King’s (The King Trilogy #1)(45)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Mack released a breath toward the ground and shook his head. “It sounded like more than that to me.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Fine.” He gripped my shoulders and looked down at me. Funny. It was the way Justin would grab me when he wanted to make a point. “Whatever you do, Mia, don’t become emotionally invested in him. He’s not that type of person.”

“King is the last man on Earth I’d ever feel anything for. He agreed to find my brother. That’s it.”

He pinched my chin. “I hope you’re telling the truth.”

“I am.” King was a means to an end. And I was, well, his, I supposed. At least in the eyes of the people belonging to this depraved world who thought it was okay to own people.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Okay. But I really need to hit the loo.” I smiled. “Too much champagne.”

Mack walked me down a long hall to a door. “I’ll wait here, and hurry the hell up before you start a real fight. With that dress, it’s only a matter of time.”

“Ha.” I entered the bathroom and locked the door behind me.

“Hello, Mia.” A sickly, cold hand smothered my scream as my body slammed against the wall.

“Mia?” Mack knocked on the door. “Are you all right?”

Vaughn’s beady eyes were an inch from my face. “Tell him you tripped. Tell him you’re fine, or I’ll f**king gut you like a fish.”

That’s when I noticed the sharp blade pushing into that spot right beneath my ribs.

Vaughn pressed his entire body against mine like a slithery snake about to constrict its prey. “One jab and I’ll puncture your lung. You’ll drown in your own blood. Nod if you understand.”

I nodded frantically.

“Good. Now tell him.” He slid his hand away from my mouth, but kept his body tightly pressed to mine. I wanted to retch. All I saw was red. Everywhere.

I clenched my eyes shut. “I’m fine, Mack. I ju-just tripped. Be out in a sec.”

Vaughn pressed his cheek to mine. “Good,” he whispered.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

“I want you to tell King how I touched what was his. You’ll tell him how much you liked it.”

I intuitively struggled, but he jabbed his knife into my ribs, piercing my skin. His hand landed over my mouth the moment I yelped.

Ironically, all I thought of was how badly the women of the world needed to unite to exterminate all and any ra**sts. It was the most vile, decrepit display of power one human could exhibit over another. It was a telltale sign that evolution had skipped several generations in a man’s bloodline.

But knowing that fact was no help to a woman being confronted by a man like Vaughn who delighted in the unthinkable: murder, rape, buying women like he bought art.

“Might makes right; that’s their only real rule,” Mack had said.

Vaughn began to gyrate and pump against my tensed body, his hand sliding between the slit at the front of my dress, clumsily searching between my legs.

“Don’t f**king move, bitch,” he breathed into my ear.

It’s okay, I told myself. It’s okay. Everyone who loves you will understand that you’d rather die than let this animal touch you. Justin will understand, too. No one will blame you.

“I’m not yours, Vaughn. And after you kill me, just know that King will tear you apart, limb from limb.”

Vaughn continued to rub against me, breathing heavily. “That’s exactly what I want, for him to try anyway.”

“Vaughn, you have one point five seconds to remove that hand from Mia, or I will remove it for you.”

Vaughn froze and turned his head. He attempted to say the name of the angry man in a black tux standing a mere two feet from us, but that was a half a second too long.

King threw him to the floor, somehow severing Vaughn’s arm in the process. Blood gushed from the exposed, raw meat that was now Vaughn’s shoulder.

I kept my back plastered to the wall, which provided the only crumb of comfort available to me in this horrific scene. Then I looked at King and, for the first time, saw something within him that truly terrified me. His eyes radiated with savage brutality. He was rage in a suit. Pure violence masked in a man’s skin.

“King?” I said.

His eyes flinted as if I’d triggered an awareness in him. He stepped away from Vaughn and drew a breath. And though Vaughn wailed and Mack pounded on the door, everything around us seemed to melt away.

“Are you all right, Miss Turner?” King asked.

I nodded, confused and somewhat awestruck by King’s presence. “Yeah. I think so.”

He flashed a reassuring smile and tilted his head. “It was never for me. Remember that.” His silvery gaze flickered to my wrist.

I stared at him, attempting to decipher his words.

Had he meant the tattoo? I looked at my wrist and then at him. That’s when it hit me. How had King gotten here? At the exact moment I needed him, he was there. The bathroom had been locked, and the only two people inside were the monster and me.

I clenched my fists. “How?”

Mack burst through the door, ready to attack. The moment he saw Vaughn wailing in agony, trying to stop his blood from flowing onto the bathroom floor, he froze and grinned. “There’s something you don’t see every day.”

I moved to point to King, but he was gone. Gone. Like a cloud of fog.

My head snapped from side to side as did my eyes.

“Mia?” Mack snapped his fingers in my face. “You okay?”

I looked down at my body. Spatters of blood covered my chest and arms.

“I think so, but…where did he go?” I searched in Mack’s blue eyes for the answers.

Mack hesitated before saying, “Let’s get you home.”

“Okay.” I glanced down at the puddle of blood surrounding my feet. Vaughn continued to scream, and that’s when I grasped how I enjoyed watching this man suffer. I wanted to see him die. It made me happy to think of a world without him.

Who was I becoming? I’d never been a vengeful person before.

“I’m going to f**king kill you, Miss Turner,” Vaughn howled. “I’m going to catch you and pick the flesh from your bones and make King watch. Then I’ll do the same to him.”

“Enjoy your one arm, ass**le.” I turned to leave, but a crowd of men in tuxedos had gathered in the doorway. They didn’t lift a finger to help Vaughn, but they didn’t want to let me pass, either.