Page 22 of Always A Villain

I reach for the knife on my nightstand. My fingers roll it in my palm, the blade catching the soft blue glow of my phone.

My stomach tightens. Heat coils between my legs.

I slide my underwear off and spread my thighs, breathing through the shame already curling in the back of my throat. Running the flat of the blade up my body, I let it catch my tank top, dragging it down just enough to expose one nipple. The cold against my skin makes it harden instantly.

I imagine him. The masked man. His gloved hand holding the knife. His mouth, hot and filthy, tracing where the blade goes. I picture his body between my legs, his mask pressed to my throat while he uses the handle to stretch me open.

My hips jerk. I glide the handle inside slowly, teeth clenched on a moan. My pussy pulses around the metal greedily. The ridges provide the perfect friction against the ache building inside me.

I pump it harder, fucking myself with it. My breath grows ragged, my eyes half-lidded. I’m close—so close.

“Axe,” I whisper, the name slipping out on a shaky moan.

My body locks up. My eyes fly open. No.

No.

What the hell?

Humiliation has me yanking the knife out. My chest tightens, throat closing. I sit up, hands shaking, the sticky handle clattering onto the nightstand.

I just moaned Axe’s name while thinking about the masked man.

What is wrong with me?

I bury under the blankets, curling in on myself like that’ll make it all disappear. Tears sting at my eyes, and I wipe them away with the blanket. My whole body aches—not from sex. From loneliness. From whatever this is. This unrelenting craving. This void I’m unable to fill.

Axe doesn’t want me—never has.

And the masked man? What we have isn’t real. He’s just an illusion I’ve latched onto because I can’t face the truth: no one’s coming. No one ever does. I’m always alone.

I whisper to the dark like an idiot. “Get a grip, Rory.”

But I can’t.

I just want to be normal. Just for one goddamn night.

I don’t know how long I lie there, silent, pathetic, and hollow—but eventually, my eyes close. And as sleep drags me under, I pray I don’t wake up feeling like this again tomorrow.

The past week has been a goddamn blur of chaos. Bodies everywhere, blood staining every corner of the Sovereign’s reach. Sovereigns, Servants, Associates slaughtered. And no answers. Just a perfectly executed attack, leaving us blind. We’ve been running in circles, chasing shadows, trying to pin down who had the balls to hit us this hard. Nothing adds up. No trace of the bastards responsible. No known patterns, no familiar calling cards. No chatter in the underground circuits.

“Axe, come take a look at this.” Arsen’s voice cuts through the hum of the Command Center. Screens flicker, maps blur with data, bodies rush from one corner to the next. Everyone’s on edge, waiting for something—anything—that’ll give us a lead.

I stalk toward Arsen, my jaw already grinding. “What have you got?”

“Finally got a positive ID on one of the attackers,” he says, holding up a file, his tone flat, eyes shadowed with exhaustion.

“Who is it?” I snatch the document from his hand, scanning it quickly.

“No one important.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“He's a fucking dentist. From Spain. Married with three kids, lives in the goddamn suburbs. No record, nothing. Clean as a whistle, except for a fingerprint match we got because one of his patients was tied to a Paris bombing a few years back.”

“A cover?”

Arsen shakes his head, frustration etched across his face. “Maybe. Maybe not. The guy's never even had a parking ticket. His practice is legit. Reported his daughter missing six months ago. We’ve got nothing. No criminal connections, no motive.”