Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 60921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
He never expected to be her prey.
Knight Hayes lives for the hunt. There’s nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of taking down the kind of monsters who hide behind screens and power suits. He’s sharp, controlled, and always ten steps ahead… until someone starts watching him.
Every move. Every mission. Every secret.
She sees it all.
The stalker? His best friend’s little sister—the same girl who once doodled his name in hearts and now shows up in a leather jacket, wearing a mask, and holding all his secrets in the palm of her black-gloved hand.
Her name is Lark Dawson, and she wants in. But he’s not having that. Not on his life. Not on his missions. And definitely not in his passenger seat.
But Lark’s not playing by his rules. She’s got blackmail, a bat, and zero boundaries. And unfortunately for Knight… she’s not going away.
When a job goes sideways and both their faces hit someone’s most-wanted list, Knight’s only option is to go on the run—with the girl who makes him crazy in more ways than one. He’s supposed to keep her safe. Keep his hands off. Keep things strictly professional.
Too bad Lark has other plans.
And Knight? He’s starting to forget why saying no ever seemed like a good idea.
One cocky vigilante. One chaos-loving wild card. One explosive ride that will leave them both begging—for mercy, for safety, and maybe… for each other.
Make Them Beg is a high-heat, high-stakes enemies-to-lovers dark romcom with a badass heroine in combat boots, a hero who can’t stop growling, and enough heated tension to burn the whole operation down
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
ONE
JUST ANOTHER TUESDAY NIGHT FELONY
KNIGHT
You ever watch a man eat chicken wings like he doesn’t deserve happiness?
That’s what I’m dealing with tonight.
Across the cracked blinds of Table 13 at Nolan’s Bar, our target—one Gregory “Wife-Beater” Dunn—is elbows-deep in a plate of nuclear buffalo wings, licking his fingers like he didn’t just embezzle half a mil from a non-profit and break his ex’s nose last Christmas. He's got sauce on his chin. Hellfire on his rap sheet. And zero idea he's about to be served a different kind of justice.
I adjust the burner phone in my hoodie pocket and glance at the time. 9:47 p.m.
Right on schedule.
“Anything from Lark?” I murmur into the mic clipped to my shirt collar. My voice is a whisper beneath the buzz of bad jukebox country and the sound of someone losing a game of darts behind me.
Static. Then Arrow’s voice crackles in my ear. “Nothing yet. She’s still ghosting the outer firewall.”
Classic Lark. When I tell her no, she hears try harder.
“I swear,” I mutter, sipping flat soda from my sticky glass. “One day I’m gonna change all the passwords and lock her out for good.”
“You say that,” Arrow deadpans, “but last week she hacked your Nest thermostat and made your apartment play the Teletubbies theme every time you opened the fridge.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Don’t remind me.”
“Let me remind you of something else—our window’s closing. You’re sure this guy’s dirty?”
“Oh, he’s filthier than a Reddit comment section,” I reply. “I scrubbed his VPN trail last week. He’s been funneling charity funds into a shell company registered to a yacht named Assets & Ass. No joke. He also buys fake reviews for his self-published crypto e-book. And the worst part?”
Arrow hums. “Tell me.”
“His ebook sucks bad.”
“Jesus,” Arrow whispers. “Take him down.”
I grin.
This is what we do now.
After Arrow helped Juno track her sister’s killers, and Gage brought down that HR creep at NovaPlay, we got… hooked. Somewhere between the late-night missions, burner phones, and Red Bull-fueled stakeouts, it stopped being revenge.
And became a purpose.
We’re not cops. We’re not mercs. We’re just pissed-off misfits with high-speed internet and a low tolerance for bastards in power.
And tonight? Gregory Dunn is next.
“Alright, I’m moving in,” I mutter, sliding out of the booth. My hoodie is zipped, my gloves are on, and my boots are blessedly silent on sticky linoleum.
I cross the bar. The lights are dim, the air smells like spilled beer and shame, and the bouncer is too busy scrolling TikTok to clock me.
Dunn doesn’t even look up. Just keeps licking wing sauce off his fingers like a psychopath.
I lean close, hand on the edge of the booth. “You ever think about what it feels like to lose everything in one night?”
He blinks, and then his eyes dart up. “What?”
I smile. “Check your phone.”
It buzzes on the table. He hesitates. Then picks it up.
His expression melts from confused to panicked in three seconds flat.
Because on that phone? Is a video. Of him. In his home office. Moving funds. Screaming at his ex. Throwing a lamp. It's all there. Time-stamped. Synced. Edited. Beautiful.
“Who—how did you—?”
I drop a thumb drive on the table. “That’s for the authorities. They're already en route.”
“Y-you can’t—!”
“Already did.”
His hand moves for something. A knife? His phone?
Too slow.
I snatch his wrist and slam it into the table. Not hard enough to break, but enough to make a statement. “I suggest you stay put,” I say. “Or don’t. I kind of hope you run. I haven’t stretched in a while.”
His eyes are wide now. “You’re insane.”
“Probably,” I say with a wink.
Then I walk. Out the door. Past the bouncer. Into the night. And there, parked half a block down, is my old Altima.
Arrow’s waiting, laptop open, hoodie up, and chewing on a Slim Jim like he hasn’t eaten in ages.
“Cops got the tip?” I ask as I slide into the passenger seat.
He nods. “Three minutes out. You really dropped the ‘Assets & Ass’ line?”
“I’m a professional.”
He snorts.
I grab my own laptop from the back seat and boot up. “Alright,” I say, fingers flying across the keys. “Let’s scrub all the data, wipe the footage from my cam, and reset all network nodes. We’re ghosts.”
Arrow glances sideways at me. “You know… you could’ve just mailed the tip anonymously.”
“And miss the look on his face?” I grin. “Never.”
My phone buzzes.
It’s a text from a blocked number.
Blocked Number: [Attachment: Video File]
Caption: Your backdoor encryption sucks, Hayes. Try harder.
Arrow sees it.
“Is that…?”
“Lark,” I mutter, staring at the video. It’s from inside the bar. Of me. Confronting Dunn. The whole damn interaction.
She had eyes on me the entire time.
Arrow exhales a laugh. “She’s good.”
“She’s annoying,” I grumble. But my chest is warm. And tight. And kind of buzzing.
Because for the first time in a long time… I’m not sure I’m the predator anymore.