Page 38 of Unholy Bonds

He was wearing a crisp white shirt, with his sleeves rolled to his elbows once again, showing off his hard muscles and the tattoo of the snakes and blood-red roses.

I no longer felt invincible. I felt nervous, like a fucking schoolgirl with her first crush. His eyes were flashing, and my heart was a chaotic mess—it was usually quiet, even when I was cutting someone into pieces.

“You—” I stopped when he narrowed his eyes.

The air was charged with tension as I looked into Ryden’s dark gray eyes, gray like overcast skies, gray like the edges where the dawn and dusk met. One could easily get lost and never be found again in those eyes. Not me. I had no intention of getting lost.

Get yourself together, Yara. You can’t let him see how affected you are, Kat whispered in my head.

I knew it, but it was hard to regulate the irregular beats of my heart. The loud ringing in my ears grew until I was drowning in it.

No. No. He couldn’t just stroll into my world, confident, self-assured, and then shake me. I was biding my time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. I had plotted every detail about the encounter that would happen—it would happen precisely when I desired it to. I wanted everything to be on my terms, but… now…

This was my perfect world, the one not corrupted by my skewed proclivities. I was planning to keep him away from the world where I was Doctor Yara West.

Everything in my life had always been tidily packed in perfect boxes, and I wanted him in a separate box, where this life and that one didn’t come together, and he had fucked it up by storming into my workplace.

“Nothing in your report makes sense, Doctor West,” he said, his eyes domineering, peering into mine, cutting, searching.

If he was trying to make me nervous by acting all high and mighty, he could go fuck himself. I had been standing in front of men like him and taking them down since I was thirteen. “Your report is full of holes the size of watermelons.”

Fucking watermelons? I hated watermelons, too.

That day, four years ago, Katelyn went to buy watermelons for me because I was in the mood for them, and she never came back home. Her body was found a few days later, bruised and bloodless. Strangled.

Shaking my head to expel the image of Kat and the pang of anger and sadness it brought me, I turned toward Ryden.

“Shit,” Detective Rishi cursed, glaring at Ryden, but Ryden wasn’t looking at the detective. His eyes were only on me, never moving, watching, studying.

“He didn’t mean it.” Detective Rishi’s voice was so faint.

“Wha-what?” I stuttered, my heart disarrayed, my mind blurring from the unexpected onslaught of nervousness I had never experienced.

Everything was tearing apart, ripping at the seams, and out came the emotions pouring in waves—feelings I would rather not feel. This almost felt like desperation and weakness. I decided I hated those feelings. It had been a while since I felt them.

The last time was with my father… when he’d walk into my room late at night. I shook my head. No, I’d never give anyone that kind of power over me.

You’re a million steps ahead of him, Yara.

“His death wasn’t a crime of passion. It’s—” he started.

It took me a considerable amount of time to regain composure, to bring myself back to normal, or at least a semblance of what could pass for normal in my world.

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” I said with a scoff. He took a startled step back.

Sharp, astute eyes studied me like I was something from a museum, trying to decipher me.

“What did you just say?” he asked, and his pulse ticked at the side of his clenched jaw. I pushed my sweaty palms inside my lab coat and stared at him—I was a strong, confident woman, and he couldn’t shake me. Fuck, he did shake me.

It was illegal. He looked like a masterpiece carved by the most skilled sculptors until he was made to become perfection, capable of driving any woman to the brink of obsession.

But behind the perfection, I found the flaws, and it only made him even more powerful. I saw the small scar down his lower lips and the slightly crooked nose. I saw the darkness lingering behind those shrewd eyes.

“I said shut up, Mr. Sinclair. You heard me. Don’t come into my place of work and criticize me. You need my help? Then act like it,” I said, staring straight into his eyes.

He wanted to make me submit to him. I’d only submit to him in one place, and this wasn’t it.

I saw the snarl of the animal he carefully kept hidden underneath his skin—the animal he let out only during the kill.

---