Unmaking Marchant by Ella James Read Free Book Online Page B

later, hear a woman’s scream.
Holy fuck! I turn around, adrenaline pumping so hard I can feel my heartbeat in my eyes.
It’s her. The blonde in the ass-hugging jeans.
I push Hawkins harder against the ground and search her face. Her cheek is red, like there’s a bruise forming. “Jesus, baby. I’m sorry.”
“You’re going to kill him!” She backs away, scrambling like I’m some kind of monster.
And it fits—because I am.
     
    *
     
    SURI
     
The first thing I think: There’s something wrong with him. The guy kicking ass in the tuxedo is too frenzied, too fast, too reckless.
He seems completely unafraid as he takes the big guys—obviously body guards—to the ground. The little guys has a gun, and just as I think I’m going to be witness to a murder, the guy in the tuxedo is on him, and the gun falls into the grass.
The little guy goes down like a rag doll, and Tuxedo Ass-Kicker drops on top of him and pounds his face with a gusto that’s almost scary. Scratch that: It’s definitely scary.
I press my back against the ivy-swathed brick wall that helps create the garden-like façade of the atrium. Blood is everywhere now; all over the thick green grass, coating Scrawny’s face, staining Ass-Kicker’s fists. I’ve never seen so much blood in all my life, not even the night Adam knocked my tooth out.
Finally, Scrawny’s nose starts spraying—literally, spraying blood like a faucet. That makes my stomach lurch. It wakes me up. I fist my hands and lean forward. “Stop it!”
Ass-Kicker doesn’t even flinch.
“Stop right now !”
I take a hesitant step toward them as my ears are filled with the awful sound of bone crunching. When Ass-Kicker doesn’t respond, I rush up to him, throw my arms over his broad shoulders, and shriek right in his ear.
The hand that’s punching Scrawny slings my way—lightning fast, before returning to Scrawny’s face. A few of the knuckles catch me in the cheek hard enough to knock me off his back. I land in the grass, clutching my face as tears fill my eyes.
“Oh my God,” I whisper as Ass-Kicker’s gaze finds mine.His eyes widen and his mouth drops open. “Jesus, baby. I’m sorry.”
“You’re going to kill him!” I scramble to my feet and run toward the door that leads back to the casino’s hallway, but I’ve only taken a few steps when sirens start to wail. Not sirens like an ambulance, but sirens like an alarm system. I’m frozen mid-step when a heavy arm locks around my waist. A deep voice purrs in my ear, “I’ll show you the party.”
The siren, accompanied by flashing red lights, is definitely of the security type. One of the cameras must have seen the fight.
Or me. I did run away from someone claiming to be a security guard, after all.
I tense, imagining scenarios as terrible as getting kidnapped or splashed across the inside pages of a tabloid, and the guy’s grip on me gentles. “I’m a good guy. Swear.”
Then he tugs me through the door, into the casino. I see a flash of light—red light, coming from chandeliers—and then I glimpse the security guard I escaped from. His dark eyes widen and his mouth pulls open into a snarl. “Ma’am—” he growls, and before he can get another word out, I am jerked in the opposite direction.
 I’m moving because Ass-Kicker is pulling me. He’s pushing me. He’s bloody and he’s gorgeous and he’s trouble. I should run the opposite way, but Ass-Kicker seems to know where he’s going—and I’m clueless.
We run through a few card parlors and down several crowded halls, up two sets of stairs and into a sleeker, quieter hall before he tugs me into a bathroom that looks more like a formal dressing room.
I’m not sure who drops whose hand, but suddenly I’m just standing there panting, in between a long, Victorian-style burgundy sofa pushed against one wall and a row of clam-shaped, white marble sinks topped with oversized King Edward mirrors on the opposite wall. The bathroom is empty, so my frantic breaths