Chapter 44: An Effective Method

I stared at him in utter disbelief, my smirk freezing on my face.

"Kissed him?" I repeated, my voice dripping with pure disgust. "Are you out of your mind? Is that the only thing your brain defaults to?"

Benjamin’s brows pulled together in genuine confusion, his grip on my waist slackening just enough for me to finally shove his chest and create some distance between us.

"You said ’an eye for an eye,’" he argued, pointing a finger at me as if he’d just cracked a complex equation. "I pinned you down, so I assumed you did something intimate or physical to throw him off guard—"

"Ah, yes, I did," I said, my voice dropping into a dry line. "But I didn’t kiss him."

"Then what did you do?" Benjamin asked, his eyes narrowing with genuine curiosity.

"I suffocated him just as you did, with my lips."

Benjamin tilted his head, his brow furrowing as his unhinged purple eyes locked onto mine in utter baffling confusion. What in the world was she talking about?

To any normal person, using your lips on someone else was literally the exact definition of a kiss. Weren’t those two things identical? He thought. But more than the absurdity of my wording, a far more alarming realization hit him: Edgar—the ruthlessly cold, unyielding head of the casino floor—had actually let me do that? What kind of twisted, unthinkable relationship did the two of them have? Wait, was that why she had his scent on her earlier? Something did happen between them.

I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but I felt it was something stupid.

A dangerous spark of curiosity flared in Benjamin’s chest. He didn’t just want an explanation anymore. He wanted to experience this so-called ’suffocating’ method himself.

"Suffocated him?" Benjamin murmured, taking a deliberate step forward and closing the distance I had just worked so hard to create. "You expect me to believe my uncle just stood there and let you smother him? What kind of technique is that?"

"It was effective," I replied flatly, my eyes narrowing as he loomed over me again. "And it served its purpose."

"Is that so?" His lips twitched into a dark, provocative smirk as he leaned down, his face stopping mere inches from mine. "Then why don’t you show me? Prove to me how you suffocated an Alpha, Brianna. Or are you all talk?"

I didn’t flinch.

I could see right through him. He was baiting me. It was a classic tactical provocation designed to make a target act out of anger and reveal their hand. I knew he was throwing out a trap—I just assumed his objective was purely physical, a test to see if I actually possessed a technique capable of incapacitating an Alpha.

With zero regard for personal boundaries or romantic tension, my mind processed his challenge strictly as a battle of dominance. If he wanted to test my method, I’d satisfy his curiosity and prove my point on my terms.

I shot my hands up, grabbing both of his wrists and shoving his arms up against the cold wall above his head, though they didn’t go high given our height difference.

Benjamin blinked, his purple eyes widening in sudden, stunned surprise as I caught him off guard. But I didn’t give him a single second to recover or leverage his strength. Stepping into his space, I rose onto my tiptoes, pulled his head down, and slammed my mouth directly onto his.

I took his lips with ruthless force, giving him zero room to move. Using the exact same aggressive, invasive move he had forced on me down in the sub-basement, I clumsily parted his lips and drove my tongue inside, taking total control of his mouth.

I made sure it was suffocating. I pressed my full weight into him, crowding his space, smothering him so completely that he couldn’t draw a single clear breath.

Benjamin went rigid against the wall.

A sharp, violent jolt ran straight through his broad frame. His chest expanded in a ragged hitch, his heart hammering wildly against his ribs like a war drum. His wrists strained under my grip as his muscles locked up, his unhinged purple eyes blown wide open, staring down at me in absolute, paralyzed shock from less than an inch away.

He had the raw strength to break my grip and throw me across the room in a second. Yet, he stayed frozen—his chest heaving, his gaze growing dark and hazy as the intensity of the assault wrecked his senses.

I kept the pressure tight, forcing him to endure every single second of the heat, the lack of air, and the sheer humiliation of being completely immobilized.

Five seconds... ten seconds... fifteen seconds...

Only when I felt his breath run dry and his chest twitch in desperate need of air did I finally yank myself back, breaking the connection with a sharp snap.

I released his wrists and dropped back onto my heels, slowly stepping out of his reach. I raised the back of my hand and nonchalantly wiped my mouth, looking down at my work.

Benjamin slumped back against the wall, drawing in a sharp, ragged gasp of air. His lips were flushed and swollen, his chest heaving like a bellows, and those dark purple eyes burned with a chaotic, utterly disoriented fire as he stared at me.

I adjusted the brim of my cap, my expression deadpan and completely unbothered.

"There," I said flatly, my voice smooth and devoid of any emotion. "Now you know what it feels like to be suffocated. Does that finally satisfy your unhinged curiosity?"

He muttered something low under his breath, the words muffled against the quiet air between us.

"What was that?" I asked, tilting my head slightly.

Before I could process his reaction, his hand shot out like a striking viper, his fingers wrapping firmly around my wrist.

"More," he growled, his purple eyes burning with an unstable, dangerous fire as he stared down at me. "That was not nearly enough."

I looked at him like I was staring at an alien.

What sort of unhinged blood runs through this family? I had just aggressively stolen his breath, immobilized his arms, and forced an invasive, suffocating hold on his mouth—and his response was to ask for more? The sheer lack of self-preservation in these Alphas was staggering.

But before I could open my mouth to voice my utter disdain, his grip shifted with terrifying speed.

His fingers dug deep into the hair at the back of my head, locking my movement, while his other arm coiled around my waist like a steel band.

In one effortless surge of physical force, he yanked me flush against his hard chest, completely eliminating the distance between us.

He leaned down, his face inches from mine, his hot, erratic breath fanning across my skin.

"You were clumsy," he whispered against my lips, his voice dropping into a dark, commanding rasp that vibrated straight through my collarbone. "I’ll teach you how to do it properly."

With that, he pressed his lips against mine again.