount tears us away from the wall and backs me up against my bed before we both topple onto it. His heavy weight lands on me, sending a feeling of satisfaction screaming through my blood.

  I struggle, tugging at his grip, but I’m not seeking freedom from him. I want the freedom to touch him. I want to bury my fingernails in his shoulders again, uncaring that my brain has lost its capacity for rational thought in favor of this animalistic craving.

  He tears his mouth from mine, looking as crazed as I feel. “Tell me you want this as bad as I do.”

  I wet my lower lip, loving the sting his teeth left behind, as I pretend to pull myself together. One coherent thought breaks through the primitive need firing in my blood, and I pull back an inch so I can see his face clearly.

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