10. Luke

Gingerly dustingthe doll after I left the box open at the far, far end of the back garden for those creatures to crawl out, I hunch over the box with the little duster brush flicking in the hopes that this jackass cocked up enough to leave a clue behind. It’s meticulous, mind-numbing work, but somebody’s gotta do it.

I pause, the bristles of the brush suspended over the burned fabric. I’m loyal to Cian and always have been, but my growing feelings for Victoria are complicating things. I shove the thought aside and focus on the task at hand. There must be something on this doll that’ll give us a lead.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, a text from G.

All hell’s broken loose. Oisin executed. Coming back to BB.

Christ. That quick text doesn’t cover half of it, I bet. I hammer back a response.

Wtf, man? You’re going to have to elaborate.

His reply is almost immediate.

Cian’s on warpath. Kellerman might be key. See you in two.

“Well, fuck,” I sit back and stare into space for a second. That is not something anyone would joke about. But Oisin Gannon being dead is not good. “Fucking G,” I grumble. “Could’ve been more specific.” I know better than to text him back now. He’ll be on his bike, so I’ll just have to wait. I’m not texting Cian. He will have enough to deal with.

Kellerman. The first-year with too much arrogance and not enough sense—possibly tied to Cian’s dad getting killed? He doesn’t seem smart enough to plan his own breakfast, let alone this hit, but then again, pawns don’t need brains; they only need to follow orders.

I make a mental note to dig into Kellerman’s background and see who he’s connected to. It clearly isn’t BlackBriar’s Kellerman pulling the strings, but he’s an obvious pawn in this game played by his father. Or wait… is it his mother? I seem to recall a conversation overheard some time ago. They’re relatively new to the business, so they’re a bit of an unknown. Well, I’m going to make it my business to dig up every buried skeleton. Going after a huge family like the Gannons, who spread far and wide across the UK and Ireland, is dumb. Seriously fucking dumb.

Sighing, I get back to work on the doll. Each stroke of the brush could be uncovering a vital clue or just more bullshit that’ll lead nowhere. It’s like trying to find a specific needle in a haystack made entirely of needles.

Finishing up, I come up empty, but that wasn’t a shock. Whoever this is, I wonder if it is connected to Oisin’s death. Are they making us chase our tails by focusing on Victoria?

I shake my head to release that thought. These are two entirely separate incidents.

Rubbing my face with both hands, I allow myself a moment of weariness. The world expects us to be unstoppable forces, but even the toughest steel can bend under pressure.

Turning back to the monitors, I bring up the live feed of the cams outside Victoria’s. My blood runs cold.

Another box.

Reaching for my phone, I dial Victoria, having hacked her phone one night so I could go through her photos, hoping to find one of her naked and possibly masturbating.

I didn’t find one. It was a long shot. But it did give me her number.

“Who the fuck is this?” she asks after one ring.

Chuckling darkly, I breathe into the phone just to piss her off.

“Fuck you, fucking creep. You’re fucking thick ringing me with your number on display, you know.”

Letting out a loud laugh, I say, “It’s Luke. I’m just messing with you because I’m a dick and I can’t help it sometimes.”

“You,” she hisses. “You with your fucking spying.”

“Yeah, well, thank me for my fucking spying. Where are you?”

“What’s it to you? Are you going to ask me what I’m wearing next?” Her sass is gorgeous.

“What are you wearing?”

“Just a smile and Cian’s cum all over my naked tits.”

“Liar,” I murmur. “He’s still at the estate.” But I want to weep openly at the image she has presented me with.

“What do you want?” she asks, and then a gust of wind blows down the phone, so I know she’s outside.

I sober up instantly. “Don’t go home.”

A pause.

“Why?” Her suspicion is tangible.

“I wasn’t spying, but I did check the live feed a minute ago. Another box has been delivered.”

“Oh, really?” she drawls.

“Do not even think about it. I will be there in a few minutes.”

“Bye, creep,” she says and cuts me off.

“Fuck!”

I throw the phone onto the desk; it skids across and hits the wall. Patience isn’t my strongest suit, and Victoria, it seems, knows just how to prod my last nerve.

Snatching my keys off the desk, I rush out of the room, taking the stairs two at a time. My mind is racing a mile a minute as I consider what might happen if Victoria’s caught in whatever mess this new box could bring. It could be a trap, another message, or worse.

Bursting through the front door, I sprint to my car parked on the street. It’s going to be quicker than sprinting across campus to drive the one minute around. The engine roars to life as I practically throw it into gear. My fingers tighten on the steering wheel.

That sass of Victoria’s is like a double-edged sword—sexy as hell but dangerous in a situation where her life could be at stake. She is too arrogant, too ready to dive in headfirst.

Cian will fucking behead me and then shove my castrated nuts down my neck hole if anything happens to her while I’m the only one here.

Seeing her place, I step on the accelerator and then pull up the handbrake, executing a turn as I skid to a stop across her driveway as she comes belting across the road, running like the devil is on her ass.

She hurls herself over the bonnet of my car, her chest heaving as she slides gracefully over it to the other side. She’s wearing a snug, black t-shirt under her leather jacket that looks like it’s painted on, and jeans hugged tight to every fucking curve. She’s not just wearing a smile—she’s armed with a look in her eyes that could cut glass.

“What the actual fuck?” she spits out. “Go away.”

“Not a fucking chance, rosebud. You are not going anywhere near that box.” I grab her arm and haul her to a stop, despite the fact that Bonnie is clutched in her other hand, ready to swing.

And she fucking does.

“Fuck!” I duck and let her go as the nail-studded cricket bat sails over me where my head was a second ago. “Jesus, woman. What the fuck?”

“Do. Not. Touch. Me.”

Looking up at her from my crouched position, I see wildfire in her eyes. She is deadly serious and not just in an I-belong-to-Cian way, but in the I-will-gut you if you come near me without my consent way.

Holding my hands up, I rise slowly so as not to scare her, step back, and nod. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

Her chest heaves, and she lowers the bat, turning to her front gate.

“Don’t. You don’t know what’s in it.”

“More maggots and probably a beheaded doll. I know where this is leading. It’s creep 101.”

Snickering despite the seriousness of the situation, I fall into step beside her. “Let me.”

Victoria casts a sideways glance, her eyes narrowing with that fierce spark I’m growing accustomed to. It’s like staring down the barrel of a gun, knowing she could go off at any second. “Why? So you can play hero?” The scorn in her voice makes me smile and for reasons unknown to anyone, including me, I fall ass over tit in love with her.

I’m dead.

Cian is going to murder me and string me up.

I shake my head, keeping my hands visible so she doesn’t take another swing at me. “Not a hero—just not an idiot. You think I fancy having my balls served up as a starter at Cian’s next meal?”

She smirks, and for just a fraction of a second, I see the tension ease in her stance. But it’s gone as quickly as it came—replaced by that hard-ass attitude that tells me she doesn’t need or want my help. Still, she hesitates, just a beat too long, and I know I’ve got her thinking.

“Cian would never let anything happen to you,” I say softly, despite wanting to throttle her for making me worry. And neither would I.

My loyalty to him is unwavering, even if everything else is fucked up.

Her gaze flicks to mine for a split second before she looks away, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face with the hand not gripping Bonnie. “Fine,” she relents with obvious reluctance. “But no fucking tricks.”

“No tricks,” I agree quickly, too quickly maybe, because her eyes narrow again.

She motions with her head towards the box near the door—a plain black box that looks as innocent as a bloody Trojan horse. We inch toward it together but keep our distance as if it might detonate any moment now.

Who knows? Maybe it will. But something tells me this fucker is playing games with her and doesn’t want her dead.

Yet.

Crouching down, when we reach it, I pull my knife out and edge the lid up with the tip, expecting the worst. I brace myself, half-expecting a cobra to launch at my face, but no such luck.

Inside a fucking white rose with—I’m going to take a leap here and say blood drops on the petals—rests on top of an envelope. No maggots, no severed doll heads—just the flower and a note that smells faintly of expensive cologne. It’s almost laughably pretentious.

Victoria watches me with hawk eyes as I reach into my pocket for a pair of latex gloves and slip them on before I extract the envelope gingerly, half-expecting it to explode into flames or some shit. But nothing happens—no traps, no sudden moves from lurking shadows. I can practically feel Victoria’s impatience vibrating in the air between us.

I slide out the card from inside—a single line scrawled in a bold, taunting script: “A gift for Beauty from the Beast.”

“Motherfucker’s got a flair for dramatics,” I mutter.

Victoria snatches it from my hand before I can stop her, her eyes skimming over the words with an intensity that says she’ll tear the world apart to get to this bastard.

Her lips press into a thin line, and her hand tightens around Bonnie.

“You’re getting your fingerprints all over it,” I groan.

“Whatever,” she says, giving me a scathing glare. “I doubt there’s any others on it.”

I want to fucking kill whoever did this.

“Looks like you’ve got a stalker,” I say.

“Asshole,” she spits out. “Fucking coward should come at me face-to-face.”

“Not exactly how stalking works, rosebud.”

Her nostrils flare as I call her that again. I don’t even know why I am. It’s just…natural.

“You want to take this inside and give me your laptop?” I suggest, gesturing towards her house.

“Why?”

“So, I can go back to the feed to see who dropped it.”

“You didn’t do that already?”

“No, you didn’t give me time, by launching your ass across campus to open this by yourself with no backup.”

“Humph,” she mutters rudely, but nods curtly, already leaning forward to unlock the door, muscles taut and ready to strike at anything that moves. I retrieve the box and follow her into the extravagant marble-floored entrance hall, feeling like a predator entering another’s den, knowing full well the danger that comes with it.

Victoria tosses the envelope back into the still-open box and spins around to face me, bat still in hand, as if she expects me to start sprouting horns any second now.

“Laptop?” I prompt.

She lays Bonnie carefully on the side table with her keys as I kick the door shut behind us and place the box next to them. She pulls the laptop out of her book bag, and I take it, opening it and then rolling my eyes.

“Password?”

She gives me a slow smile, and I return it as I turn the laptop around so she can type it in.

Her fingers flit across the keyboard with a grace that belies her earlier ferocity, and as the screen flickers to life, I admire the seamless switch. She’s a fucking enigma—wild one second, ice-cold the next. I like it. It’s a challenge.

Victoria edges closer, peering over my shoulder as I navigate the security footage. The tension rolls off her in waves, every line of her body strung tight with anticipation and barely contained anger. We’re quiet, the only sound is the soft clicking of keys under my fingers as I work backwards through digital time.

I start pulling up the security feeds, going back over the footage from before she found her lovely, boxed surprise. In the clear colour of the camera feed, I see a shadow slink up to the door. Dressed head to toe in black with a hoodie, gloves, and a mask on, the bastard’s careful, keeping his face turned away, but there’s something in his movement that piques my interest—lithe and fluid.

Victoria’s hot breath tickles my ear as she leans in closer, an unintentional display of intimacy that sends a twisted thrill through my body. “Could be anyone,” she murmurs.

“Yeah,” I concede. “But it’s a start.”

The atmosphere between us is charged with a warped energy unlike anything I’ve felt before. It’s darker and more menacing. This forbidden desire courses through us like an addictive poison, threatening to absorb our very souls.

She feels it as well. I know she does. Her gaze has gone heated, and when she lifts the laptop from my knees and places it on the coffee table, I nearly keel over with lust when she slides onto my lap.

“We can’t,” I croak, even though I want to. Fuck, I want to so badly, my cock is practically bursting out of my pants.

She feels it and wiggles, rubbing up against me with that smile that does things to me no other woman ever has or probably ever will. She cups my face, biting her lip as she takes my hand and guides it to my cock. Then she slips off my lap and sits on the coffee table directly in front of me.

“I’m not going to touch you, but I want you to touch yourself. Look at me and jerk off. Show me that the lust in your eyes is real, Luke.”

“Fuck,” I groan. “Victoria, this is… Cian will kill me.”

“For doing what? We’re not touching each other. I’m watching you.”

Those last three words set a fire burning deep and nothing can stop me from unzipping my pants and pulling my cock out.

Victoria’s gaze goes straight to it, and she lets out a soft pant. I know my cock is big. Nine inches and a real handful.

Gripping the shaft in my hand, I start to stroke, my eyes locked on hers. Her tongue flicks out, wetting her lips as she watches me, the air around us thick with need and something darker, more urgent. The friction of my hand sliding over my cock sends waves of pleasure through me, but it’s her eyes that undo me. Predatory yet somehow innocent, they demand everything I have to offer.

Her breath hitches as I tighten my grip, increasing the pace. “That’s it,” she whispers, her voice laced with command and an edge of vulnerability that makes me want to protect her and fuck her all at once.

I can feel the tension coiling in my gut, the pressure building to a breaking point.

“Look at you,” Victoria murmurs, licking her lips again. “So fucking gorgeous when you’re falling apart.”

I can’t hold back any longer; with a few more strokes, I come hard, spilling over my hand and gasping her name like a goddamn invocation. As the last shudder wracks through me, I slump back against the couch, chest heaving as I reach for the box of tissues I spotted on the end table.

Victoria stands up smoothly, her eyes still fixed on me with an intensity that could scorch the earth. “Good boy,” she says softly, but there’s a steel undercurrent to her words that reminds me who she is—the untouchable Victoria Stroud.

I tuck myself back in and zip up my pants, never taking my eyes off her. This is more than just lust; it’s a game of power and control, and we’re both too deep to back out now.

She turns away with a satisfied smirk, giving me space to compose myself. It’s clear I’ve just passed some sort of test, but the rules are hers alone. Christ, I shouldn’t want her like this – shouldn’t want her at all. Cian is my mate, my leader, the one I’ve sworn to stand beside through any fucked-up storm that comes at us. And yet here I am, cock throbbing with the aftermath of an illicit performance for his girl.

“When do I get a reciprocation?” I ask hoarsely.

She faces me again, a wicked smile on her lips. “Who says this is a tit-for-tat?”

“Not fair.”

My gaze bores darkly into hers, but it does nothing to convince her to drop her knickers and give me a return performance.

“Patience, sweet boy. Do you think you can handle that?”

Rising, I step into her space, making her uncomfortable as I loom over her. She steps back, but I grip her upper arms tight, remembering what she said about keeping my hands to myself. But right now, it’s tough shit. “You owe me,” I growl.

She lifts her chin to glare at me towering over her. “I don’t owe you shit.”

My grip on her tightens just a fraction as I lean down and whisper, “Don’t play games you can’t win, Victoria.” She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t show fear. If anything, her defiance turns me on even more. It’s a dangerous game we’re playing, one that could end in disaster for us both.

I let her go abruptly, taking a step back. The air trembles with the unsaid, the unfinished business hanging between us like a thundercloud ready to burst. “You might not owe me,” I say with brittle calmness, “but you don’t want to start something with me you can’t finish.”

She smirks again, a dark promise in her eyes that says this is far from over. “Don’t worry about me, Luke. Worry about yourself.”

I don’t respond. I don’t trust myself to. Instead, I turn and leave the room with as much dignity as I can muster when every cell in my body screams to take her right there on the coffee table.

Out in the cool corridor of the mansion, I lean against the wall and try to collect myself. My heart pounds against my ribcage like it’s trying to escape. Christ, what am I doing? Cian will have my head if he finds out about this little sideshow.

But Victoria isn’t just any woman; she’s like an addiction that gets under your skin and makes you crave things you never thought you wanted. And now that I’ve had a taste—fuck.

There’s no going back.