Chapter 28 Catching The Mouse
Serena
She had no fucking clue. None. The things I wanted to do to her. The real things that would send her running until her lungs gave out.
I pictured her bound tight, blindfolded, her skin striped red from my belt, and her throat raw from screaming me and Saint's name while we decided exactly how much pain would tip her over into pleasure.
I wanted to carve my initials into her hip with my fingers, just deep enough to scar so she’d carry me forever.
I wanted to fuck her until she passed out, then wake her with my cock already down her throat so the first thing she tasted when consciousness returned was us.
I wanted to chain her to the foot of my bed for days, feed her from my hand, wash her with my mouth, use every hole until the only word she remembered how to say was ours.
And every time those images flashed behind my eyes, my dick got so hard it hurt to breathe.
But the second I imagined her looking at me with real terror, not the hot, glassy kind she gave when she was scared and soaked, but genuine fear, like I was the monster everyone else already believed I was, something in my chest cracked open.
I wanted to eat a bullet just to stop the wanting.
I couldn’t protect her from me.
I could only keep her close enough that when I finally broke, she’d already be too ruined to run.
“Sin!” Lara’s voice cut across the training field. Her high, fake-sweet voice was loud enough to carry to the main house.
I didn't understand why she wouldn't leave us alone and why my mother refused to let her go.
“We need to take a few pictures to update your page. We need to remind people what a power couple we still are.”
I didn’t stop punching. The mannequin in the center of the outdoor ring took another right hook, the leather splitting wider, stuffing exploding like cheap confetti.
My knuckles were shredded under the tape, blood smearing every impact, dripping onto the rubber mats in dark splatters.
If I stopped, I might walk straight to her room.
If I stopped, I might drag her out here, bend her over this same bag, and fuck her until she begged and forgot how to say anything except yes, ‘Sin, more!’
Lara stepped closer, her heels clicking on the stone floor. Her phone was already up, her camera was flashing before I even turned.
“Baby, come on. Just a few shots. Take your shirt off, maybe? Show the fans what they’re missing.”
I drove my fist into the mannequin’s face again.
The head snapped back. More stuffing rained down.
“Fuck off, Lara.”
She laughed, that breathy, practiced sound she used for red carpets.
“You’re in a mood today. Was it the little commoner again? She's getting on your nerves, isn't she? God, I hate her too—”
I spun.
All I took was one step and I was in her face before the sentence finished.
My bloody hand snapped out and closed around her phone. Then I crushed it while holding her gaze.
The screen spiderwebbed with a sharp crack.
Lara stumbled back, her eyes widening as the screen fell out in shattered bits.
I dropped the ruined phone at her feet.
“Next time you say her name,” I said, my voice so low it barely carried over the wind, “I’ll break something that doesn’t grow back.”
She stared at the shattered glass. Then at me.
“I don't deserve any of this. You and Saint are losing your minds over one clumsy girl and taking it out on me. I've been here for years by your side, protecting your secret and hanging on your brother's arm in parties.”
She was crying now, sniffling, even.
I knew what she was trying to do. She wanted to confuse people into thinking she was still in a relationship. If she posted the picture, people would think it was she and Saint and then Serena's place in our lives would be compromised.
They'd think Serena was just a family member.
“Lara, I'm a man of many things, but I'm not a patient man. Leave now or face my wrath.” I warned her.
She took a step back after she saw the rage in my eyes, then turned away and left.
I stood there until her footsteps faded completely.
Then I turned back to the mannequin.
It was already half-dead. I didn’t care. I needed something to hit.
It took five scalding showers to get my head straight.
The water hit like needles, but it still wasn’t enough to burn out the need clawing through my veins.
My mother and Delaney, our PR shark, kept hammering the same line in my ear: Contain your urges. Protect the brand. Don’t let another scandal tank us.
Easy for them to say. They didn’t have to live under the same roof as the woman who made every dark impulse roar to life.
I never meant to say it out loud in the game room.
But fuck it, so what?.They already knew.
Everyone knew.
“Sin, you better come out of that fucking shower so you can do your own fair share of the paperwork,” Saint called from my bedroom, his voice bouncing off the tiles.
I exhaled hard through my nose, shut off the water, and stepped out.
Steam rolled behind me like smoke from a fire I couldn’t put out.
Saint was already sprawled in the armchair by the window, his legs kicked out, sleeves rolled to his elbows, looking far too relaxed for someone who was the cross bearer for the responsibility of two people.
He shot me that knowing look, the one that said he saw straight through the bullshit.
“She’s got us this fucked up, huh?” he said, half question, half statement.
I didn’t answer.
He was right, but admitting it out loud felt like handing him a loaded gun.
I grabbed a black T-shirt from the dresser and tried to yank it over my head.
The fabric caught on my wet shoulders. I was still wrestling it down when we both heard it, a soft, deliberate crash from the adjoining room.
Our eyes locked. We moved at the same time, years of twin instinct kicking in.
I reached the doorway first. A shadow fell across my study desk. The shadow was small, careful, unmistakably feminine.
We stilled completely.
The shadow shifted and leaned forward, slender fingers brushing the edge of my open journal on the desk.
My pulse kicked hard. It wasn’t an intruder.
It was Serena.
She hadn’t seen us yet. She was reading the open page of my journal. Reading my shit.
The journal I’d left open on the desk, the one filled with every sick, obsessive thought I’d ever had about her.
She turned a page, and her breath caught audibly.
I stepped forward first into the room.
She didn’t hear me until I was almost on her.
When she did, she spun, clutching the journal to her chest like a shield.
“Sin…” Her voice cracked on my name.
I said nothing, only stared and let her see every dark thing I’d been trying to bury.
She backed up one step. She hit the desk and swallowed, her throat working visibly.
Nowhere left to go now, Serena.
Saint moved in behind her silently, blocking the doorway in case she tried to zigzag me.
She was caged between us again. Only this time, she’d walked into it herself.
And the journal in her hands? It was open to the page where I’d written her name over and over, obsessive, violent, desperate, followed by one single line which I wrote after punching that damn mannequin to nothingness:
I’m going to ruin her. And she’s going to thank me for it.