She couldn’t have gotten far and though I didn’t want her anywhere near this fiancée of mine or any of the Russians who were sprinkled around the room like a series of ugly statues. I didn’t want any of them getting close to my little psycho, and I didn’t want her running off half-cocked either.
“Here’s your drink, glove. I got your favourite,” I said sweetly, holding the glass up to her mouth and damn near forcing her to take a swig unless she wanted to risk a scene.
Anastasia’s eyes flashed with disgust and I was pretty sure she gagged a little as I tipped the glass higher, forcing her to drink more.
“That’s it,” I purred, wrapping an arm around her waist and dropping my mouth to her ear, speaking just for her. “Show me how much you enjoy swallowing, glove.”
Girl was a pro, I had to give her that and she deep throated that fucker like she’d been born to do it, opening her throat and just sinking the whole fucking thing.
I grinned at her as I tossed the glass down on the bar behind her, releasing her just as fast as I’d grabbed her and not bothering to point out the beery, milky moustache she was now sporting as she worked to school her features and hide the look on her face which said she wanted to vomit.
“Thank you, baby,” she purred, patting my chest and making me stiffen at the contact. She really was looking to lose that hand at this point.
My gaze caught on a flash of pink fabric and I looked beyond a girl who was honest to shit called Pancake – or maybe it was Patty - to the dancefloor where Brooklyn was currently moving to the music like it was running through her soul.
This wasn’t the moves she’d pulled on me in our dance battle all those weeks ago. No. That right there was sex given motion, her hips grinding to the beat, her hands trailing up her body and into her hair, her sultry expression set ever so firmly on a motherfucker who was not me.
Fucking Mel. What the hell had I been thinking letting that woman teach Brooklyn how to seduce a man? This wasn’t happening. No fucking way.
I gritted my jaw, watching as the judge, Cedric Rawlings, stalked closer to her, drawn like a moth to a flame as she continued to dance for him, turning her gaze away like she was suddenly shy. He was a preppy looking douchebag, clearly full of himself and all of his fancy things with a hungry look in his eyes. He was good-looking, more good-looking than his photos had let on in fact. And I didn’t much like that at all.
I took a step towards the dance floor, but Anastasia yanked me back, a laugh so fake it made my ears want to bleed spilling from her overly painted lips as she leaned up to speak into my ear.
“If you try to make a fool of me in public, I will make you pay for it in ways you cannot imagine,” she hissed before backing up and giggling like whatever she’d said had been a sweet nothing set to seduce me.
I gave her a false grin, wondering how the hell I was going to shake her off because as much as I didn’t care about her threats or any of that shit, I did care about making a scene here. The pretty motherfucker who was now dancing with my woman across the room from me would be dead within a matter of days and he was the kind of prick who the police would actually make a fuss over. They’d be hunting for his killers with all they had, and I didn’t need stories of me and Brooklyn causing a ruckus at his party hanging around the murder investigation if I could help it. She was already being hunted more than enough and I was determined to keep her as safe as I could. The heat may have died down over the search for her and Jack due to the fact that the vaccine was now dominating the headlines, but if she made a second splash the cops would hunt for her in droves.
“This one is just so hungry for dick all the time, isn’t she?” I joked, looking to the slimy bastards who I’d found myself in conversation with. “I bet you fellas know all about that?”
Enough of them nodded, grinned, or just looked plain sheepish that it was more than obvious that Anastasia had been doing the rounds and a couple of the girls got salty over that. I picked up on the tension there and smiled wider as two of them made a few thinly veiled, snidey comments which Anastasia worked to brush off.
My gaze fell back to Brooklyn as she turned towards me, her back to the judge and her arse rubbing all over his crotch as she ground against him. He let his wandering hands move over her body in a way which was absolutely begging for me to break every fucking finger in them, and an ugly green gremlin crawled through my chest and bayed for blood.
I gave Brooklyn a firm look, jerking my chin in a command for her to get away from him, but she only shook her head, flipping her hair and mouthing “honey trap,” at me, winking like she thought she was a fully-fledged hitwoman and didn’t even need my help.
I bared my teeth at her, but she ignored me, turning and tiptoeing up to whisper something in the handsy motherfucker’s ear before taking his hand and leading him off of the dance floor in what was clearly a ‘let’s go somewhere else to fuck’ move.
“No,” I snapped, making the group of arseholes around me all look my way in surprise.
Their little titter over who my fiancée had been fucking settled down to nothing. But that wouldn’t do.
I looked between them, hunting for guilty faces and finding one fella who was all burning up in the cheeks while he looked anywhere but at Anastasia, his arm firmly around another girl’s waist. That’d do it.
“You fucked her just this week, didn’t you, you dirty dog?” I asked him loudly, barking a laugh and clapping him on the shoulder hard enough to make his knees buckle and almost sending him to his arse.
“You told him that?” the fella gasped in horror, looking to my fiancée, whose mouth had fallen all the way open.
“What? No! How did you even find out about-” She turned to me with that accusation, but the girl who had been with the wandering cock in question shrieked and threw her drink in her face before she could get any further with her enquiries.
I stepped aside, only gaining a couple of splashes from the drink before the cat fight broke out in force. I managed to keep moving out of the way while the carnage got well underway, and I left them all to it.
But that was only half my problem, because as I turned my attention back to the rest of the room, I found Brooklyn and her mark very much gone.
My blood was pumping with a jealous, furious rage at the thought of her seducing that prick, letting him touch her, kiss her, and who knew what else before she got around to killing him.
No. Fuck no.
I wasn’t going to allow it.
But that meant I had a mansion to scour and next to no time to do it in.
My heart began to race with a panic that was all too familiar, putting me back ten years to that godawful moment when I realised they’d taken Ava and I had no idea where to even begin looking for her, knowing that every second I delayed was only further adding to her peril.
My ears began to ring as I thought of all the ways that this could go wrong, of what a man like that might do to my little psycho if he got the upper hand, of how I’d been the one to fucking bring her here and now it could all be happening again, just like before. But worse. So much fucking worse, because as much as I knew it made me a cunt to even think it, I knew I couldn’t survive losing Brooklyn the way I’d managed to survive the loss of Ava.
My guilt over Ava’s death had been all consuming, but the life I’d lost with her had been a pretty lie which some part of me had always known would end eventually. But there were no lies with Brooklyn. Only a truth too big to tell and a bond I’d never even dared to wish for before this moment.
I wouldn’t let that motherfucker lay his unworthy hands on her flesh. I couldn’t. The rage and jealousy inside me from the mere thought of it would be enough to bring this entire building down on the heads of anyone fool enough to get in my way.
So with that fear and anger driving me on, I took off into the house to begin my hunt, determined to find her before it was too fucking late again.