Chapter 157

POV Dante

Hearing her words making a deal with that bastard Christian Norman’s secretary reacted in me like fuel. She tried to kill me with the explosion, but it seemed like it was just another attempt to buy more time to escape.

But she wants my slow death. My destruction. For everything I’ve built and earned to be torn down.

I didn’t know whether I should laugh.

She was a revenge-hungry beast. I liked that about her. But I hated that I was the one who awakened this side of hers.

"Fuck, if you can’t kill her, I’ll do it. But I’m not agreeing with this stupid plan," Cole was vibrating with anger. "Our lives are at risk, damn it. They were when she escaped both times. Dante, fuck! You’re the leader. Our battle is more important than a damn girlfriend."

The vein in my neck popped.

The outline of my closed face was met with a simple smile from Vance.

The guy didn’t say anything but absorbed every detail of that room.

Campbell never opened his mouth to give an opinion. He agreed with everything as long as we gave him what he desired most: blood. His thirst for vengeance was greater than ours. He didn’t care about the means, who died along the way, who stopped breathing. Vance just wanted to taste every flavor of a cold revenge dish.

"Now I get the captain. Who would have thought that the spoiled little girl would turn into a real hottie?" Asher whistled, and everyone’s attention shifted to the computer monitors.

The various camera angles made sure to display what was happening.

My body pulsed.

What the hell?

Emília Gray was stripping, showing off her curves for the camera. She was looking directly at it, fully aware we were watching her.

Gray took off her shirt, revealing her small breasts. My throat trembled seeing how they bounced, even though they were tiny, as she pulled down her pants. She arched her ass, and a small detail made my blood vibrate.

She wasn’t wearing fucking underwear.

Emília Gray had no underwear on.

"If she wants to offer her body, maybe I’ll keep her alive. Do you think she can handle five at once?" Asher joked, but his voice was muffled.

Shit, he was right. I was pulling my weapon out more times than I ever had.

I hit all the monitors displaying her. The shatter of the computer screen, the blackness, and the thick smoke coming out brought an overwhelming silence.

My nostrils flared.

Her body was not a display. Not for them. Not for anyone. Whatever she was trying to do, I would end it once and for all.

"Looks like someone got pissed," Jaxon said with a huff.

Asher laughed loudly.

My steps were heavy on the way to the attic. I slammed the door open, finding Emília naked, standing, staring at me with a smile that held the keys to Hell.

I avoided thinking about how fucking hard I was. How my hands itched to grab her waist and punish her the way she deserved. What she provoked in me was a mix of feelings I wanted to kill, but they only intensified millisecond by millisecond. Year after year.

Sometimes, I avoided thinking about how I wanted to have claimed her when we were younger. How I wanted to kiss her and mark her in a way no guy could ever compare to me after what would have happened. But then I remembered how that could have been my end. How I wouldn’t have been able to get where I was.

"You came faster than I thought."

Her provocation hardened my dick, especially with the dirty look in her eyes. Her voluminous curls, reaching her bare shoulders, gave me a new perspective on who she was. Naked and raw, she was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.

But my demons were fiercer, and they balanced my judgment, just like they had four years ago. She was nobody. My focus would always be the same as the other guys: to take down the Factory. Emília was a distraction I needed to shake off.

So why the hell wasn’t I brave enough to crush her skull the same way I had with all the others?

"What the fuck do you think you’re doing?" I asked, walking up to her cell.

There were only a few because we didn’t usually lock criminals up. We executed them long before they ever saw our facilities, but when we needed Torman’s help, he preferred we punished them in cells.

"Nothing," she said, pretending to be innocent. "I was hot and thought about taking off my clothes. Or am I forbidden from that?"

She licked her lips as if it were all a game. The girl I knew would have never had the guts for that. She would have died from embarrassment. The woman in front of me was capable of fucking Lucifer and stabbing him right after.

"You’re forbidden from showing even an inch of your skin unless I tell you to," I said, slipping my hands into my pockets, standing in front of her with the bars separating us.

"I control my body. If I want to show it to the fucking Pope, I’ll do it gladly."

"Don’t make me kill the Pope."

Her mouth froze.

I soaked in her naked black skin, especially her chest. Her nipples hardened, revealing what she was hiding. She had liked something.

"Are you going to tie me up again?"

Her syllables came out stammered, though she tried to hide it.

"You want me to? Because if you’re being disobedient just to get your wrists squeezed, I guarantee all you have to do is ask. I’ll punish you the way you deserve."

Her expression hardened.

"I hope you die."

"Don’t you ever get tired?" I asked, bringing back her desire to screw me over.

Her hand clenched, just like it always did when she wanted to control her emotions.

But I always wished she would show me. Let those emotions take over her.

"I won’t stop until I put an end to our story."

The atmosphere was filled with anguish, a tremendous past with an open wound in each one of us.

I opened the cell, which startled her. Instead of trying to escape, Emília continued to hold my gaze, but took steps back.

I entered, step by step, cautiously, as if her life were in my hands.

And it was. Until our bodies didn’t leave any air between us, my hand pressing into her chin, lifting her head. I tried to control the fact that I had Emília naked for me.

Completely at my mercy.

"Is this why you want to kill me?"

"I want to erase what’s left of you in me."

My veins dilated.

I was pissed off at how her desire was a flame that never died. It was violently fed. I had started the fire. I had given Emília this reason. But hearing it made me angrier than I could have imagined.

"You’ll die trying. Some parts of you are mine too. I’m engraved in you forever. Don’t forget that," I growled.

"I hate myself for this," she confessed, her voice rising slowly. "But I hate you even more, Dante. Living in a world where you exist is unbearable. You abandoned me. You left, leaving chaos in my life. You stayed silent. You let this happen. Let me become thirsty for your destruction. There’s nothing that can change that. Nothing."