I hoped for a softening of some kind. A slight nod of acknowledgment. Perhaps a moment of mutual respect.
Of all the reactions I expected, the one I got was not one I planned for.
Roam’s eyes flashed, and he moved so fast I had no chance of stopping him. His hand snapped out quick as a flash, and he gripped my wrist with such strength that I thought he might break it in two. A terrified yelp left me, and my mouth rounded in surprise as those long fingers dug into my flesh, hard enough to make me flinch.
Oh God.
Fear spilled into me, a torrent of water filling every crevice.
What have I done?
Raw fury vibrated off of the beast in front of me. I just couldn’t understand why.
“Never without my permission,” he spoke quietly, but the words were brimmed with rage. His jaw tightened, then ticked. “Don’t you ever fucking touch me without my permission.” He flung my hand off to the side, hard enough to make my entire body jostle, and the word echoed as he thundered, “Never!”
My eyes widened. I took a shaky step back and swallowed hard as his rigid shoulders rose and fell with every harsh breath he took. I hoped to protect myself, but Roam looked manic. And I was the cause.
Shit.
Yeah. A mistake was made here. One I now knew better than to repeat.
The second he stepped forward with the eyes of a shark who smelled blood, my entire body recoiled. My arms came up to cover my head as I panicked. My mouth opened, and the words shot out before I could stop them. “I’m hungry!”
I heard him still midstep. The silence worked its way around my neck like a noose.
Roam’s brows lowered, and my heart stuttered. His expression went from confused to raw, blazing fury in less than five seconds, and when he spoke in deathly quiet, I knew I’d blatantly shown him my hand. “Oh honey, who have you been talking to? Which one was it?”
My stomach ached painfully.
Oh, Jesus.
There was no coming back from this. Whatever opportunity I had to secure my safety disappeared in an instant.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about” was my weedy response.
He knew I was lying. I sounded like I was lying. I saw him struggle to keep it together. So, when the anger on his face turned impassive, my heartbeat slowed with the assumption that he managed to quell the wrath.
I was wrong.
Roam picked up my plate, spun around, reared back, and threw it at the wall as hard as he could, so hard the tendons in his neck tensed into thick ropes. My body went stiff as the sounds of porcelain shattering echoed in my ears. I lifted my hands to cover them as I continued to quiver in terror. His shoulders hard and unyielding, I watched his chest move up and down with each heavy breath, and what he said next had that fear of mine reaching new heights.
With his back to me, he spoke slowly, precisely, and it gave me chills. “If I were you, I’d get the fuck upstairs right now, and I’d stay there. Unless you think you’re brave enough to stay, that is.”
It was funny. He said the words calmly, almost serenely, but I could feel the crackle of electricity in the room as though a storm was coming.
My feet started moving before my brain had the chance to register what just happened. When the sounds of glass shattering could be heard, rough grunts came from behind me and my feet moved faster, taking the stairs two at a time.
I shouldn’t have cared, and right now, I didn’t, but I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to this man to make him the way he was.
Nobody was born with Roam’s variety of suffering.
On shaking legs, I hurried upstairs to his room and stared at the closet a long moment before another round of smashing and clattering came from downstairs. A muted roar sounded, and it startled me enough to propel me forward.
And like the good pet I was, I closed the closet door behind me, caging myself.
34
Vik
It had been thirty-six hours since Nastasia had been taken. Roam had been seen at his places of business, but never with a woman. The guy was always seen entering buildings but never leaving them. How the fuck he got out, I didn’t know, but he seemed to be everywhere all at once. The more time that passed, a more obvious conclusion set in. He likely held her at his home. Unfortunately, nobody knew where Roam resided. Or maybe they did and they weren’t stupid enough to give away his location.
Either way, he was a ghost. A phantom. The fucking bogeyman.
We talked strategy nonstop, and after Laredo’s involvement, Sasha suggested calling in favors and markers from the lives we’d long left behind, and although we had little to work with, it was enough to make a man sweat. With each additional associate who pledged their service to us, the more I felt we might just have the upper hand here. We were amassing an army that may not have matched his but had the ability to cause the man a fuck-ton of headaches should he so choose.