Page 98 of Black Castle

“Are you okay?” Kenji asks, crouching next to her.

“Yeah.” Her voice is raspy, her weight resting on Kenji as he grabs her gently and hoists her to her feet. He walks them to the leather chair and sits her down.

“Vee.” The tone of his voice passes the message before he says the next words. “We need to get out of here.”

“No,” she says, outrightly and he jumps to his feet, eyes narrowed down at her.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I don’t know, maybe because we can’t fly out of the jet in motion. Otherwise, we might not make it from jumping fifty thousand feet off the surface of the earth.”

This is probably not a good time for sarcasm to be thrown around. This is alarming and indeed, she should be gone. But she is unable to understand what is going on here to even make a decision.

“He was just angry,” the desperate voice in her head says, “He would never hurt you.”

“I told you.” He sits back down. “I told you I didn’t trust him. I told you I had a bad feeling. Now look, he almost threw a woman off a jet in motion.” He looks at her for validation of his point. “Vee, he almost killed a woman!”

“You were here,” she says. “What happened? What did she do to him?”

“Are you for real?” he deadpans. “Does it matter what she did?”

“Just tell me what she did, Kenji.”

“She touched him,” he says, his gaze distant as if reliving the memory which was probably just ten minutes ago. “He had dozed off, she came with wine, poured it in his glass and then she started touching him. Popped his first button and then his eyes snapped open and before I could even blink, she was dangling off the jet.”

“Are you serious?” Something bitter unsettles her stomach and she refuses to believe that is jealousy and anger, and most importantly, she doesn’t even want to believe it’s directed at the woman who almost died.

But why would she do that? Touch him without his permission? It’s not as though he ever remotely showed any interest in her. So why would she go ahead and touch a man without his permission? What was her plan when she started to take off his buttons? How shameless is she anyway, seducing a man when there was literally a teenage boy sitting in the same room?

Imagine if they were alone. Would she sexually assault him?

How disgusting. Maybe he should have just let go of her neck. And maybe flying off a thousand feet down the earth would teach her a lesson.

Oh, God.

She shudders at the kind of thought going through her mind.

“What is wrong with me?”

“Where are you going?” Kenji demands when she suddenly rises from the chair and begins to head toward the bedroom.

“I need to check on him.”

“Are you crazy?” He grabs her wrist. “He almost killed you. And with the look of things, he still looks pretty murderous? Do you want to die?”

“I’m fine, Kenji.” She tugs his hand off her. “Let me just confirm something. I’ll be out real quick.”

“Vee!” he shouts, sounding tired and frustrated. “God, Vee don’t-”

The rest of his call falls against the door of the bedroom that she already slides shut on walking in.

And just as she had suspected when he went into the room, he broke something. The wine glass on the table earlier isn’t there anymore and there are shards of broken glass on the floor.

Her eyes widen in horror when she spots droplets of blood on the floor.

Following the pattern, she sees him at the corner of the room, blood trailing down his fingers and dropping from the tip of his nails.

“Oh, my god.” Careful not to step on glass even though she has her loafers on, she crosses the room to him. “Are you okay?”

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