Mine, Even If She Fights Me

VANCE

The stale scent of cheap cigar smoke hung heavy in Mateo’s private office while the freight manifests between us lay open to the exact same page. We were supposed to be finalizing the port drop for the midnight run, hammering out routes to keep the family clear of the feds and the syndicates, but Mateo wasn’t looking at the papers. He leaned back in his leather chair, flicked his lighter with a dull metallic click, and tossed his unlocked phone across the mahogany desk.

The screen slid to a stop an inch from my resting knuckles. A choppy video was playing on loop: the lighting was strobing neon magenta, the floor beneath packed with bodies, and right in the dead center was Sloane. Her arms were hooked around Damon De Marco’s neck, her mouth parted and locked tongue-deep against his, letting that loudmouthed bastard taste every single inch of her.

A brutal heat slammed behind my ribs, searing straight through my bloodstream. The pressure in my skull spiked so fast my molars ground together until they threatened to crack under the strain. I stared at the screen, watching that degenerate run his filthy hands near her waist, before I forced my head up to look at her brother.

“Does it slip your mind that your little sister is out whoring herself across the lower district, or do you honestly just not give a shit?”

Mateo exhaled a gray ribbon of smoke toward the ceiling, his shoulders moving in a careless shrug. “Sloane does whatever she wants. Besides, why do you care? She isn’t your type anyway.”

The ignorance in his voice made me want to lean over the desk and break his nose. He didn’t have a single clue what I wanted, or how close I’d come to ruining her on the floorboards just hours ago. Five minutes later, I checked a fake notification on my screen, spun some flat lie about an urgent supply issue back at my warehouse, and walked out into the corridor. By the time I hit the driveway, I was already behind the wheel of my car, tires shrieking against the gravel as I tore out into the night to hunt her down.

The bass from the warehouse venue hit me in the sternum the second I stepped onto the elevated VIP deck. It was a filthy sweatbox packed with grinding bodies and the heavy stench of spilled liquor. The bouncers at the private stairs didn’t dare question my face, parting the rope without a word. I leaned both forearms against the iron railing, ignoring some nameless girl who tried to rub her perfume against my shoulder, and scanned the roiling mess of the floor beneath me.

It didn't take thirty seconds to find her.

Sloane was swaying near the center ring, her spine arched, head thrown back with her arms floating high above her head like she owned every square foot of the room. Some random idiot was pressed right up against her backside, his fingers hovering inches from her denim.

I stood dead still. Sloane’s chin shifted, her gaze drifting upward until her eyes collided directly with mine. The breath visibly caught in her throat. She froze for a heartbeat, looking like she’d just been cornered by a ghost.

I kept my stare dead on hers, lifted two fingers from the rail, and jerked them toward the VIP stairs. *Get up here. Right now.*

Her lips parted, the color washing out of her cheeks, but then the reckless defiance took over. Sloane set her mouth into a stubborn smirk, broke eye contact, and deliberately ground her hips back into the stranger behind her.

The fury snapped whatever thread of restraint I had left.

I abandoned the railing and went down the metal steps three at a time, throwing men out of my path with enough force to send them stumbling into the crowd. She caught sight of me cutting through the bodies, her cocky expression finally fracturing as she tried to twist away, but she was too damn slow.

I hit her from behind like a freight train, slamming my chest flush against her spine. Before she could pull away, I shoved my hand up beneath the hem of her shirt, calloused fingers digging deep into the burning skin over her ribs, right under the bottom band of her bra. I drove my knee forward between her thighs, prying them apart and locking her hips tight against mine, anchoring her so firmly she couldn't take a single step.

“Having a good time?” I rasped against the shell of her ear, my voice cutting under the thunder of the speakers. “Don't stop on my account. Keep moving.”

“V-Vance…” Her voice hitched, her hips trembling violently against my thigh as I hauled her an inch higher.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart? You thought you could rub your ass on some piece of trash and I’d just sit upstairs and applaud?” I ground my hips forward, feeling every line of her back curve into me. “You’re dumber than you look.”

“You told me you didn't want to sleep with me,” she gasped out, turning her neck just enough for our lips to graze.

“That doesn't mean you get to pass yourself around like a cheap drink,” I bit out, my mouth pressing against the sweat-damp line of her throat.

When she tried to answer, her head rolled back a little too loosely. Her pupils were massive, black pools swallowing the hazel, her eyes entirely unfocused and floating. The realization hit me like a slap across the mouth: she was completely out of her head on whatever garbage someone had handed her.

I lost every scrap of patience I had left.

Snatching her wrist in an iron clamp, I dragged her off the floor, bulling our way through the side exit and kicking the heavy emergency bar open. The freezing night air hit us like a wall as the heavy steel door slammed shut behind us, cutting the club's bass in half.

Sloane stumbled on the damp concrete of the alley, fighting my grip. “Let go of me, you asshole!”

I shoved her back against the side panel of my car, pinning her against the cold metal with my forearm across her collarbone. “What the hell did you swallow?”

“Nothing!” she slurred, her eyelashes fluttering as she tried to push my chest away with limp hands. “Get off me—”

I didn't waste another second. I pinched the hinges of her jaw with enough force to bruise, squeezing until her teeth parted, and shoved two fingers straight down her throat.

Her eyes went round with sheer shock, her throat contracting violently around the intrusion. She let out a muffled, choked gasp, her palms clawing at my wrist as her stomach heaved against my frame.

“Open wider,” I ordered through my teeth, shoving deeper until her gag reflex seized.

She convulsed hard, coughing around my fingers. The second her stomach gave way, I ripped my hand free, grabbed a thick handful of her hair, and guided her down as her knees folded onto the filthy asphalt. I held her hair back like reins, keeping her head steady while she choked, retched, and heaved the chemical poison straight onto the pavement.

“Get it all out,” I commanded, crouching over her shivering frame while she gagged through tears and bile. “Every damn drop.”

Sloane coughed, spitting onto the stone, her entire body shaking under the assault. “It was... it was barely anything,” she wheezed, her voice cracking with pure humiliation.

“You have no fucking idea what kind of hands you were five minutes away from ending up in.”

She wiped her wet mouth with the trembling back of her hand, her eyes swimming with fury and shame as she glared up at me through tangled hair. “Why the hell do you even care?!”

She scrambled to her feet on shaking legs, yanked my passenger door open, and threw herself inside, slamming the steel shut.

I stared at the damp pavement for a single breath, wiped my fingers on a clean rag from my pocket, and climbed into the driver’s seat. I didn't say a single word. I put the car in gear and drove the fifteen-mile stretch back to the Davenport estate in suffocating, lethal silence.

The moment the tires stopped on the cobblestone drive beneath the terrace, Sloane pulled the handle and bolted toward the house.

I was out of the car before the engine even died. I caught her at the base of the wide patio stairs, my hand wrapping around her bicep and whipping her around to face me under the outdoor floodlights.

“You’re not walking away from this,” I said, looming over her.

“Oh, really?” Sloane laughed—a high, fractured sound full of venom. “You made it clear enough earlier, Vance! You pushed me away! You told me you didn't want me, remember? You told me I was just a stupid girl!”

She shoved both palms against my chest with everything she had left.

The impact didn't move me an inch, but the look in her eyes broke whatever leash I still had on my sanity.

I stepped straight into her personal space, locked both hands around her waist, and hoisted her entirely off the ground before she could draw breath to scream. She gasped, her hands clutching at my shoulders in pure panic, but I didn't stop. I carried her two strides across the stone terrace and hurled her straight into the deep end of the illuminated pool.

The water erupted with a deafening crash, splashing over the flagstones.

Seconds later, Sloane broke through the surface, sputtering and gasping for air. Her soaked clothes were plastered completely to her body, outlining every curve of her chest, and her dark hair was slicked back from her face as her fingers clawed frantically onto the concrete edge.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?!” she screamed, coughing up water, her teeth already chattering from the sudden shock.

I took three slow steps to the coping and dropped into a low, deliberate crouch right in front of her, resting my elbows on my knees. “You want to act like a reckless brat, Sloane? Fine. I’ll treat you like one.”

“You’re insane,” she hissed, shivering violently, water streaming down her neck and soaking into her collar.

I leaned forward until my face was barely a foot above hers, letting the full weight of my gaze pin her down. “You honestly think I don’t want you? You think my blood doesn't feel like it’s going to ignite every single time you breathe in the same room as me?”

Sloane gripped the rough concrete coping tighter, her eyes blazing up at me through the wet strands plastered to her temples. “Then why don’t you just do it already?”

I didn't blink. The silence between us stretched until the only sound was the steady trickle of water dripping from her hair.

“Get out of the pool, Sloane.”

“No,” she said, her chin lifting with that same infuriating, unyielding stubbornness.

A slow, wicked grin pulled at my mouth, dark and entirely unhinged. “Then I’m coming in.”