Page 20 of Submitting to Daddy
“Honesty?” She scoffs, her voice rising. “Honesty is admitting that you were out of line when you pulled me off the floor and rescheduled my shifts.”
“You want honesty? Fine.” I step so close to her we’re almost touching. I drag my knuckles along her jaw and confess, “Honesty is that I’m fucking obsessed with you—unhealthily and viscerally. I think about you every fucking second of every day. The thought of another man being this close to you—putting his hands on you—fills me with a rage so deep there aren’t fucking words to describe it.”
Madison’s breath hitches, and she stares up at me. Her mouth gapes slightly, and I realize that, for the first time since I’ve met her, she is at a complete loss for words. She lifts her hand and places it lightly against my chest. “I… Cillian…” She chokes on her thoughts and stammers.
“Cillian.” Nikolai’s deep voice billows down the hallway with urgency.
I turn—pissed at the interruption—and bark, “What?”
He strides toward me quickly, his expression hard and pinched. “Security caught one of the cashiers in the basement taking his liberties with our cash—wads of hundreds shoved down his pants. A quick check of the footage showed this was not the first time. Enzo is with them now.”
“Where are they?”
“Out back,” he answers before leaning close and lowering his voice. “They’re shoving him into a car and taking him to the warehouse.”
I glance back at Madison and place my hand over hers still resting on my chest. “Don’t go anywhere,” I softly command. “We’re going to finish this the second I get back.”
I stalk off without another word.
The drive is quiet, the hum of the engine barely masking the chaos brewing in my head. I should be thinking about what we’re going to do to the idiot we caught stealing from us. But I’m not. As usual, I’m thinking about her and that look in her eyes as she struggled to find a response.
I pull into the warehouse lot, headlights slicing through the darkness. The concrete and steel building before us is where our enemies confess their sins. No priests. No forgiveness. We take our atonement in blood.
When we step inside, Nikolai and I find Enzo and one of our security guys standing next to the guy already zip-tied to a chair. He’s young and scrawny, sweating like a pig. While he tries to look tough, he’s shaking so hard that his knees are knocking.
“Do you know where you are?” I ask, unbuttoning and rolling up my sleeves.
His throat bobs with an audible swallow. He nods, sweat trickling down his face, the color draining with it.
“And do you know why you aren’t leaving?”
Another nod.
“Good.”
Without wasting time, I grab a utility knife from the rack beside me. It’s old, and the blade is rusty, but it’ll do what I need. The first cut is quick, right across his chest, just beneath the collarbone. He jerks and grimaces at the shallow cut. The next is slower and deeper. A scream rattles from him, the pained cry echoing off the metal walls as he begs for forgiveness. Ignoring him, I drag the blade through his flesh again. Blood splatters across the floor, and the metallic scent of it begins to fill the room.
I continue to carve him. His blood is hot and thick as it coats my hands and splatters over my boots and the floor. It doesn’t bother me. I’ve done far worse. Yet, tonight is different. This isn’t just punishment for theft. It’s a punishment forme.
I carve him open, piece-by-piece, methodical and detached. It doesn’t bother me. I’ve done worse. But tonight, this is different. I’m trying to relieve the ache in my chest that I can’t reach. No matter how deep I dig the blade, I don’t feel vengeance.
His cries turn wet and pathetic as I continue to slice through his skin until it hangs from his body in tattered threads. I drive deep with the blade and drop it to the floor as he painfully draws his last sputtered breath. Nikolai tosses me a towel without saying a word and wipes the blood from my hands. Enzo makes a call to someone to come take care of the body.
I step from the sweat-and-fear-laced air of the warehouse and inhale a sharp breath as I stare over the jagged skyline of the city. With my blood-stained hand, I pull my phone from my pocket and I check the time.11:02 p.m.Madison should still be at the club for a few more hours—if she listened for once.
Waiting for my brothers to join me at the car, I make myself a promise—one I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep. If she lets me in, I’ll burn down the fucking world to protect what’s mine. But if she keeps pushing me away… God help the next poor bastard who crosses me.
After Cillian left me floundering for words in the hallway to go do what was clearly some questionably shady shit, I’ve spent my night making the rounds in the club. He may have forbidden me from working VIP, but with Chloe gone for the night and Cillian not here, I use the opportunity to spend some time working the floor and mingling with clients.
Hudson—or Handsy Hudson, as all the girls call him—has been vying for my attention since I left him high and dry at the bar earlier tonight. He waves me over, and like a good girl, I saunter toward him and sit low on his thigh. His hand wraps around my waist, and he roughly drags me up to his hip as I try to maintain my smile through the sudden discomfort. He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out his black card, holding it between two fingers. Tapping my fingernailagainst it, I whisper, “Sorry, sweetheart. Lap dances are cash only.”
“I want you upstairs. Executive VIP.” He arches a brow and obnoxiously waves the card before my face, his boozy breath blowing over me. I glance around the club, looking for an excuse—a tall, broody red-headed one that has banned me from going upstairs.A rule I actually want to listen to right now.
Playfully pulling the card from between his fingers, I wink. “I’m off VIP, but I’ll get one of the other girls for you.”
“I didn’t give you my card to buy a ten-grand-an-hour dance with one of the of theothergirls. I want you, and I don’t think your bosses will take too kindly to you turning me down.”
I broaden my smile and take his hand as I rise from his lap. Pulling it onto my shoulder, I lead him through the crowd and upstairs. The VIP lounge is much quieter than usual tonight—far fewer security as well. He opens the door, and we both step inside. Muted lighting spills amber across the carpet and gleams off the glass tabletops, giving everything a hazy, surreal warmth. The private rooms dull the pulsing bass from the main floor into something almost soothing—if not for the way my stomach twists as the door clicks shut behind us.
