Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes #3)(58)

He looks at me expressionlessly. ‘What do you want, Eden?’

‘You already know what I want,’ I say coldly.

He laughs, a short bark of disbelief. ‘You’re one cocky cunt. You think you can come in here and ask for my woman and I’ll just hand her over to you? What do you think she is? A cheap bottle of whiskey that I can pass on to you? Huh?’

‘She’s not your woman,’ I say calmly.

‘If she’s not my woman, then what the f*ck are you doing here asking for my blessing to keep on f*cking her?’

‘I’m here because you’re a cunt, Lenny.’

His eyes flash, but his voice is polite. ‘You’re Jake’s kin so I’ll ignore that insult, but I suggest you stop right there. This is going to get ugly real soon and before you know it, it’ll be outright war.’

I push my chest out. ‘She doesn’t love you.’

‘My jacket doesn’t love me. But it’s mine and I use it whenever I please.’

His sneering tone and his choice of words are calculated to infuriate me. I unclench my hands. He will not get to me.

‘Well, she is not a jacket. She’s a woman, and she can decide who she wants to be with.’

‘Let me tell you why she belongs to me,’ he says conversationally, as if he is telling an amusing little anecdote. ‘When she crawled up to me and begged me to help her, her entire body was covered in bruises and bite marks. There were grip marks on her cheeks where they held her face and f*cked her mouth. They had filled her belly with their semen. When she vomited I saw it. Globs of it.’

My face whitens and he sees it.

‘Awww … I’ve upset the pretty boy. Well f*ck you. Her anus was bleeding. She used to scream when she went to the toilet. Her cunt was so swollen she couldn’t walk straight for days. She was like a mute child for weeks. I took care of her. I ran the bath and f*cking bathed her, *.’

He stops and tilts his face upwards.

‘She’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming and thrashing, reliving it all. Sometimes she didn’t recognize me. She was half mad. One day she ran down the street in the middle of winter stark naked. I ran out after her, tackled her to the ground, and brought her back. I won’t tell you the rest of the stuff I went through with her. She was a broken bird. Totally helpless. I could have done anything I wanted with her, but I never touched her for months. So don’t come here with all your youth and arrogance and pretend you know how to take better care of her just because you f*cked her a few times. Because you f*cking don’t. You don’t know what we’ve gone through together.’


He laughs bitterly.

‘For the first time in my life I felt pity for another creature. She moved something in me. They say that everyone, even the worst killer, has a divine spark in him. She touched that spark. She made me good.’

For some strange reason I actually believe he is telling the truth. That at some level he cares for her. ‘If you truly care for her then give her your blessing. Let her be happy.’

‘With you?’

‘Yes, with me.’

He leers. ‘Why? Because you like the taste of her *? Eh?’

My jaw clenches. ‘Don’t talk about her like that.’

‘Look at you. You think you’ve got it all figured out. You think it’s a f*cking song taking care of her? Are you ready for the flashbacks? Are you ready to be sitting in the middle of a classy restaurant as she freezes up like a f*cking statue, or worse for her to start screaming her head off for no goddamn reason? Are you ready to chase her naked body down the road in the dead winter? Are you ready for her to start sobbing while you’re f*cking her?’

The desire to sock him one hard, so hard he’ll never be able to talk again, is so strong I have to clench my fists and force myself to stand still. I take a deep calming breath. I will not let him rile me. No matter what, I have one objective and I’m not going to let anything stand in the way.

‘I’m not here for relationship advice, Lenny.’

‘You’re a young punk. What do you know about relationships? Do you think I don’t know about you? Tell me, what’s the longest a relationship has lasted with you?’

‘She’s different. In exactly the same way she touched that spark in you, she touched something in me too.’

He laughs with suppressed fury. ‘Yeah, I’m sure you believe that too.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you think,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m not here to convince you of anything. I’m here for the videotapes.’

‘What videotapes?’ he asks, but I see the furtive gleam in his eyes that he is unable to hide fast enough.

‘The videotapes that show every occupant in the lift getting off on the second floor of your hotel.’

‘What makes you think such videotapes exists?’ he asks slyly.

I look at him steadily. ‘You forget we know the same people. Everybody knows you have surveillance in your lift.’

He looks at me calmly. ‘The tapes are my property. As is Snow.’

‘You should have handed those tapes over to the police. It’s an obstruction of justice.’

His eyes turn mean. ‘Are you threatening me, boy?’

‘No, I have less incentive to give the tapes over to the police than you have. I want those men.’