Petty Rage by Thandiwe Mpofu

Chapter 25

KIM

Past

Blue Fairy: Did anyone ever ask you?

ME:Ask me what?

Blue Fairy:How you felt when you saw that disgusting son of a bitch?

ME:I don’t want to talk about it.

Blue Fairy:I’m not Astraea or Ivy. Tell me how you felt.

ME:Fuck, Noah! How else would you feel if you suddenly faced your father and saw the hate in his eyes directed at you?

Blue Fairy: I wouldn’t have time to feel. If I ever see him and it’s a fucking brawl, I’ll kill him where he stands.

ME: I felt cold and I hate that when I look in the mirror, I can still see him. When King looks at me, he sees him and when Astraea looks at me, she sees him.

Blue Fairy: You talk about it as if they’re the only ones that suffered. What the fuck did he do to you?

ME: It doesn’t matter now. He’s gone.

Present

The next few hours are agonizing and so damn slow, it messes with my damn head.

When George dragged me out of that conference room, kicking and screaming, he didn’t waste time passing me over to some huge bodyguard-type dudes who effortlessly carried me out to the elevator; but this elevator was on another side of the building than the one I used to enter because when we finally reach our destination, the doors open to the basement where I see a fleet of all-black cars with no plates.

I try fighting so I can get back to the seventieth floor, but all my efforts are rendered moot when they put me in a G-Wagon with bullet proof windows and the fucking child lock is on so I can’t get out.

The mammoth sized dudes stand right outside the driver and passenger side doors, just waiting for me to attempt to get out. I sit in that damn car for fucking hours, weeks, years, and there still is no sign of Noah and my heart can’t take it.

I fish out my phone, but the damn thing is dead since I didn’t charge it like I was planning on doing today.

I think of banging on the glass door, demanding to use a phone but I know whatever instructions or requests these men take, they are not going to be from me.

I have no idea how long it is until I finally see Noah bulldoze his way straight for the G-Wagon where I’m in.

Emmett and George are saying something to him, but he doesn’t look like he’s listening.

I hold my breath knowing damn well that he’s coming for me.

And that’s exactly what he does.

Within a heartbeat, he opens the back door where I’m at and in the next instant, I’m launching myself into his arms.

I can feel our hearts hammering against our chests. He’s shaking with rage and for a few moments while I’m in his arms, it’s mayhem at first until everything simmers down to a manageable riot that allows me to pull back and take him in.

“Noah!” I breathe, noticing he doesn’t have a scratch on his gorgeous face. “You scared me to death, damn you to hell!”

“Ditto, Butterfly,” he mutters, his gaze piercing my soul as he does the same thing I’m doing; trying to check for injuries as he holds my face in his slightly bloody hands, but I don’t give a damn. “What were you going to do, Butterfly? Slice the man’s fucking throat in the middle of a busy office?”

If I didn’t know Noah, I’d say his attempt at humor with such a serious issue was a bit off but no, this is how I know he’s with me. Noah is the kind of guy that will stand in front of you with his heart breaking, the agony shining through his eyes and still manage to crack a joke just to try and dim his own pain. It breaks me every single time.

“Why the fuck not?” I demand.

“So, you make some money and the first thing you do is fall back into your default setting?”

“My default setting?”

“Being a bad, naughty, rebellious girl who’s dressed to kill in all black with a knife strapped to your thigh, about to slit throats in the middle of the day.”

I shrug, some habits don’t die because those habits have kept me alive.

“My only regret was going to be ruining these shoes,” I mutter, still trying to catch my breath.

“Those fucking sexy shoes,” he whispers darkly as he takes his time burning a path down my legs to my six-inch heels with his heated gaze filled with raging lust.

“Wait. You were watching me, weren’t you?” I ask, a small smirk on my face.

“You’re damn right I was watching,” he purrs as a hand travels the length of my leg to my ankles, then back. “I wasn’t about to let you mess anything up.”

“Mess anything up? Sir, please,” I say with a scoff. “If you were watching then you definitely saw that I made a few older friends.”

“You had them practically eating out of your hand and shaming that sonofabitch.” We stare at each other for a heartbeat, the danger we just came through feeling like a prelude. But I can see Noah’s anger start to spike again as he looks down at my bruised wrist. “If he’d done anything to you…”

“He didn’t.” Though he did other things to me so many years ago.

“Still.” I can see the rage still churning but I can’t let him feel this…

“Spend the day with me,” I ask breathlessly.

“What?”

“Let’s put the bet on hold and spend the day together,” I whisper. “Please, Sexy Fairy, grant me a wish.”

Noah pulls back just a bit, holding my gaze. I think I’m holding my breath, just waiting to see what happens, my heart raging in my chest as I hang over a cliff.

It’s incredible how he does that to me, how I wait for his fucking approval like a damn junkie.

“Tattoos,” he says seriously as he studies me.

“What?”

“If you want to spend the day with me, you’re going to get a tattoo with me.”

I hate needles on my skin and he knows it, which is why I’m sure he’s testing me, trying to see if I really mean it.

“Okay,” I say, surprising him.

“You really want to spend the day with me that bad?” he questions, a frown on his face.

“I want to be with you… today,” I quickly add in that last part as a safety net, but like everything else in my life, it’s a shoddy net that won’t save me. I fell for Noah a long time ago and then ended up landing in a grave I dug by myself with the one lie I kept from him.

Noah doesn’t say a word. Instead, he offers me his hand and helps me step out of the car. Then wordlessly, he strips me out of the blazer I’m wearing until I’m left in the lace top and the skirt and heels.

“Fucking sexy,” he murmurs. I swear his gaze makes me feel wanted, seen… craved. “You’re so mine.”

With that, he opens the passenger side door of the G-Wagon and helps me in. Then he straps me in, holding my gaze through it all. “I know how much you hate being tied down but it’s me. Relax.”

It’s Noah, it’s always been him, so I do relax, feeling the burn of his fingers where he’s barely touching me. “Behave.”

A thrill runs through my veins with that one word. Fuck, I feel like I’m part of the Noah groupie now.

Closing my door with a finality that seals the rest of the day, he walks over to the huge bodyguards, tells them something, then he’s back and behind the wheel.

I have no idea where Emmett and George are, but I don’t ask, just as I won’t bother asking what happened to David.

We drive out of the underground parking which I discover belongs to the building next to the Montreal Inc offices.

“Uh, do you also own that building?”

“We own the entire block,” he grits out, his grip on the steering wheel white-knuckled and tight.

I take that as a sign to drop it, so I just reach over to the radio and see what’s playing. Noah eyes me, but doesn’t say anything as I start rapping along to Nicki Minaj’s Chun-Li.

“You’re a Barb?”

“Are you surprised?”

“You and Baby Blue joined the cheer squad in high school. You ate a plate of random brownies that you just found, got high, then burned your own hair. You think I’d be surprised by anything you do at this point?”

“Good point.” I giggle thinking back to that one-time Astraea and I joined the fucking cheerleading bullshit just to fuck with that bitch, my ‘half-sister’, Brittney.

I start tapping my foot, nervous for what’s about to happen.

“If you stomp a hole in the floor of my car, you and I are going to have problems.”

“Noah, you punched a hole through the back window of my old car that night.”

He has the audacity to grin as he speeds down the street, weaving in and out of traffic like this is some Fast and Furious movie.

“First night and you wound me up so tight,” he says with a smirk.

“No, you kept me panting,” I whisper.

“If you’re looking for a witch to point fingers at then it’s you. You kept me coming for you. You kept me strung up and walking on fucking pins and needles, needing to be close to you, to touch you.”

“You think you were the only one who felt that way?” I demand. “All those texts you’d send me, every time you’d come for me at 3 a.m., every second we spent just driving, going nowhere and then Hell Day… you had me right where you fucking wanted me and then one day you just… Noah, you abandoned me.”