Chapter
3

“Hey, man, what the fuck’s your problem?” her boyfriend asked, but I didn’t give a shit.

“Sean, take the boy somewhere else. He’s irritating me.”

“Sure thing.” Sean stepped up to the blond boy and his friend, who wrapped an arm protectively around the other girl in their group. How quaint.

“I don’t know who you are—” the blond started.

“Who I am, fucker, is irrelevant to you. Keep walking or I’ll end your career … permanently,” I added when I noted his jacket was the same as most of the football players for the local university. I didn’t go out much in Valdosta—didn’t like being visible—but I always collected what belonged to me, and going directly on campus would be a danger. Lucky break to see her at a movie theater.

“Matt, let’s just go,” the dark-haired girl said, looking at me with scared eyes. I smiled at her, a shark in the water, looking for a morsel to bite.

“No, I’m going to find Ashlyn. I’ll meet you guys inside.”

Ashlyn. A pretty name for the broken doll with darkness in her eyes and sweet words on her lips. The pictures hadn’t done her justice. If she’d been beautiful then, she was almost painful to look at now. Pretty Boy spun around and stalked toward the bathroom.

“Matt, just leave it alone,” his other companion called.

“Screw you, Blake. I’m not leaving my girl.”

I could commend him, really, as I walked behind him. The two friends he had with him were worthless bags of flesh. A simple command and a bit of fear shouldn’t have run them off, but that was human nature. In the face of a predator, most prey ran. Fight or flight instincts kicked in, and there was nothing else that could be done.

“Boo,” I yelled at the couple, and they jumped before scurrying off. “Fucking pussies.” I spat on the ground in their direction and turned to collect my prize.

“Sean, watch the bathroom door, and call Kyle to make my meeting. I’m going to be preoccupied.”

Sean chuckled, resting his lithe frame against the bathroom wall and glaring at a passerby. “I give you ten, maybe fifteen minutes at most before someone calls the cops. Don’t want to be here when they do.”

“It won’t take that long,” I told him, and slammed through the door. Pussy Boy hovered over my pet as she shook her head wildly.

“What is wrong with you, Ash? Do you know that guy? Who is he?”

She shook her head again before she put up a hand between them. “I don’t know what’s wrong with my head right now. I’ve just got to go for a while, okay?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he yelled.

I saw it in her eyes then, pain and fear wrapped in resignation. I’d seen a lot of girls, ones who worked for me or served in my bed, but I’d never seen that look. Her gaze pierced me, stopped me cold. It shouldn’t have mattered, the way she would come with me with just a word about her brother. What did he have over her? She was a college student and had freedoms, she should have walked away from the shit long ago. Why didn’t she?

“You’re plucking my nerves, fucker. I already told you to beat it,” I growled at her wannabe boyfriend.

“Fuck you. Let’s go, Ashlyn. We can talk about it at home.”

I ignored him as he gripped her hand. Instead, I waited until he was within reach and swung one punch directed at his temple. He crumpled to the white tiled floor, his head smacking the ground with a thud.

“Matt! Please, you don’t have to hurt him. I’ll come with—”

“Caesar,” I interrupted her.

“What?”

“My name is Caesar. Say it.”

The irrational urge to hear my name on her tongue surprised me. She bit her lip and took a step back, a bird trapped in a cage. A horrible way to live, I should know; I’d lived in a cage for seven years. One of metal and bricks, expectations, and mental fucks. One built around me because I didn’t fit the standard, and the world didn’t want to accept my sort of life. I went underground because living life on the surface only exacerbated the picture of me as a freak.

“Will she be okay?”

I didn’t know who she was talking about. “Who?”

“Tamara.” Tears filled her eyes, pretty diamonds sticking to her eyelashes. I wanted to see more of that. Fucking wicked, but I did.

But the name wasn’t one I’d heard before. But if it made her come quietly, so be it. “She’ll be fine as long as you walk out that door and do as I say.”

Her wide gaze collided with his crumpled body before she looked back up at me. “Leave him alone, please?”

Didn’t care about him anyway. “Do as I say and we have a deal.”

She trembled delicately and took one step forward. Her fragile bone structure would break so easily against me. Her eyes, golden like a cat’s, hypnotized me, and her warm, earthy scent wrapped around my fucking brain. I wanted her now, bent over, riding my cock. I wanted her to scream and claw at me. Hell, I wanted to make her bleed, and I wanted her to beg me to do it. Always the same. The same darkness, the same need. I was fucking crazy, but I wouldn’t stop myself from taking her. I never stopped myself from getting what I wanted.

“Okay,” she said finally. She was a sweet thing, all trembling fear and hot glances. The sight of her sent my blood boiling.

“Follow my guy to my car, Ashlyn. Walk away from this. Tamara and Pretty Boy will be safe.”

She nodded her head, her hair caressing her shoulders in a raven-colored curtain. Her hands shook, and she bit her lip, but she walked by me with her head held high, a martyr heading to her death. She reminded me of her—Yolanda. The same determined set of her jaw and the brave way she faced the world. I watched my newest acquisition leave the bathroom and meet Sean, who directed her toward my car.

Who the fuck was Tamara, and why was a slip of a girl built on sweet lines and small stature willing to walk into the unknown for her? I slipped my phone out of my pocket and dialed.

“Yes, sir?” Sean answered.

“Find out who Tamara is. Something Trace didn’t tell us.”

“Will do.”

I hung up without saying anything else, my mind already on the woman whose scent still permeated the room.