Chapter 42
Jacob's eyes narrowed, a flicker of cold calculation in their depths.
He pulled the dagger out. A single, perfect bead of blood rolled down the blade's edge before dripping onto the grimy concrete floor.
He passed the knife to Ian, then gestured with his chin toward Alva's right hand.
Jax, understanding the unspoken command, moved in. He grabbed Alva's hand—which was already twitching in agony—and slammed it flat against a nearby metal workbench, holding it fast.
Another one of Jacob's men stepped forward, presenting a heavy, industrial-sized pair of pliers.
A desperate, guttural whimper escaped Alva's throat as he seemed to realize what was coming.
Jacob took the pliers himself. He positioned the tool's unforgiving jaws around the base of Alva's little finger.
"No... no... please... Boss..." Alva's final plea was a pathetic, broken whisper.
Jacob's face remained a mask of indifference. With a surge of controlled force, he squeezed his hands together. The pliers snapped shut.
A sickeningly sharp crack echoed through the basement.
Alva's pinky, severed cleanly at the knuckle, detached from his hand. It dropped to the filthy floor, twitching once, twice, before falling still. A fountain of crimson erupted from the wound.
Alva couldn't even scream anymore. His head lolled to the side, and he passed out cold. Only the faint, shallow rise and fall of his chest proved he was still breathing.
Jacob threw away the blood-stained iron tongs with a clang. He took out his handkerchief and slowly wiped the blood splatters off his hands, his elegant movements being completely out of place with the bloody scene.
"Warehouse Seven, West Side," he ordered Leon, his voice flat, devoid of any emotion. "Clean it up. And if the intel is bad..." His gaze drifted to the mangled, bloody mess that was Alva, hanging from his chains. "...He knows the consequences."
"Yes, Mr. Smith." Leon nodded curtly and left with his men, their footsteps efficient and silent.
The basement fell quiet again, the silence punctuated only by Alva's ragged breathing and the soft, rhythmic drip of his blood hitting the floor.
When Jacob walked back up to the bar on the first floor, the party was in full swing.
The thick, cloying smell of cheap booze and perfume hit him like a wall. He strode through the crowd, his expression impassive.
In several booths, couples were tangled together, their intertwined limbs and breathless moans a spectacle for anyone watching.
It did nothing for Jacob.
He found the blatant displays of carnal transaction not just uninteresting, but repulsive.
When a person was reduced to pure desire, what separated them from an animal?
To Jacob, these people were nothing more than the walking dead.
"Hey, handsome. Interested in a good time tonight?" A drunk woman, reeking of desperation and cheap vodka, stumbled into his path.
Jacob didn't break his stride. Leon, flanking him, smoothly drew his piece, the muzzle aimed squarely at her. "Watch it, drunk," he growled.
The cold steel against her skin was a sobering shock. The woman's eyes widened in fear, and she scrambled backward.
Jacob was already out the door and sliding into the waiting car.
He hadn't slept. Dealing with a traitor, recovering assets. This was his normal.
He settled into the plush leather of the back seat and closed his eyes, the bone-deep exhaustion finally catching up to him. The betrayal had been handled, the loss would be recovered, and order was restored. He should feel a sense of relief.
But instead, an unwelcome image flashed in his mind: the woman, Elizabeth, smiling as she handed him a bouquet of daisies. The way that infuriating bone whistle rested against the skin of her collarbone.
He remembered pinning her against his desk before he left, fucking her until she was trembling.
He had to admit, with her, the act itself wasn't entirely disgusting.
What the fuck was I thinking?
The weapons were still missing, and he was getting hung up on this?
His eyes snapped open, a flash of raw annoyance crossing his features.
"Back to the manor," he bit out to the driver.
By the time Jacob arrived back at the Smith Manor, the sky was beginning to lighten with the first signs of dawn. He went straight to his bathroom, the long, hot shower doing little to wash away the grime of the night's work.
After he'd toweled off, Jacob pushed open the door to his bedroom. The room was silent.
The large sofa was empty, and the thin quilt was neatly folded, as if no one had lain on it the previous night.
Jacob stopped in his tracks.
"Tina," he called out to the empty room.
Almost instantly, as if summoned from the shadows, Tina appeared at the bedroom door. Dressed in her usual dark, impeccable suit, she bowed her head slightly. "Mr. Smith."
"Where is she?" Jacob's voice was dangerously calm, a tone anyone who knew him would recognize as the prelude to a storm.
Tina kept her eyes lowered. "Ms. Windsor moved back to the guest room she was previously assigned last night,."
Moved back?
Jacob was silent for two long beats. Then, a low, humorless laugh escaped his lips. It was short, cold, and laced with a sense of the absurd.
She was his fiancée. His woman. He was the one who decided if she was allowed near him, the one who could discard her. How dare she decide on her own accommodations without his permission?
He was the one who had told her to sleep here. By moving out, was she treating his bedroom like some temporary shelter? A place she could come and go as she pleased?
The irritation he'd just managed to suppress came roaring back. Already on edge from the betrayal and the missing shipment, he now felt a hot, nameless anger tightening in his chest.
Without another word, he turned and strode out of the room, his long legs eating up the distance down the hall toward the guest wing.
Tina watched him go, wisely choosing not to follow.
Jacob didn't bother knocking. He shoved the door to Elizabeth's guest room open.
She was still asleep, curled into a tight ball on her side. It was a defensive posture, he noted with a detached clinical interest, a sign of someone with a profound lack of security.
He found that surprising. Her file indicated a coddled upbringing. Hughes had doted on her, and her fallout with Charles was a recent development. Why would she be so guarded?
As he sat on the edge of her bed, a dark thought soured his expression.
Was it because of him? Because she was now a guest—a prisoner—in the Smith family's domain, subject to his whims? Was that why she was so afraid?
Jacob didn't even know why he'd come into her room. Not that he needed a reason. The entire estate was his; he could wander wherever the hell he wanted.
Still, this felt pointless. And Jacob Smith never wasted time on pointless things.
Despite himself, the man whose every minute was accounted for reached out, his hand sliding under the loose hem of her silk nightgown. He found the smooth skin of her thigh.
So soft. So supple.
His fingers mapped the path to the juncture of her legs, parting them. He needed to see. He studied her, his gaze intense and analytical.
Elizabeth was dreaming again.
But this dream was different. Unlike the brutal memories that usually haunted her sleep, the man in this dream wasn't violent. He was using his fingers to gently part her labia, rubbing back and forth, inserting one finger little by little, and ground it slowly..
She tried to open her eyes, to see his face, but her eyelids were impossibly heavy.
She only felt a wave of warmth sweep over her vaginal opening, with a slippery and burning sensation brushing past her clitoris and labia, then penetrating her vagina.