Kiss The Villain: Chapter 33

“Alexander Carson speaking.”

I release a long breath at the sound of his voice.

Not too long ago, I wanted to kill this motherfucker with everything in me, but now, I don’t wish him harm—just because he’s Gareth’s grandfather.

The grandfather he wouldn’t stop talking about. Grandpa this and Grandpa that.

I don’t know when my animosity toward Alexander stopped, but it was probably around the time Cassandra started appearing in my nightmares trying to kill Gareth.

And I wanted to kill her, in the nightmare, for daring to touch him.

All sorts of fucked up, I know.

“Hello?” Alexander speaks again. “Who’s this?”

“Kayden Davenport,” I say as I leave the room where Gareth is sleeping and walk down the hallway.

We brought him to one of my family’s safe houses in Chicago’s suburbs. The doctor stitched up his arm and head and said he’d lost a lot of blood, so he needed a transfusion. He also suffered a severe concussion and needs to be monitored carefully for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

Per the doctor’s recommendations, I’m keeping him in a dark, quiet room with no screens or loud noises. I didn’t let him sleep for the first few hours, shaking him and giving him things to drink, but now, he can rest.

I’ll still need to wake him up and check his responsiveness every few hours. There should be no stress, no physical activity, and just complete rest these couple of days.

The freeze-out behavior is unlikely due to the concussion according to the doctor. He recommended having a clinical psychiatrist take a look at him.

I refused.

Gareth hates those doctors. He’s paranoid about being diagnosed like his brother or having people probe his brain.

And I will not be the reason for his discomfort. Not anymore.

“To what do I owe the call, Mr. Davenport?” Alexander’s voice sounds more professional now.

“You know who I am?”

“Everyone does.” He pauses. “If it’s not urgent, can I call you back? My grandson has gone missing, and I’m flying out to help search for him.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Pardon?”

“Your grandson’s with me.”

A long beat passes before he breathes harshly. “I’m not sure what this is about, but if you want something from me, there’s no need to involve him or I might resort to uncivil methods.”

“There’s no need for threats as I’m not harming him.” Not more than I already did. “He had a concussion and I’m monitoring him until he’s out of danger. Once he’s better, I’ll let him call you.”

“Concussion? How? Where are you? I’m coming right now to take him home.”

“No, you won’t. I’m only informing you because he wouldn’t want his family to worry about him. Goodbye, Mr. Carson.”

“Wait. What’s your relationship to Gareth?”

I hang up.

What’s my relationship to Gareth, really?

A couple of days ago, I thought we were in a relationship like he wanted. He was mine and I was his and that’s that.

I was contemplating telling him the truth and finding a method to leave Vencor so I could be with him.

It’s not really my family that are homophobes—though my dad would kill me if he were alive—it’s the whole goddamn thing.

Gay members aren’t allowed, and if you’re found out to be frolicking with men, you’re killed Middle Ages style.

That’s the end of that.

I don’t give a fuck about myself, but no one is allowed to come near Gareth.

Not anymore.

I’m still racking my brain about the possible options when my phone vibrates.

I ignore him because he’s a dead man walking. Simone and Jethro are tracking him down and will bring him to me so I can slash his face open.

My shoulders are hunched and my movements are lethargic as I walk back to the room. I need to sleep, even if only for twenty minutes, before I wake Gareth up again.

Simone and Jethro offered to watch him on my behalf, but I can’t possibly leave his side. Besides, he doesn’t know them and might get violent. He’s not himself—far from it—and that makes him dangerous.

So I need to personally make sure he’s okay⁠—

A crash comes from the bedroom and I run, throwing the door open. Arm and head bandaged, Gareth stands in the middle of the room, looking pale in my big white shirt and black shorts. The side lamp’s shards are scattered all around him as he bends over at an unnatural angle.

Then he grabs a piece of glass in his hand and brings it to his uninjured arm.

“Gareth, no!” I snatch his hand, twisting it to the side with little force so as not to open his stitches.

“Let me go.” He speaks so low, sounding far away, then shouts, “Let me the fuck go!”

The glass digs into his fingers, and blood bubbles out of the wound and drips on the carpet. I’ve seen his blood way too much these past couple of days.

I want that to stop.

His pupils are still wide, but not as wide as earlier, and he’s looking at me, those eyes a mixture of rage, disappointment, and hate, but what pierces me open is the sadness.

The pale color of his face and the chapped lips are unnatural and nothing like my Gareth. He looks so depressed, so down, I want to kick myself in the fucking gut.

I try to reach for the piece of glass, but he digs it deeper into his hand, blood oozing in rivulets.

So I stop.

Fuck.

“Gareth, please give me that piece of glass,” I say in my softest tone.

“Why?”

“So you don’t hurt yourself.”

“I have to, so I can remove you.” His voice sounds rough in the near-dark silence, his eyes almost glowing.

And I feel as if I’ve been stabbed.

“You want to remove me?” I ask.

“Yeah. I want you gone once and for all, so let me go.”

I pull his hand with the glass and push it against my chest. “Then remove me. Don’t hurt yourself. Hurt me.”

He cocks his head to the side, slowly, manically. “Hurt you?”

“You said you’d rip my heart out. It’s all yours, so do with it as you please, baby.”

His hand doesn’t tremble, doesn’t lose its steadiness. I suspect that even if he were to take a life, which is a matter of when, not if, he’d be very methodical about it and not question it.

He wouldn’t think twice about it like he is now.

All of a sudden, Gareth rips my shirt down the middle with the glass, splashing his blood all over the fabric. He cuts my side, and I let him, watching how his eyes darken upon seeing my tattoos.

Then he stabs me over the lily tattoo. No, not stabs. He scratches it over and over again with the shard of glass, erasing it, completely removing it from my skin.

Because he now knows I got that tattoo for Cassandra. He must’ve seen it on her wrist in all those videos.

I rein in my grunt of pain, letting him do what he pleases. I don’t think I’d move even if he slit my throat open.

His shoulders shake and so does his hand. It’s full of blood now—his hand, my abdomen, my ripped shirt, and my pants.

It’s everywhere, our blood, messing up the carpet, and him.

And I need to bandage his hand.

He keeps losing blood and I’m unable to put an end to it.

It’s like he’s slipping from between my fingers with each drop of blood.

His movements come to a halt, his lips wobbling as he looks up at me with shiny eyes. “I can’t remove it.”

He lets the glass fall to the carpet and I immediately take off my shirt and wrap it around his hand, squeezing against the wound.

He’s dazed as I drag him with me to the bathroom, sit him on a padded bench, and retrieve a first aid kit.

He doesn’t move as I sit across from him and drench his fingers and palm with antiseptic. Thank God the wounds are not that deep, but he fucked up all his fingers, with multiple cuts on every digit.

“Why can’t I remove it?” he whispers in a detached tone as I dab his injuries with alcohol pads.

“Remove what?”

“Her soul from your blood.” He reaches out his free hand and squeezes my wound with trembling fingers. “I hurt you, but she still wouldn’t go away.”

“Gareth, listen to me.” I grab his jaw and wrench him closer. “I never had her soul in my blood. I know you’re hurt and in pain, but I want you to know I never cared about her like I care about you, okay, baby?”

He shudders, his hand trembling on my lap. “Do you lie to everyone you care about? Use them for revenge against their grandad? Make them fall for you just to pull the rug from beneath their feet? Is that what caring looks like?”

“No, and I’m sorry.” I release his face and wrap Band-Aids around each of his cuts. “I admit that I approached you for revenge in the beginning, but my vision blurred along the way and things changed. Every single moment we had was genuine, Gareth. I truly care about you, more than I thought possible. Seeing you in pain is worse than being stabbed.”

“Why would you care about my pain after you caused it, Professor? Oh, wait. You’re not a professor. That was part of the image you crafted so well to draw me into your web.” He laughs, the sound a bit unstable and unhinged. “Was the PI your work as well? Must’ve been. You’re filthy rich and come from an influential family, apparently. God, you must’ve thought I was a pretentious prick trying to impress you with all that expensive stuff.”

“No, I was thankful for everything, Gareth. I mean it.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” He wrenches his hand from my wound and then grabs my hair, tugging hard. “If Declan hadn’t told me, would you have kept me in the dark my whole life?”

“Of course not. I was planning to tell you the truth.”

“The truth that I’m only a means you’re using to avenge your wife?”

“I told you that changed, Gareth.”

“How can it change? If you loved her so much to go ballistic after her death, to tattoo her on your body and keep her soul beneath your skin, how can it fucking change?!”

He’s becoming agitated again, his pupils dilating, his breathing growing all chopped off, and his grip tightening on my hair.

I gently hold his bandaged hand in mine. “I never loved Cassandra, Gareth. Not like you think.”

“Liar!” He jerks up, releasing me as he paces back and forth, back and forth, biting his finger until blood coats his teeth, lips, everywhere. “Liar, everything is a lie…you’re a goddamn liar…you’ve used me…played me… I need to remove you like I did with all of them.”

“Gareth, baby, please calm down.”

“Don’t…” His head snaps in my direction, his eyes glittery. “Don’t fucking call me that!”

“Okay, I won’t. Would you sit down? You have a severe concussion, and this will make it worse.”

He comes to a halt, cocking his head to the side, his eyes manic. “Do you care if I’m hurt?”

“Of course I do.”

“Will you go crazy if I die like when she died? Will you start hunting people down and going into a loop of nothingness?”

“Gareth, fuck.” I rush toward him and hold his shoulders. “Don’t say that, please. Don’t…don’t make me lose you. I will do whatever you want me to do.”

“Whatever I want?”

“Yes. You name it and I’ll make it happen.”

“Leave Grandpa alone.” His voice trembles before it becomes steady again. “I don’t know what evidence you have or don’t have, but he’d never assault a woman and kill her. Not after he saw me kill my girlfriend’s rapist. He doesn’t…doesn’t even take rape cases. He’s not that type of man.”

I pause. His girlfriend’s rapist?

What girlfriend?

And he’s killed? He took a life before?

While I’m not surprised, I have so many questions. But this isn’t the time to ask them, so I nod. “I won’t go after your grandfather. I’ve abandoned that for a while now.”

“Because of guilt? Can you feel that?”

“If it’s toward you, yes, I do feel all sorts of emotions I thought I was incapable of. And it’s not guilt per se. I would never hurt someone you care about.” I stroke his shoulder. “What else do you want, Gareth?”

“I want to kill you.” His hand shoots up to wrap around my throat, but he’s not squeezing. “I want to carve your heart out and erase her from it. I want to leave a hole in your chest shaped like me. I want to hurt you so deeply, you’ll never move on. You’ll become a ghost of yourself, haunted by me in your dreams and nightmares, waking up screaming my name, only to realize I’m gone. I want to possess you, to make sure you die with my taste on your tongue and my soul coursing through your veins.”

“Gareth—”

“Shut the fuck up. Don’t call my name, don’t make me hear your voice or your fucking lies.” A puff of air blows out of his trembling lips. “I can’t stop thinking about you with her. I can’t stop thinking that your expression, your smile, your everything was hers. The very thought fills me with revulsion. You were married to someone before me. You gave your heart, your body, and your soul to someone else. You touched someone so deeply, and it wasn’t me. And I don’t give a fuck that she came before me. It still makes me fucking sick.”

He sounds so broken and lost.

And for the first time, I can’t stop it. Can’t mend his wounds or smooth out his emotions.

And now, I wish I’d never known Cassandra or married her. Maybe she’d be alive and happy, and I’d naturally find my way to Gareth, because I would have.

He’s the one I share a soul with, not her.

Gareth drops his bandaged forehead on mine, as if he’s tired, and inhales sharply, sniffing me in that way he usually does.

I inhale, too, sucking him into my lungs. The scent of him binding me to reality.

His touch.

His breaths.

The way his upper lip twitches, how his eyes soften.

I’m obsessed with every inch of him, his joy, his anger, his body, and every word out of his mouth. Forget about making a hole the size of him inside me. That’s already done.

Along with him coursing through my veins.

But he’s not letting me speak, and I don’t want to agitate him any further. He doesn’t seem ready to believe a word coming out of my mouth.

“I shouldn’t have let myself be captivated by you, addicted to you, used to you.” His harsh breaths fan my dry lips. “I should’ve avoided you from the start. I sensed the obsession right away, and obsessions aren’t good for me. They consume me. You consumed me, Kayden. And the thought that you’re in my life because you were consumed by someone else makes my vision red. It provokes my murderous side—the one I swore to suppress so I wouldn’t get caught. But it’s too late. You’ve already caught me, hook, line, and sinker. And the only way to escape is for you to rip my head off.”

“Gareth, no, don’t hurt yourself. Hurt me. Okay? Shoot me. Cut off my arm. Break my legs. Do whatever you want with me.”

“I can’t.” He releases me, his fingers trembling as he chuckles softly. “I can’t hurt you. It hurts me, too.”

“I will do it, then. I’ll mutilate myself.”

“No. I want you to live, Kayden. I want you physically healthy but mentally fucked up—just like you made me.” He turns on his heel, his voice sharp enough to slice through the tension. “I’m ending the obsession and amputating you.”

“Gareth…” I take a step toward him, but the look he throws over his shoulder stops me cold.

It’s a look that promises he’d destroy himself just to make me watch.

He’s that hurt. That confused. That suicidal.

And the last thing I want to do is provoke him.

So I let him go.

But as he walks away, I say softly, “My life is yours to take whenever you wish, little monster.”

He doesn’t pause. Doesn’t turn. Doesn’t even look back. But his voice is hollow when he speaks.

“It’s not about taking your life; it’s about wiping you out of mine.”