Page 229 of Corrupting Camille

Gone is the man who had Camille trembling, pinned and gasping beneath rough hands and rougher kisses, her soft submission echoing in my bones.

Now? I’m something colder, crueler. I’m everything they should’ve fucking feared.

Soundless steps carry me deeper into darkness, pulse steady, breath slow, already tasting violence. Carnival laughter dies, swallowed whole by shadows promising pain.

Javi waits ahead, silent sentinel, eyes cold and ruthless as he holds the twitching stranger against filthy concrete. Pathetic, cheap jacket, trembling limbs, eyes darting wildly as he realizes, too late, exactly what kind of predator he stumbled into.

Recognition sparks…pure, animal panic.

“You lost?” I murmur softly, voice lethal silk wrapped around razored steel.

“I..I’m just waiting…”

My fist crashes into his jaw, bone crunching satisfyingly under my knuckles. Blood spatters, bright and warm against my skin, as his head jerks back violently. He collapses, choking wetly. But I drag him upright again, slamming his skull brutally against the wall.

“You’ve been watching her.” I hiss it like poison, dangerously calm. “Spotted you last night. Same cheap fucking boots, same nervous eyes tracking her every move. Who the fuck sent you?”

He sputters, blood flecking his lips. “I swear…I didn’t…”

I hit him again, harder, knuckles splitting his brow wide open. Blood spills thickly down his face, slicking my fist as it connects again, once, twice, relentless, until his broken whimpers fill the dark.

“Wrong fucking answer.” I tighten my grip on his throat, pressure brutal, cartilage bending beneath my fingers. “Slowly. Lie again, and I paint this lot with your brains.”

He gags, eyes rolling white. “Colombians…fuck…Reyes cartel,” he wheezes, voice strangled by my grip, spittle and blood bubbling through cracked lips. “They're rebuilding…tracking the girl. Only her.”

Camille.

Always fucking Camille.

Rage erupts inside me, pure, merciless, blinding. My grip tightens dangerously, vision tinted red as he gasps, limbs flailing weakly. But disgust outweighs fury. I release him harshly, watching as he collapses, choking and twitching pathetically on bloodied asphalt.

Javi wordlessly hands me a dark cloth. I wipe the gore from my knuckles, scrubbing until the stain fades enough to touch Camille again.

“Erase everything,” I command ruthlessly. “Phone. Contacts. Memory.”

“Body?” Javi asks, voice indifferent, awaiting orders.

I pause briefly, fury wrestling with calculated restraint. “Break every bone.” Tonight, he’s lucky. He’ll survive as a message.

Javi nods, dragging the bleeding, broken man into the darkness. Muffled screams die swiftly into silence.

I stand rigid, knuckles flexing violently, heart slamming, not simply with anger, but with a savage, protective fear. They’re no longer just threatening my empire.

They’re coming for her.

Turning toward the carnival lights, icy resolve settles in my chest. Anyone daring to touch Camille will beg for death.

Tonight was merely a warning.

Next time, I’ll bury them alive.

Camille

I feel him return before I see him.

The heat. The shift.

He finds me near the Ferris wheel again, talking to Reina and Lucia, trying not to worry about the tight knot forming in my stomach. Kane left over twenty minutes ago. He said it was nothing. I knew it wasn’t.