Page 84 of Velvet Corruption

I stood there, soaked, shaking, rage and desire surging beneath my skin like wildfire. Not heartbreak. Not despair.

Possession.

I didn’t feel like throwing up—I felt like throwing her over my shoulder, hauling her into the nearest dark alley, and reminding her who the fuck she belonged to. Who she always belonged to.

She thought this was over?

No.

She was mine.

She could say whatever she wanted. Scream, spit, claw at me like she hated me—but I knew the way her body had curled againstmine. I knew the way she gasped when I touched her. The way she kissed me like it was the first breath she’d taken in years.

And yeah, maybe she hated herself for it.

That just meant I was doing something right.

She didn’t want to see me again?

Fine.

She could close her eyes when I made her come.

She was serious about taking down the Callahans—so what? I was serious about never letting her go. And if it came to a fight, I’d burn down this whole city before I let her walk away from me for good.

Let her dig up dirt. Let her play spy. Let her think she’s the one with the upper hand.

Because if she kept pushing me, testing me, pretending she wasn’t mine?

One day soon, she’d wake up chained to my bed with nothing to say except please.

She wasn’t gone.

She was marked.

And whether she wanted to admit it or not?

Ruby Marquez was already mine.

Chapter Eighteen: Ruby

My clothes smelled like salt and…what? Shit? Oil? Fuck, I smelled terrible.

My hand hurt so much…and was probably going to get infected, given I’d just bathed in Boston Harbor And the only reason I was barely functioning was because I’d blasted the heating in the car.

Even though I was barely fucking alive, all I could think about was Kieran.

The way his green eyes had shone when he’d saved me. The fucking expression on his face as I told him I was going to take his family down.

It was eating at me. Kieran was eating at me and there was nothing I could do about it.

I stepped through the front door, dripping wet, exhausted down to my bones, and freezing in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. My coat hung heavy on my shoulders, my clothesclinging uncomfortably to my skin, and the moment I shut the door behind me, the silence pressed in.

The longshoreman was supposed to help validate the evidence I had against the Callahans, but if Alek knew about it, he would’ve told me to let Detective Kitsuragi handle it—Kitsuragi was already running point on the investigation.

And Alek would’ve been right.

I tried to lose myself in the scent of my house, in the familiarity of my surroundings, but it was too quiet. Too normal. The kind of normal that made me want to collapse right there in the entryway. Instead, I forced myself forward, shaking off the weight of the night and heading straight for the bathroom as I shed the saltwater clothes all over the hallway.