18. Veronica

Chapter 18

Veronica

I spent the evening combing through everything I could find online about Luther Booth: records of fights and fighters, photos, betting, all of it. Everything linked Booth to Victor with a continuous and accessible line with no problem.

Luther was also a street kid from Seattle, making the hair on my neck tingle. He’d been a little older when he went missing, but he had never shown up anywhere for years—not to school or on police radar. It didn’t seem like anyone looked for him. He’d been shuttled between group homes and stopped showing up, and nobody bothered to look for him.

Then, suddenly, he’d popped back up with a data footprint. He’d opened banking accounts, gotten a driver’s license, and bought a warehouse. All seemingly legitimate, but the question had been where he’d been — or at least that would have been my question. Nobody seemed to care.

As I dug deeper, another name kept coming up in conjunction with the fighting business. Havoc. Finding clips of the fights they held was next to impossible. There were some early grainy videos, but the fighters were hard to make out except for Victor, who I had no problem discerning based on his blond hair and slight build. His fight style was straight-up vicious. He was easy to tag in videos because he fought like he was going for the kill every time. Instead of dancing and dodging, Victor wouldn’t deviate from a swift attack and brutal follow-through. Most of the fighters didn’t get back up. I couldn’t help but be thankful the psycho was dead.

I could see that there was chatter about an upcoming fight, but I wasn’t sure where the location was or when it was. So I knew … jack shit.

Maxim had also sent me a packet of information that he wanted me to go through, but it was child’s play, and I’d already sent him back what he wanted to know. Although, I couldn’t fathom why he wanted dirt on some random girl.

Frustrated, I ended up going to bed angry. I was mad that I couldn’t figure out anything more and that Eli hadn’t texted like he had promised.

T he remnants of my dream still clung to me—disjointed, half-formed images that didn’t make sense—a cage. Bright lights. The sound of fists meeting flesh, dull thuds reverberating through the air, and a low, guttural roar from the crowd, hungry for violence. It felt so real but wrong, like I’d been dropped into someone else’s nightmare.

I’d never seen a fight in person or been to one of those underground matches I’d hacked into online, but the sensation… was visceral.

A figure moved, his body all muscle and rage, fists swinging like hammers, but his face was blurred, lost in the haze. Sweat glistened on his skin, each punch sending tremors through the mat. The fighter on the receiving end crumbled—falling in slow motion, collapsing into the dirt. The impact echoed, a sickening thud that rattled my bones.

Then it all shifted, twisted like a kaleidoscope, and suddenly, I wasn’t watching the fight anymore. I was the one falling. The dirt became cold, sterile sheets. My body felt small and weak. I was in the hospital bed, just like I’d been so many times when I was a kid. The constant beep of the heart monitor was my soundtrack, the IV line tethering me to life, even when everything in me wanted to let go.

I remembered the sterile smell, the endless nights staring at the ceiling, the shadows creeping across the walls. I was trapped in that bed again, battling something invisible, something that ate away at me from the inside.

I woke up gasping for air, my heart pounding against my ribs like it was trying to escape.

I opened my eyes, the room still cloaked in early morning shadows, the faintest light peeking through the blinds. My chest heaved with shallow breaths, sweat sticking my hair to my forehead. I wasn’t in the warehouse. I wasn’t in the hospital. I was here.

Safe. My star stickers glowed above me.

But I didn’t feel safe.

“Wakey wakey, Veronica,” his voice dripped out of the darkness, and in answer, my body seemed to respond automatically to him, my thighs clenching and my pussy gushing. Eli lounged casually in my desk chair, arms on his knees, which only made those arm muscles of his pop. He looked like he was etched out of marble .

Moving forward, he pulled the blanket off me, leaving me in my tank and boy shorts under his steely gaze. His body loomed over mine, and I wondered briefly if I told him to stop if he would or if he would take me anyway. Somehow, that made me even wetter, the idea that he would keep going. I groaned and spread my legs to accommodate him as he climbed on the bed.

“Is this all for me, my little liar?” A knife clicked as he knelt between my thighs. My thoughts went white, and I arched up. Was he going to cut me, or maybe he’d kill me now?

I’d die fast if he cut me. I’d bleed out on the sheets in rivers. It would be a swift death that would bring a sweet white peace. I came in a blaze just as his hand grazed my clit with a feather touch, convulsing as the knife kissed my skin, cutting my clothes free. Lights flashed behind my eyeballs as my hands clenched at the sheets.

Furiously, he yanked away the shredded remnants of my tank and boy shorts until I was naked. He leaned forward, careful not to let his body touch me. “I know what you crave. Don’t think I don’t.”

His eyes were on me, taking in every inch of my body, the way my nipples peaked under his gaze, and how my thighs spread for him. He took his time to look at me, leaning closer than I would have imagined, and I almost wondered if he was going to settle between my thighs.

“Do you want me to touch you?” he asked, his voice slow and careful near my breast.

“Yes.” The one time I’d had sex had been a travesty, and already Eli was making me see that he was going to erase that from my memory.

“Let’s see if you taste of flowers.” He slid a finger into me, pumping it and arcing it inside me, grinding the pad of his palm up against my clit. I was so wet the sounds would be embarrassing if I cared, but I was already chasing that high again. “You’re so tight,” he muttered. The combination of Eli’s body clothed on mine, his rough edges against my pale exposed ones, were as good as gasoline on a fire. “That’s it, darling. Scream for me.” He jammed a second finger into me, and I did as he commanded, just as he slammed his mouth on top of mine.

“Your little cunt is going to be my new favorite place to be,” he said, leaning back as he slid the same fingers that were inside me into his mouth, licking each one clean with a smirk.

“Turn over, darling.”

“What?” I was still spinning from the blistering orgasms he’d delivered, and my brain was fuzzy around the edges. He didn’t wait for me to catch up but flipped me over with ease so my face was in the pillows and my ass was in the air.

I’d long given up being shy about my body and nakedness. There was nothing new about my form that people hadn’t seen, so I wasn’t embarrassed but excited. It seemed erotic for him to see my pussy pushed out at him like this. Peeking over my shoulder, I saw him shedding clothes and toeing out of his boots. He was just as much an Adonis as I imagined — even better.

The weight shifted on the mattress behind me. “Eyes front. Hands on the headboard. I don’t want you to hit your head,” he instructed. Lips inched along my spine and hip, his tongue licking along small scars from various procedures as he went. His hands moved everywhere, gliding and gripping my skin. “Your skin is so soft,” he breathed against me, making goosebumps rise against his lips. “Tell me if it’s hard to breathe.”

I wanted to tell him that he made everything better, but I could feel his erection against me, massive and hard, with precum leaking from it as it met my skin. He knelt behind me, and I hazarded another look back, only to be glared at. Eli was holding his cock in one hand as if he were strangling it into submission, the tip purple and angry.

“I said, eyes front.” A slap landed on my ass, shocking me and causing me to whip my head back forward, clamping my hands hard around the bed frame like I’d been told. “That’s for being disobedient.” His hand rubbed the spot that he’d just slapped. “Don’t be a bad girl.”

“You spanked me,” I said indignately. I’d never been spanked for any reason in my life. My father had hit my sister, but that had been different.

“You disobeyed, and bad girls get punished.” Squirming a little, I felt him shift as he notched the head of his cock against the folds of my slit. I wanted him to thrust in and take me hard, not slow like this. It was torture. The slap was exciting, even though it hurt a little, and I was contemplating whether I wanted him to do it again. The dirty talk was really doing it for me, though. I wouldn’t have imagined it would have, but I was already panting against the pillow.

“I could tell you no.” My words didn’t sound convincing, even to me. “Maybe I didn’t like it.” I pivoted my head around just for good measure, and I didn’t mean to, but my ass shifted back at the same time, my pussy sliding back just a fraction. The moan sounded low and needy in the room .

“My little goddess wants to be a brat, does she?” Eli pushed me firmly into the mattress and gave me another slap on the ass. My pussy gave me a corresponding gush. “I’m in charge, little girl. Of you.” He thrust in partway, driving me hard into the mattress without mercy. “And in charge of this cunt. Bite that fucking pillow as I fuck you. Strangle my cock, little darling.”

Oh my god. This was heaven. He drove all the way into me, his fingers gripping my hips, his pace so frantic it was as if he’d never have a chance to touch me again. For once, I felt like someone wasn’t treating me like I was fragile or broken. As his cock speared through me, I felt every inch of him, my ass still stinging from the slap as I came in great sobs.

He spread me even further, ramming harder into me as his cock pulsed. Pulling free of my body, he came on my back, the jets of cum spraying over my skin and my ass.

Collapsing on my stomach, I lay still, not minding, just basking at the moment, but before I was ready, Eli was up and moving to the bathroom. Was he leaving? It made sense, and I didn’t know how these encounters went, but then he returned. “I hate to clean it off. I like you covered in me.” He traced a finger in the cum, drawing letters. “What am I writing, Veronica?”

“I can’t tell,” I lied. I could tell what he was writing. It was the word He ‘mine’ over and over. Eli raised his fingers to my lips, and I immediately opened for him, tasting the saltiness.

“Don’t be a liar. You’re not very good at it.” Gently, he cleaned my back off and tucked me back into my blankets. “We’re going to be doing this a lot,” he declared just before my eyes closed.