“That’s not nothing, Little Bird. I’m gonna ask you one more time. Who the fuck did that to you?”
Chapter 10
CLARISSA
Vance’s grip on my arms is firm, but it doesn’t hurt. It is the way a parent might hold a child who is being belligerent, gentle but he wants me to know he isn’t messing around.
I sigh, casting my eyes down. There is something about the intensity of Vance’s stare that makes me want to run both to and from him. The man is an enigma with a well-fortified web, and I am standing right in the middle of it.
“Look at me, Clarissa,” he demands before his fingers lift my chin. I am lost in the deep blue of his irises. The man is really a work of art. His face is perfect in every single way, matching the sizable muscular frame of his sculpted body.
“What are you gonna do to him?” I stutter, my words failing me.
“Kill him.”
Vance says those words as if I'd asked a stupid question. I can see that to him, that is the only solution, but the real shocker in all this is that if Vance kills Roy, I wouldn’t care because, after everything that man did, he deserves it. There is only one reason I have an objection to Vance killing him. “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
Vance rubs my bottom lip as he smirks. “Little Bird, I’m not a man who gets into trouble. I’m the man who makes it. You don’t need to worry about me, but whoever dared touch you does.”
“His name is Roy Rogers. He’s a deadbeat piece of shit my best friend Emily got tangled up in. She seems to always get tangled with assholes, starting with her father. But hopefully, it ends with Roy. When we went to their apartment to pack her up, he came in and started going crazy. He punched her, and when I went to get him off her, he went crazy, pushing me, and I hit the counter hard. It hurts like a bitch, but I think it’s just some heavy bruising, no actual damage.”
Vance nods, walking over to the bathroom counter and tapping into his phone. I notice it, a finger wrapped up in white, streaked with red… Blood.
I scream and fall to the ground as Vance drops his phone and rushes to me. His hands are frantic as they move along my body, his eyes consumed with worry and fear. “Clarissa,” he yells, shaking me.
“I-Is that a finger?”
Vance shrugs. “Yes. It’s the fucker's from the club. The one who was harassing you.”
“He fuckin’ offered to buy me a drink, Vance! He barely touched me.”
“He touched you with that finger. So I took it.”
“You fuckin’ cut off his finger 'cause it touched my elbow?”
“Pretty much.”
“You’re certifiable.”
“I don’t like people touching my property. I told you that. I don’t share well.”
I pull away from him, my back hits the wall, and I realize there’s nowhere left to go.
“I might be certifiable, but I’m your nut job,” Vance says with a wink.
“I’m here as your prisoner, Vance. You call me your property. I really don’t think I’ve got any power here.”
Vance backs away from me, his eyes searching mine. What he is looking for, I am not really sure. This man does things to me I don’t even understand. They say that fear can heighten sexual desire, and maybe that is true, because at this moment, I have flashes of him pushing me up against the wall and fucking me until I can’t think straight.
He pulls open a drawer, and I see the metallic gleam of a blade. He turns to me and smiles. “This is probably poetic in some fucked-up way.”
My heart stops. Is he going to kill me? As if he senses my fear, he turns to me and offers a sad smile. “This isn’t for you, little bird.” He stabs the blade into the part of his skin on his left arm that is bare of any tattoos. “This is for us.”
I watch in horror and fascination as Vance carves letters along his arm. I step closer, a sick fascination with this man taking root and growing wildly inside me. Glancing down, I can now clearly see what he has done. There, staring back at me, is eight letters… CLARISSA.
He turns his face to me, a look of pure desperation and need shadowing his eyes. He’s letting his guard down, standing before me naked, exposing the deepest parts of his soul, letting me see both the man and the monster. I have never had another person look at me the way he does, as if I am his world.
Vance makes me feel as if I actually matter, even if his methods are a little unconventional. Usually a girl gets flowers and chocolate, not a man mutilating his arm with her name.