Page 51 of Wicked Empire (Knight's Ridge Empire 3)

“You gave me your keys. You told me to, and I quote, ‘get the fuck away as fast as you can.’ So I did.”

“Straight into a fucking brick wall?” He closes the space between them, his fingers tightening on her throat. “I never told you to drive my car, Ramsey.” Her eyes flash with something as he says her surname. “You don’t have a fucking license.”

She shrugs. “Too late now. Better pull out Daddy’s credit card and book it into a garage. I’m sure it’ll buff out.”

I try really hard not to, but I can’t contain the laugh that rumbles up my throat at her comment. She totalled the front of his beloved Maserati. It certainly isn’t going to buff out.

Silence falls around us, save for Theo’s heaving breaths as he stares down at a much smaller Emmie, who still refuses to cower.

He closes the space between them, his other bloodied hand clenching and unclenching at his side as if he’s physically holding himself back from snapping her neck.

I know that fucking feeling, man.

I glance at Stella to see if she’s thinking the same as me as a door opens deeper in the flat, and not a second later does Alex come strolling into the room, fresh from the shower.

He takes one look at Theo and Emmie and mutters, “So he’s not happy about it then? Did anyone think to grab popcorn?”

“Take her home,” Theo booms, dragging Emmie from the wall and throwing her at an unsuspecting Alex, who barely catches her.

“Fuck you, Cirillo. I didn’t mean to fucking crash your car,” she spits.

“What even fucking possessed you to… no. No. Don’t fucking answer that. Why were you there tonight, Ramsey?”

“Because I invited her, asshole,” Stella pipes up, although Theo doesn’t register her words.

“Fuck you,” Emmie hisses, her lips curled in disgust as she stares at my friend.

Just fucking kiss her, I want to scream. The tension between them is fucking insane.

Reaching out once more, as if he can’t stop himself from touching her, he grabs her jaw.

“I’m fucking watching you.” He leans in, his lips brushing her ear as he whispers something else, and damn if her legs don’t fucking give out. If Alex weren’t holding her, I swear she’d have dropped to the floor like a sack of shit.

Releasing her, he storms to the kitchen and drags out a fresh bottle of vodka from the cupboard before storming to his room and slamming the door behind him.

“Well…” Alex starts, his hands still gripping Emmie’s upper arms. “That was intense.”

She lets out a resigned sigh. “Just do what he said and take me home.”

“You want to do as he says?” I ask in disbelief.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Always,” Stella says before I continue with, “you could go in there and fuck his brains out instead.”

“Yeah, that’s a hard pass from me.”

“Huh,” I mutter. “That explains a lot.”

“That explains what?” Emmie hisses, ripping herself from Alex’s hold, finally able to stand on her own two legs again.

“You’re both as pig-headed as each other. I hope you know that all this stubborn refusal is just wasting good sexy times. You could be in there tonight with his head between your—”

Crack.

Pain blooms in my cheek, my eyes narrowing on Emmie as she glares up at me.

I shake my head, an evil smirk appearing on my lips.