Page 12

ADRIAN

I couldn’t help but slip in the quote from the book I’d spotted my little lamb checking out of the university library the other day. Was it smart? Would Marisela even recognize it?

Who knows?

I guess some part of me wanted her to know it didn’t matter where she was or where she tried to run off to. Either way, I’d find her.

But there was more to it than that. I needed to know that she felt the same pull. The one that made her both the most interesting and dangerous person I’d ever met. Because I didn’t think there was anything I wouldn’t do for this girl. And I barely knew her.

Hell, I’d let her stab me, while enjoying the fire I saw staring back at me from her eyes as she did it.

She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t appear to feel the slightest bit of guilt.

And it was fucking intoxicating. Her afterglow better than any orgasm I’d ever experienced.

Her natural inquisitiveness nearly as deep-seated as my own.

I saw the way she eyed the break in flesh, the layers of muscle tissue underneath.

Like she was two seconds away from coming from just the thrill.

It was a peculiarity I understood. And there was so much more I wanted to show her.

Even if it meant strapping myself to a slab and handing her the scalpel myself.

The clearing of a throat had me looking up just in time to widen my stance as Tate tried to shoulder-check his way past me.

I’d been so lost in my head I hadn’t heard his approach.

A mistake I wouldn’t make again. The fucker was like a poison looking to seep under your skin the moment he thought you were distracted enough to choke it down.

He paused in his tracks, his eyes flicking to my abdomen—to where my palm was clutching my side—before shooting back up again.

“What the fuck happened to you?” he asked, and not because he cared.

But because he was a nosey little shit, who liked to tuck information away until he found the most opportune moment to dangle it over your head.

I guess I wasn’t much different when it came to that. Except my motives were strategic, whereas my big brother’s were cruel.

“None of your fucking business,” I grunted in reply, not bothering to offer him a glance as I continued down the hallway towards my room.

Which was nothing more than a refurbished storage closet inside an estate that boasted over thirty guest bedrooms. Then again, I should have been grateful Prescott didn’t force me to sleep in the stables with the rest of the livestock that were one broken leg away from the slaughterhouse.

I didn’t have to look back to know Tate was following me.

I’d piqued his interest. That was on me.

Though I didn’t know what he was doing down here anyway.

Probably creeping on one of the maids. Or worse, forcing himself on one of their daughters.

I could only hope Justine remembered to lock her door.

Her girls weren’t even legal. Though I’m not sure if being of age really made that shit better. It just felt like it should.

By the time I stepped into my bedroom, Tate was pushing his way inside after me.

His eyes sparkling with the sadistic streak he tried to hide behind that clean-cut image of his.

My gaze swept up to where his blonde hair was already thinning at the top and I couldn’t hold back my grin.

He might have had the cookie-cutter features that made him a Prescott.

But I’d take my thick black hair and darker complexion over being a pale, bald prick with a small prick any day.

“Get the fuck out,” I snarled in his direction, as I pulled my little medical kit from the top shelf and went in search of the sterile needle I kept for situations like this. Though I wasn’t usually the one who needed suturing. That was a change.

“Of the room in the house I own?” Tate hummed. “No, I don’t think I will.”

I did my best to ignore him. Reminding myself to be patient. The fucker’s time would come, and when it did, I would enjoy the way his smugness would so quickly devolve into panic and terror. His laughter into shrieks of agony…

He stepped around the small space while I leaned back in my chair. Took a breath, contracted my abdominal muscles, and braced for the first stick. I didn’t bother with an anesthetic. The pain kept me from standing up and wrapping my palms around his throat.

I wasn’t sure what he was looking for. I didn’t have anything of value.

Not here. All the cash I’d managed to squirrel away was safely deposited in offshore accounts with no ties to my name unless computer hacking was in your repertoire.

It wasn’t in Tate’s. While anything that held any sort of sentiment to me had been stolen or destroyed before I was old enough to outsmart him.

The fucker had almost two decades on me.

Which meant I learned from a young age just how twisted my big brother could be.

“This was where it happened, you know.”

“Where what happened?” I couldn’t tell you why I responded. Other than it was an unconscious reaction as I tied off the fourth stitch. Marisela got me good. A little deeper and she would have punctured my small intestine.

“Where I fucked your mother for the first time.” He grinned.

I knew what he was doing. Asshole was goading me.

He pivoted on a heel, his hands tucked into his pockets with a confidence he hadn’t earned and sure as fuck didn’t deserve.

“Funny enough, a difference of a few months and you very well could have been calling me daddy instead of brother. Then again, the moment I found out some whore was carrying my bastard, I would have thrown her ass down the stairs. Lucky for you, Father always did have a soft spot for…” Tate glanced over at me like I was a pile of horse shit he accidentally carried in on his riding boots. “…your kind.”

Yeah, I was lucky . And right now, so was he. Lucky I didn’t cut out his fucking tongue and make him choke on it. I might not have known my mother, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel some sort of loyalty towards the woman. At times.

“She squealed like a pig the night you were born. Could hear it three floors up.” He removed a hand from his pocket and gestured towards the ceiling.

Dropping it at the same time he smirked down at me again.

“Father refused to let her go to a hospital. Even after your big-ass head got lodged in that tight, cock-strangling pussy the old man was nice enough to pass around to me… and all his friends. No wonder he insisted on a paternity test. Fetus could have belonged to anyone, really.”

I fisted the needle in my hand until I was dripping blood onto the table in front of me. Pushing up from my chair and crossing the room without even realizing my legs were moving.

The rage had cortisol and adrenaline flooding my brain, my body acting without processing or storing the details.

And the next thing I remembered, I was standing over Tate.

My fist bloodied to the bone and his nose and jaw offset in a way that meant that aristocratic profile he was so keen on possessing would never be the same.

Oops…