Blurb:
He’s stalking me with one thing in mind—revenge.
Micah Royales is a Heathen King. A ruthless elite above billionaires, politicians, and the law.
He’s also a student at the college where I teach.
Convinced that I’m having an affair with his stepfather and greatest enemy, Micah sets out to use me against him and tear me apart in the process. He destroys my reputation in front of my students by making it look like he’s my boy toy. Yet it turns out this methodical destruction isn’t even my biggest problem.
Being wanted by the nefarious weapon that is Micah Royles is.
His obsessive attention becomes a prison, trapping me in a chaos of perverted sensuality. Fighting his corruption is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I need to get out of this affair before it’s too late. Before my ultimate secret comes to light, turning Micah’s passion into hatred. Once he finds out what I’ve been hiding from him all this time, he’ll make sure there’s nothing left of me but a ravaged shell, discarded at the devil’s feet.
Because there’s no forgiveness in Micah’s world.
There’s only vicious retribution.
NOTE. This is a dark romance! There will be triggers such as dub-con, knife and gun play as well as the hero going sycho on his rivals and going over the top toxic on the heroine. Please check the trigger warnings at the beginning of this book. If Rina Kent (God of Malice, God of Pain), Shantel Tessier (The Ritual, The Sinner) and HD Carlton (Haunting Adeline) are your jam, then go ahead and read this because it will be right up your alley. But if you’re more into a sweet, does-it-all-right hero, steer clear.
CHAPTER I
Micah
I run my thumb over the steering wheel while waiting for Eva Brannan to exit the hotel lobby. She’s been meeting that piece of shit Romano at the Vanguard Plaza for weeks now. Who would have thought that my dirty bastard of a stepfather would end up fucking a philosophy professor instead of a top-tier escort?
Not that the cold beauty Eva Brannan looks anything like the average professor. Still, she doesn’t look like a whore either, yet I have a dozen pictures to prove that she is one: Her in Romano’s arms in the hotel lobby. The two of them at the hotel cafe, his hand resting on her knee under the table. Him whispering in her ear while she’s got a fake smile plastered on her face, staring with cold blue eyes out the cafe window.
I squeeze the wheel so tightly that it’s a miracle it doesn’t fucking snap in my grip.
If the asshole thinks he can enjoy his money with the leggy blonde while Sade and I fight cartels and illegal arms dealers for him, he’s dead wrong. Especially since he’s been upping his game lately, trying to get us killed.
Now I know why.
He needs us out of the way faster so he can get rid of Mother, too. He’s desperate to regain his freedom, probably to marry Eva Brannan. He’s been keeping our mother in a secret mental institution ever since Sade and I were toddlers, but the bastard can’t have her killed while big bro and I still breathe. All of her inheritance would go to us. So, he needs us cold in the grave first to remain her only next of kin. And now that he’s head over heels for the philosophy professor, he needs to speed shit up. His being our commander in the Heathen Kings’ hierarchy isn’t helping our cause either, since we have to go on the missions he commands us to go on, and we can’t kill the fucker. His murder would cause a bloodbath with the Elders.
So I’m doing this the smart way—and it’s going to fucking hurt.
I imagine Romano drooling all over Eva right fucking now, and my cock hardens. She’s a fine piece of ass, I’ll give her that, but one that deserves to be punished as savagely as him. She’s been posing as the somber professor for two years on campus, commanding
respect as she pranced in her high heels down the hallways. Very fucking different from the version of her who meets Romano at the Vanguard. In the university hallways, her blonde-silver hair is always flawlessly swept back, her body hidden behind forbidding black suits, while with him, she could be taken for a high-class hooker. Her hair is always a cascade of silk, her make-up showcases her high cheekbones, and her lips seem made for sucking cock, thick with lip gloss.
I’ve been imagining my dick balls-deep in that mouth from the moment I saw the first picture of her meeting Romano. Granted, I fantasized about her before too, while fucking ass in the dark corners of the uni hallways, but I didn’t actually intend to act on it. I imagined corrupting her, tearing down her principles and staining her honor, making her beg for fuckery that she’d never known she wanted, but it turns out there’s no honor to speak of. She’s a gold digger with no scruples.
Not that I have any scruples of my own, so I guess that makes us even. And it makes her fair game. My plans for her turn nastier by the minute.
She emerges from the hotel, and I squeeze the steering wheel tighter. Today, she’s wearing a wool dress that showcases her toned legs, her silver hair blowing in the wintry breeze. I give her a head start before I get out of the car and expertly tail her, knowing that Romano won’t leave the hotel anytime soon. He always stays a while after she leaves, probably to reduce the risk of their affair being discovered.
I follow her a few blocks to a cozy little neighborhood not far from the hotel. This town is a haven for the wealthiest and most influential people in the US, and those people pay a small country’s GDP for the protection of the Heathen Kings, so we keep it clean and crime-free for them—except for the organized crime that we run ourselves, of course.
The pretty professor lives on a safe little street with picturesque brownstones. The lodging was part of her contract with the university and, from my research these past few weeks, a long way from the gang-war-infested neighborhood where she grew up. Her dad left her junkie mom when Eva was fifteen and remarried a few months later. Now, Graham Brannan runs a successful tech company, lives in New Jersey with his much younger wife and two daughters, and he paid for Eva’s education. They’re not close, so he must have done it out of guilt and a sense of duty. I doubt there was any love involved, but what do I know about parental love? I was born out of a fucking gang-bang.
Eva stops at the grocery store around the corner, allowing me to reach her apartment
building ahead of her. Pushing my shades up, I jimmy the lock and let myself in. A minute later, I’m merging with the shadows behind the stairs on her landing.
Then I wait.
***
Eva
My knees tremble as I walk up the stairs to the first floor. If it weren’t for the bag of groceries occupying my hands, I’d be rubbing myself all over to eliminate the crawling feeling on my skin.
Duke Romano Royales enjoys doing this to me. In fact, I’m pretty sure it turns him on when women despise him but are forced to do his bidding anyway—as I am now. And the worst part is that I can’t talk to anyone about it. He has me in a damn chokehold.
Balancing the groceries between my knee and my chin, I try to put the key in the lock. But then something slams into the wall next to me, and I drop both the bag and my keys before I whip around.
“Jesus Freaking Christ” is poised to bolt out of my mouth, but the words freeze the moment I recognize the face looming above mine.
I blink a few times, trying to clear my vision. This can’t be right.
“Micah?” I whisper, sure that I’m seeing things.
The Heathen Kings’ daredevil is very much a star on campus, and there’s absolutely no logical reason why he should be standing outside my apartment door right now.
Or none that I can think of.
He inches closer, his hand leaning against the doorframe.
“Hello, Professor,” he says in a gravelly baritone that I’m sure has made every female on campus masturbate at least once. I’ve heard whispers about it. His eyes travel down my body like he’s assessing me.
“What the hell, Micah?” I try to push him away, but he won’t move an inch. On the contrary, he steps closer, forcing my back to mold the door while his broad chest traps mine like a block of muscle.
“Easy there.” He cocks a pierced, devilish eyebrow over his shades.
“What movie is this?” I shriek, barely breathing. “Mr. Royales, you’re assaulting a
professor at her front door, in case you haven’t noticed.” My mind spins in circles. This isn’t making any sense.
“Come on, Ms. Brannan, you can’t be this surprised. Not when you’re having an affair with my stepdaddy. You surely didn’t think you could keep that a secret for long, did you? You’re too smart for that, especially since big bro and I are Kings, too. We find shit out.”
My breathing quickens, and I’m getting lightheaded.
This is fucking bad.
The Heathen Kings don’t just rule this town, they rule the entire country from the shadows, and they didn’t amass that kind of power by playing nice. Their organization controls everything that matters in the US, from weapons to pharma, and Micah Royales is their blade, the ruthless slitter of throats. He’s got an army of bikers obeying his orders, providing protection for the highest bidder, and that’s just a hobby to Micah. Everyone in town is scared of him, and now I’ve landed on his shit list. Things can’t get any worse than landing on the radar of this hot villain.
Not that I would ever look at a student like that. Or the way he’s looking at me now while removing his shades and slipping them into the inside pocket of his leather jacket.
My breath catches at the full sight of his chiseled face, young and brutal, his eyes dark as gunpowder. There’s a maliciousness in them that few people can hold because it’s almost inhuman. It’s a level of devilry that goes beyond the capabilities of ordinary people.
And now all of it is focused on me, all of the lethality he acquired while having to survive training in actual war zones.
“What is it, Professor?” he says when I only manage to open and close my mouth like a fish out of water. “Did the cat eat your tongue?”
“It’s not what it looks like,” I breathe, aware of how stupid it sounds as soon as the words come out.
Micah clicks his tongue, his eyes assessing me, looking like nothing of what he sees surprises him. As if he expected I was the kind of bitch who would screw his stepdad all along. Not that I’m actually screwing Romano. Things are more complicated than that.
“Invite me in, and let’s talk about it.”
“No.” The word flies out of my mouth quicker than I can think. But I can’t risk being alone with death incarnate.
“Well, then.” His ironclad body pushes into my chest. I stiffen, his scent of leather and
dark chocolate caging me in. “Then I suppose we must have this conversation here.”
Doesn’t chocolate contain phenylethylamine, which is like a drug? His scent must contain it, too, because my mind can’t spawn a single coherent thought.
“There’s no conversation to be had. If you want answers, you’re gonna have to ask your stepdaddy.”
I try to shove him away again, but Micah only traps me harder. His fingers graze their way up my inner thigh over my pantyhose, then past my garters. I’d fall over if I weren’t trapped against the door, my brain desperate to reboot.
“What the hell are you doing?” I blurt out, squirming between him and the door.
“Figuring out the answers for myself,” he says as his hand moves up, his body making it impossible for me to escape. “Since you’re refusing to have a civilized conversation.”
I open my mouth to blurt out that I changed my mind, that I’ll let him in, but he pushes his body so hard into mine that it squeezes the air out of my lungs.
“On second thought, I think I prefer doing it like this.” His voice is a low growl. “I get my answers, and you learn your lesson.”
His fingers reach the apex of my thighs and run over my panties. I gasp, choking on my own saliva when the pads of his fingers skim past the side of the lace, feathering over the lips of my pussy.
He finds me freaking wet because no woman with blood in her veins would resist a situation like this, as fucked up as it is. The blend of danger and outrageousness is unique. Until the outrageousness outweighs everything else.
“Stop this madness immediately,” I squeak, slapping his wrist, but his hand won’t budge. On the contrary, it clamps down on me, cupping my pussy so hard that it knocks me harder against the door.
“Did he leave his cum in you?” His voice is calm, yet filled with danger. “Or did he come in your mouth today?” He lifts his other hand and runs his thumb over my lips. The back of my head hits the door as I try to jerk away from him and find nowhere to go.
I brace myself to utter a bitter retort, but he uses the moment to slip his thumb into my mouth.
“Choose your words carefully, or I’m going to make sure you choke on them,” he threatens, cupping my jaw with the rest of his hand while pushing his thumb deeper until his brass ring reaches my lips. I think about those ringed fingers balling into fists, pummeling
down into the faces of the Kings’ enemies when they send him on a mission. Justine, my best friend and the girlfriend of Micah’s brother, Sade, has some chilling stories to tell about that.
Not that I wasn’t prepared for those stories. I was briefed about the Heathen Kings as soon as I started at Norton King’s college almost two years ago, but damn, I wasn’t prepared for this.
Micah rubs the heel of his palm against my clit over the lace, which is now soaked, his thumb pressing down on my tongue with the clear intention of making me gag.
“Where did he come today, professor? Jerk your hips forward if it was your cunt, or bite down on my thumb if it was your mouth.”
I don’t do either, still stunned and trying to make sense of what’s happening. But then Micah flashes me a bad-boy smile, and the fight dies down inside me.
I attempt to push a plea out of my mouth and get him to go inside the apartment so we can talk, but I choke on his thumb. His finger slips through the side of my panties, running between the lips of my pussy. I haven’t had sex in six months, ever since Santi and I broke up, so I’m not precisely smooth down there, but Micah seems pleasantly surprised. It earns me a satisfied groan.
“Daddy likes a hairy pussy, does he?” He laughs like he just caught me kneeling behind a dumpster with a dick in my mouth. “What a lucky coincidence that I do, too. Did he unload his cum in here, or is this all your own juice?”
I struggle against the cage he formed between his impossibly hard body and the door when Santi Rossi appears in the doorway across the landing.
The statistics professor and I met the day we signed our contracts, and because we hit it off so well, we asked to be assigned close apartments, thinking we’d be great friends. One thing led to another. Now I wish that first night of Netflix and chill had never ended in comfort sex, and we’d really stayed only friends. He’s fun to be around, but he’s a compulsive cheater.
Santi stares at us with an open mouth, his hand on the knob. Damn it, he shouldn’t even have been home. He usually spends his weekends with his friends in New York, hooking up with college girls he can’t ethically sleep with here.
Every hope I had of him not recognizing Micah is pulverized when the Heathen King turns to Santi and gives him a wink. I shake my head as much as his grip on my face will let
me, not even wanting to imagine what this must look like to Santi. Me with my garters showing, trapped against the door by a biker who’s got a hand up my pussy and his thumb in my mouth. Not to mention that said biker is a King and a student on campus. Not technically my student, but he could take my classes anytime if he chose to add some ethical philosophy to his studies of weapon engineering.
So he could become my student, which means we’re completely off limits for each other.
Taking advantage of Micah’s attention resting on the open-mouthed Santi, I drag my face to the side and escape his hold on my jaw, freeing my mouth.
“Micah, stop this!” I try to push him again and fail.
“Oh, I’m sure you can explain to Professor Rossi here how this isn’t what it seems. Just like you were explaining to me earlier about what happened at the Vanguard. You could tell him that you being crammed against the door is just—”
“Come inside,” I shriek, swiveling around and bending down for my keys.
I don’t need to see him to know that he’s still smirking at Santi while I fumble on the floor for them. Something hard pushes against my buttocks when I turn the key in the lock, and the air whooshes out of me.
Micah has a raging erection, and I’m about to be alone with him in my apartment.
But the urgent matter right now is getting out of Santi’s eyes.
I grab Micah’s forearm and pull him inside before I slam the door, leaving a stunned Santi behind, as well as my scattered groceries.
“Are you crazy?” I shriek out. “That was Santi Rossi!” I point to the now firmly closed door. “He’s a professor of statistics at Norton King’s, and he’s my colleague. Who just fucking saw us!”
“And what’s he going to do about it?” He cocks that devilish, pierced eyebrow. “Tell?” A laugh vibrates in his chest, filled with both scorn and power. “I reckon he values his balls too much to risk that.”
“It might give me trouble I don’t deserve. That thing with your stepfather—” I throw my keys on the small table by the door and run a hand through my hair, trying to pull myself together. “It isn’t what you think. It’s not an affair, it’s more complicated than that.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
The Heathen King paces my living room, grabbing my silk camisole off the back of the armchair and lifting it up to his face. He breathes in deeply, his eyes snapping up at me over the hand in which he holds it. My back snaps straight at eye contact, and I can’t make another sound until he slowly lowers the camisole. “Explain it to me then.”
I bite down into my lower lip because I can’t tell him the truth even though I’m so not fucking his stepfather. But lying to him isn’t an option either, he’d see right through me. The Heathen Kings have experience with the worst kind of criminals, and they have extensive training interrogating them. Also, they have ways of getting the truth out of people that would give the Spanish Inquisition a run for their money.
“It’s not what it seems,” I repeat, unable to find something else to say.
Micah throws his head back, his chest vibrating with laughter.
“Sure it’s not.” He drops the camisole back onto the armchair and walks over, fully aware of how I shrink in on myself with every step he takes. I watch him approach, his features barely visible in the stark winter light flooding my living room from the window behind him. It surrounds him like a cold aura, his shape merely the outline of an icy god.
I’ve had to put up with many cock-sure students since I started on campus, and I’ve developed thick skin. I even held my ground in front of a King once—even though he was one who didn’t deserve the title. But now I find myself closing my arms around me and stepping back from Micah Royales.
“Explain. It. To. Me. In detail,” he orders.
I rub my arms, shifting from one foot to the other like a flustered girl in front of the school bully.
“Listen, this is going to sound crazy, but I need you to trust me, okay? The only thing I can tell you right now is that it’s pure business.”
Micah clicks his tongue, the look in his eyes morphing into contempt as he drags it down my frame.
“I can imagine what kind of business it is if it looks like this.” He retrieves his phone from the back pocket of his jeans and swipes a few times before holding it in my face.
What I see is a picture of Romano and me in the hotel cafe window, his face pushed into my hair while he’s whispering in my ear. I’m smiling because he told me to, the bastard. He knew whoever caught us would think this was an affair. It suits him far better than anyone finding out the truth.
The truth that would explode like a nuke in my face if it ever got out.
No explanation comes to mind as I stare blankly at the pictures that Micah swipes through. Romano’s arms around me in the hotel lobby, or him leaning too close to me at a restaurant table. Sure, it’s easy to speculate we fucked in one of the rooms upstairs before we came down for a meal.
But we never shared a hotel room with each other.
Not because Romano didn’t want to. He sure as hell did and still does. In fact, he promised that our business wouldn’t be over until I spread my legs for him at least once.
I keep shaking my head, incapable of uttering a single word. Nothing but the truth would convince Micah this isn’t what it seems, but the truth isn’t on the fucking menu. And if I lie, and claim that I am, in fact, having an affair with Romano, he’ll have his bikers fuck me until I pass out.
I’d be nothing but a worthless whore to him, and he’d make sure that when I come back to my senses, I have the cum of a dozen men all over me. It’s no secret that he likes to gang-bang women with his bikers, even though the women are always willing participants. There’s a whole group of students on campus that actually bid money for the privilege. Outrageous but true.
So I do the only thing that comes to mind, my heart beating wildly in my chest. I stick out my chin and stare defiantly into his face.
“You know what, I don’t owe you an explanation. If you want one, you’ll have to ask Romano.” I stare him up and down, trying to feign the same contempt he’s showing me. “I’m disappointed, to be frank. I didn’t expect a Heathen King to come demanding answers from the weaker part of what he believes is a traitorous duo.”
“The weaker part?” He steps into me, causing me to retreat and stumble over the reading lamp next to the couch. His hand flashes behind me and catches it before it falls to the floor. “I don’t see weakness when I look at you, Professor. I see cunning and ambition. I see balls bigger than those of most men I know.” He pauses at the way I gasp. Against all odds, I think that’s the most beautiful thing any man has ever said to me. But the elation is short-lived. “Now, I also see greed. I see a cold and calculating temptress.” He leans in, breathing my scent in as if he were sampling me.
“I will make an exception for you, Professor, and I won’t use you with the rest of my men. But make no mistake—I will be your worst nightmare. By the time I’m done with you,
you will be thoroughly ruined.” He bares his teeth like an animal intending to toy with his prey before rending it. “By the time this is over, I’ll be the only thing on your cold, calculating mind. I’ll be the master you’ll be forced to serve like an obedient little slut, unless you tell me exactly what’s going on between you and that piece of shit who calls himself my father.”
He smirks, and I choke on my own breath. “Also, you’ll break up with him. By phone or text, I don’t care, as long as you don’t meet him again. If you see him face to face one more time, you’ll regret it.”
Setting the lamp behind me back on its feet, he slowly walks away. When he reaches the door, I have a full view of the Heathen Kings’ throat-slitter sliding his shades back on and shoving a toothpick in his mouth.
“You have two days to make it happen, and come clean.” He gives me a roguish grin before he leaves my apartment, his scent of leather and dark chocolate lingering behind.
The air leaves my lungs in a loud exhale that I didn’t even realize I was holding, and I collapse on the couch like a sack of potatoes.
“What the hell was that?” I say out loud, raking my hands through my hair before I land a few slaps on my cheeks.
I can’t believe this just happened.
Micah caught me with Romano.
Then he fingered me outside my door.
“I’m fucked.” The realization of what just happened washes over my brain. “I’m so fucking fucked.”
My soaked panties turn cold against my needy pussy.
All Kings are dangerous, but Micah is the most naturally vicious of them all. He’s been through stuff that would put lesser men in the psych ward, and he’s so unhinged that even his brother Sade watches himself around him, careful not to cause a fuse to snap. I got the general idea of his past in the dean’s office when I started out at Norton King’s, much of which I considered to be legend rather than truth until Justine’s relationship with Micah’s brother Sade brought me closer to their circle.
And I can testify to the fact that being close to the Kings is a hair-raising experience.
They’ve only been mingling with us mere mortals since Justine and Sade became an item, which was also around the time Romano started to put pressure on me. Considering
what he’s got on me, refusing to see him wasn’t an option. What’s for sure is that none of the other Kings can discover what Romano is actually up to. If they do, he’ll make sure the nuke explodes in my face before he goes down.
But keeping the secret from Micah is now close to impossible.
Damn the day the Kings descended from their exclusive lounge in the gallery overlooking the cafeteria to join us.
The girls and I didn’t draw much attention until we mingled with the most feared men on campus, even if professors sitting with students would usually raise some question marks. But I’m only three years older than them, and we look about the same age. Yet when the Kings joined us, things changed drastically. Everybody began staring. So, I made a habit of having something to do around lunchtime to avoid sitting with them, which is why this was also my first direct interaction with Micah.
Not that I haven’t noticed the way he stared at me on campus lately, but I didn’t think much of it because he kept his distance. I figured he was just wondering about me, the way the other Kings did. It’s unusual for someone my age to gain a professorship at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. He must have put it on my connections when he discovered that heiress and top-student Melody Sorbaine and I knew each other before I was appointed the professorship.
But Mel’s influence didn’t help me beyond the fact that it put me on a list of candidates. Then a grueling chain of exams followed, and I got the highest score among a hundred and twenty-seven people.
I earned my position.
But I doubt that Micah’s research got that far. If anything, my friendship with Mel preceding my time at Norton King’s probably fortified his certainty that I’m calculating and manipulative. And that I would twist Romano’s mind into getting rid of his mother and then marrying me.
Scenarios of how Micah will take revenge spin around in my head until I gasp for air, folding in on myself. I need to talk to someone about this, or I’ll lose my mind. But who can I tell about my non-dates with Romano without the person grilling me about the reason behind them?
I’ve never ranked my best friends before. Even though I’ve known Mel the longest, Justine and Annie quickly grew on me, and I would trust them with my life. They’re my ride-
or-die people. But can I ask them to trust me without an explanation? They’d probably take a bullet for me, but they’d need to know why they’re taking it.
Remembering my groceries are still outside like witnesses to a crime, I drag myself toward the door, hoping that I won’t run into Santi. I wouldn’t put it past him to wait until he got a chance to talk to me about what he saw. New York is only a short drive away, it’s not like he needs to fly there, so he could have chosen to leave later.
I turn the knob carefully, preparing to throw the groceries back into the bag as quickly as possible, but that bastard Micah might have stomped all over the grapes just to make me kneel.
Yet I find the groceries already back in their paper bag, neatly waiting for me outside the door. I glance left and right, wondering if he’s still out there. Didn’t he basically threaten to make me regret ever being born? Now he bags my groceries like the cute boy next door? Or did Santi do it before he left? Doubtful, considering our history.
One thing is for sure—I can’t fight my way out of Micah’s claws alone. Whether I like it or not, I’m going to need help.