Sweet Venom by Rina Kent - 9

9

V iolet goes into shock.

Her entire body locks, and she stares with wide eyes even as the waste of space’s blood splashes on her face, her glasses, and her clothes.

Her fingers twitched when I held the knife to the man’s throat, but she didn’t move.

Couldn’t move.

And she’s remained in that frozen state since then.

The same shocked yet unmoving position, wearing the same expression she did the day my mother was killed.

I know because I’ve watched her reaction in the surveillance video Kane gave me a dozen times, trying to figure out how the ‘Do you need help?’ blue umbrella girl just stood still.

I see it again now—that motionless wide-eyed look—as I throw the dead weight aside, not bothering to spare one final glance at his horrified empty eyes, the gash splitting his neck, or the pool of blood on the floor.

He doesn’t matter.

None of them do.

Stalking, capturing, and hunting them before taking their miserable lives offers a momentary reprieve from the suffocating darkness .

Only a brief moment of pure air and a feeling of grandiosity that I’m doing right by Mom, but it only lasts for a while.

Then it’s back to nothingness.

And I’m shoved down to where my demons fester and rot, where no one and nothing would be able to extract me from these sick fucking thoughts.

And yet…

As I look at Violet’s body that’s shaking in silence, at her lips that are trembling, her teeth that are chattering, I find myself stuck in a strange pull.

Like a magnet.

No. A moth.

Violet is a flame in its most delicate form. She’s not a raging and absolutely destructive orange, but she’s blue. Discreet, seemingly safe but actually dangerous.

Just like the fucking blue umbrella she put in my hands.

“Death doesn’t scare me.”

That’s what she said, but now she’s staring at the man’s corpse as if she personally killed him.

I’ve never understood people who…feel too much for others. Could be due to my upbringing. Even Mom couldn’t have been accused of being emotional.

My father, Regis Callahan, made me kill a guard who’d betrayed him execution style when I was nine years old.

That happened two months after he told me to kill Mom’s personal butler in the same style for leaking information about our medical empire to a rival company. I refused and even shot a vase, making the glass fly and injure his face.

Mom’s personal butler wasn’t only a great part of my life but also Mom’s only friend, who followed her after her marriage to Regis. He was the one who listened to her and joined her on walks in the garden.

I didn’t give a fuck about an empire I resented, because Regis gave it more attention than he gave Mom, no matter how much she tried to win him over. But I cared about Mom’s friend because she loved him and he made her smile.

Still, Regis insisted I kill him, shoving the gun in my hand and saying in clipped words, “This man jeopardized your and our entire household’s safety as well as the empire we spent centuries building, Jude. I need you to not hesitate when you pull the trigger on traitors. Do you hear me, son?”

“No!” I screamed and fought even after Mom begged me not to.

I actually wish I’d killed the butler. A bullet to the head would’ve given him a quick death, unlike the torture the butler had to go through while my mom and I were forced to watch, gagged and strapped to chairs until he spit his last breath.

And then Regis scolded Mom for bringing him in and for not raising me ‘right,’ for teaching me ‘bad habits’ and allowing me to ‘throw tantrums to get what I want.’

Later that night, my mom overdosed on sleeping pills and I found her foaming at the mouth. She almost died.

Because of me.

So after that, I mindlessly killed whoever Regis told me to, because he realized he could threaten me with Mom in order to put me in the lane he’d specifically carved out for me.

We also made a deal. If he’d stop threatening to divorce my mom and give her the date nights she’s always begged him for, I’d become whatever he wanted me to be.

A weapon for power within Vencor.

The muscle who carried out his kills .

Top student.

Top athlete.

The Callahan empire’s perfect robot and the spare to Julian’s genius.

It didn’t matter as long as I got to protect my mom.

Julian called me an idiot for offering our dad my weakness on a platter, but Julian didn’t have a mom or a heart, or the feeling that he needed to protect someone with everything he had.

But that someone whom I shaped my whole life to shield from Regis’s cold shoulder and the whole fucking world is gone now.

And I’ve been on this killing spree to avenge her.

Bring her justice.

Fucking fill the hole her death has dug deep in my chest.

And if it means death to every single fucking person who was in that square, so be it.

So why the fuck…does seeing Violet in this state enrage me?

A lot of things about this fucking girl do—from the very first time she gave me that blue umbrella.

And it’s only gotten worse since.

I despise her naïveté, the way she just lies down and takes everything thrown her way, but most of all, I hate how she smiles even though her life is a mess and her journal is full of suicidal thoughts and a shit ton of trauma and low self-esteem that was caused by her mother.

And I shouldn’t have all these damn thoughts or feelings about someone from that day.

Someone who chose to stand by as that scum took away my mom—and the only light in my life.

And yet …

As Violet shakes uncontrollably and falls to the floor, heaving and wheezing, I throw the knife aside. The clattering of the metal is drowned out by the choked sounds she’s releasing as she bangs on her chest with her fist.

A panic attack, I realize, as I tower over her, looking down at her reddish hair that’s also smudged with blood.

I should let her rot. Or, better yet, just end her miserable life once and for all.

But then again, that’s what she wants, so that’s not going to happen.

I lower myself in front of her. This close, I can see the tiny freckles dusting her nose and upper cheeks like dotted stars on a moonless night. “I thought death didn’t scare you.”

She’s still wheezing, her other hand grasping at the floor for balance.

“Or is that only when your own life is on the line? Do other people’s deaths disturb you?” I reach out my bloodied hand and grab her cheek, lifting her head.

Pools of deep blue are marred with tears as she stares up at me while I smudge her pale cheek with blood. “Or is it because you’re squeamish?”

Her breathing is still sharp, irregular, but she’s no longer banging on her chest. I slide my thumb over her upper lip. It’s slightly bigger than the lower one, giving her a permanent little pout.

And I paint it in blood.

Her mouth. Her skin.

Even her soul should be red.

Her quivering lips part slightly, giving me the tiniest opening I shouldn’t entertain taking, but I do. I slide my middle finger inside, until it’s resting on her hot, wet tongue.

And I thrust it against the surface, going in as far as possible, until she chokes, her eyes widening, but then I pull back and rub it against her tongue.

She swallows around my finger, her delicate throat working up and down with the motion.

My cock jumps in my jeans, and I suppress a groan, because why the fuck would that be a turn-on?

I don’t even like oral. Or any foreplay.

All the girls I fuck know that I want someone who’s game to being dicked down on the mattress, wall, floor, anywhere where I can fuck the aggression out of my system, and then off they go.

I don’t care for blowjobs. At all.

So why the fuck is Violet’s mouth around my finger making my usually picky cock act up?

Little by little, her breathing slows, her hand sliding from her chest to her lap as she stares up at me.

She looks a mess, blood from my hand on her cheek, her lips, some in her hair, but it’s her eyes that hold me hostage.

The blue is so calm yet deep, a force of nature that’s no different from the ocean. Something that’s unassuming on the outside but bears secrets no one has dared to uncover.

And I want to dive into those depths, dismantle each of her secrets one by one.

But as her tongue moves the slightest bit, not even licking me, my entire body tenses up.

“Don’t flirt, Violet.”

It’s her turn to tense, and she attempts to shake her head, but I hold my finger at the back of her throat. “You must be a natural at sucking cock with these impressive little-to-no gagging skills. Tell me, have you considered selling your services like your mother?”

She pulls back with a cough, her saliva and dried tears mixing with the blood in a beautiful mess .

I like the view.

The way her disgusting innocence is smudged with my darkness.

A realization slithers beneath my skin and spreads through my chest with haunting violence.

That’s what I’ve always wanted to do to Violet. Erase her innocence and crush any of her feeble hopes of keeping her lowly life together.

And I don’t need death to accomplish that.

Death is reserved for the scum who’s lying on the ground staring at nothing.

Violet jumps up and glares down at me—she fucking glares. “People like my mom do what they do to survive. Something you have no knowledge of, considering the silver spoon you were born with and the privileged upbringing and wealth that force doors open in your face. So excuse us normal people, for working hard for our next meal and the roof over our heads. Whether we do that in shitholes or lying on our backs is none of your business.”

While she’s tense, she’s standing in a wide stance, not the mouse-like posture she usually forces her body into.

Even with the blood, the dried tears, and the disheveled hair, she looks the prettiest I’ve ever seen her.

I stand up and even that doesn’t make her recoil like she usually does. “Did you just snap at me?”

“I wouldn’t have done it if you weren’t disrespectful.”

“I don’t believe that’s the real issue. I’ve never shown you respect, and that doesn’t seem to faze you, but the moment I mention someone else, you transform into a kitten with claws. Ever thought of adopting the same energy to defend yourself?”

She purses her lips but says nothing .

“Ah, but you have such low self-esteem, it’s almost impossible to see yourself past the worthless, useless, waste-of-space little bitch who should’ve never been born, right?”

Her eyes round, her pupils enlarging more by the second. “How…?”

“That’s what you wrote in your journal. Your dear mama’s words that you take way too seriously. Religiously, almost.”

“You…you…”

“While you find a response, I want you to do something for me. From now on, you’ll stand up for yourself like you do for Dahlia and others. If you fail to do so, I’ll fuck you in my next target’s blood.”

Her lips fall open.

She takes a step back.

But stops.

“Fuck me, then.”

It’s my turn to stop, narrowing my eyes on her. “What?”

She lifts a shoulder casually—too fucking casually. “I don’t care about sex, and we’re already surrounded by blood.”

I grab her chin, my fingers digging into the skin. “Do you have any fucking idea what you’re saying?”

Her sad fucking eyes stare at mine, lingering, peering. I can tell she’s uncomfortable, but she still keeps up the eye contact. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“What about what you want?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

I wrap my other hand around her waist and slide it beneath her hoodie, on the small of her back, my fingers tracing the two dimples there.

“Do you believe you can fucking handle me? I’ll break your cunt the fuck up. ”

She swallows, her throat bobbing up and down, but then she does the most Violet thing ever—she forces a smile. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t care. Won’t be my first disappointing sex.”

What the fuck…?

Did she just call the possibility of sex with me a potential disappointment?

As in, she lumped me in with all the limp-dicked assholes she’s had sex with?

I realize I’ve loosened my hold on her, because she steps away, hopping over the bloody mess. “Let me know when you want that so we can get it over with.”

And then she leaves, all but running away while gripping the strap of her backpack.

Get it over with.

That’s what she said, right?

Like it’s a fucking chore?

I tilt my head to the side, staring at the man’s dead eyes and wondering why the fuck I’m not countering Violet’s insolence with the same actions.