Page 40 of Ruthless Touch

“I want to see you beg me, Black Silk,” he says with a callous laugh. “I want to make sure you know your place?—”

“I wouldn’t touch her if I were you,” comes a familiar cool voice out of nowhere.

ELEVEN

GUN

Only Elise Quinncould make me bleed and leave me wanting more.

Pain rings in my head like a goddamn temple bell—and I have that psycho kitten to thank for it. It takes me longer than I want to admit to get up off the wet, pebbly ground.

That headbutt was borderline fatal.

I sit up with a groan, running fingers over my scalp to assess the damage. It feels like my fucking skull has been cracked open and then pricked by thousands of tiny, razor-sharp needles.

Elise had no idea what she was doing and how dangerous it was to hit me in the head like that. She doesn’t know about my condition. But it doesn’t make what she did any less deadly.

She’s long gone. Nowhere in sight.

As soon as I collapsed, she smartly took it as her cue to get the hell out of here. It doesn’t take a genius to tell how worn down she was toward the end.

So Goyangi-ne has limitations after all.

The way she carries herself, you’d think she was Wonder Woman.

Tonight, as we were fighting, she was markedly slower than the other night. She wasn’t as graceful or aggressive either. She seemed more concerned with escape and evading me than outright fighting—and even trying to kill me—like she had in the hotel suite.

Sensing this, I had taken it easy on her. I didn’treallywant to hurt her.

The truth is… a growing part of me has begun to even… enjoy our little sparring matches.

Our cat-and-mouse games.

It even amuses me that she seems to deeply hate me so much. It almost seems personal.

But my little feline friend won’t be escaping me that easily, even as I stagger to my feet and my skull throbs with pain.

Elise didn’t realize it, but when we were sparring, I stuck a tracker on her. I’d anticipated she would eventually slip away, and I preemptively snuck the tracker tag on her belt when we were grappling.

Sorry, Goyangi-ne, but you still haven’t seen the last of me.

I withdraw my phone from my pocket and swipe the tracking app open. Like I guessed, she’s making her way home, already outside the subway station a couple blocks from her apartment.

I take off after her, cutting time down by ordering a taxi.

For the duration of the ride, I’m monitoring the app, watching the blinking red dot that symbolizes Elise walking down the street.

And then… and then the dot goes down a side alleyway on the map.

My brows furrow.

The red dot remains in the alley for several minutes.

“What the hell is she doing?” I mutter under my breath.

In the alleyway she heads the opposite direction. Instead of going toward the exit, she goes deeper down the narrow passageway until she disappears inside what looks like an empty warehouse currently for sale.

“Why would she do that?” I ask. “Is she meeting someone? That man who crushed her in a bear hug tonight?”