“Send it through to me, mate, and remember, I want a name,” he said, voice low and strong. Christian’s voice came down the line louder, but I couldn’t hear his words, only an exasperated tone. “You doing this for us is big, Chris, don’t shirk.” More quiet from Theo, then, “Thank you. I’ll add him to the list.”
At that, I twisted my head and looked up at him, his dark eyes catching mine for a second. As always, my heart skipped, and the urge to press closer in grew. I wondered if Christian knew the depths of our bond? If he cared? I was forgetting myself, the world we were in, that what Theo and I had was considered worse than mine and Rafael’s relationship. A man old enough to be my father was still better, even if he hurt and abused me.
Theo kissed my head and muttered his goodbyes to Christian before hanging up, thunking the phone down on the armrest with a grunt and a sigh. Tension again. It rolled off him, and I swallowed it up.
“Everything okay?” I asked softly, still turned to look up at him.
Theo’s mouth transformed from the frown and spread into a wicked grin. A slightly twisted, evil grin, filled with excitement. My stomach fluttered with it. This wickedness? It made me feel alive. I sat up to take it all in, the monster in me punching against my skin to get out and join him. One moment.
“He’s got an address for us,” Theo said, moving to cup my face, pulling me so I had to position myself over his lap, my legs falling on either side of his. “I asked him to research, to try to find everyone that works with Rafael, track down his core team, the men that…” He let out a sigh, the words not coming. “Christian found our first devil.”
“Tell me who,” I muttered, sinking myself down to find his hard cock straining for me through his pants. He felt this too, this bloodlust. He must, why would he be hard, as aroused as I was, as excited. The way he gazed at me, the way his body responded? I hummed with it, writhed my hips to drag my pussy against his shaft. “Tell me which bastard is going first.”
“Jack’s brother is only five hours away from here,” Theo said, reminding me of the first man I’d killed, of the way he’d looked a second before he splattered to nothing but mulch. “We can go whenever you want.” He cupped my boob as he spoke, squeezing and massaging as I rocked my hips.
Damon, Jack’s brother, was low-hanging fruit, as far as I was concerned. But if what we were about to do to him might get back to Rafe, to Gabe? Electricity zapped through me.
“Now,” I said, leaning down to lick at the half-open slice on Theo’s shoulder. “I want to go now.”
Ten
Violet
Damonnevertouchedmelike the others. He never hurt me to my face, never held me down and raped me, or ripped my toenails off, or starved me until I struggled to hold my head up. He never did any of those things. But he did watch it all. He watched it all with a smile on his face and a laugh in his throat, a bulge behind his zipper. He did nothing to stop the torture and pain I faced. His complicity was just as much of a sin; he needed his judgement as much as the rest.
Damn the church, all of them. Damn every one of those active or complicit men hiding behind something they called sacred. Masking their evil crimes with fake piety. Damon never touched me or hurt me, but he was just as bad.
And there he’d been at the train station, ready to drag me back to it all, back to the hell that was his church, his false belief system shrouding deprivation. His hands outstretched and horror on his face as we fell. I could remember each twitch of his expression if I thought about it hard enough. But taking myself back to that day was a nightmare, the shock, the anger, the determination and fear, it all rippled through me and made me whimper.
Theo’s hand on my knee soothed me from the edge of my anguish, the jitteriness in me urging us forward. But we were in the car, going as fast as we could, anyway. I had nowhere to put the nervous energy apart from balling it up and using it later. Nothing I could do would get us there faster. Even so, my skin itched to get there right now, in an instant. Damon needed to die right now. The waiting was rough, scratchy in my organs.
The drive to Damon’s house was a lengthy one, but compared to what Theo and I had already done, how long we’d drifted about in a car just to get away, the journey felt lighter. We weren’t fleeing from something; we were racing toward a goal, a mission. So the energy buzzed, excitement and urgency that zapped between where Theo’s palm rested on my thigh.
“How you holding up?” He asked with a squeeze of my flesh, letting his fingers linger. Leaving the cabin had unnerved us both, leaving the safety of the fenced off land, the cameras watching every twitch of the leaves and rustle of the wind… we’d loaded up on weapons and food, medical supplies, but we had a long night ahead. Vulnerable to outside influence, to things going wrong. If only we were on our way to a picnic, not a premeditated murder.
Maybe one day.
“Tense,” I admitted. “I have all this annoying energy I don’t know how to use.”
Theo was quiet for a moment, the road still rolling by outside the window as he drove. “I have an idea,” he said, pulling over with a sharp turn of the wheel.
“What are you doing?” I laughed, looking at him as he flashed me a naughty grin. It made my belly squeeze in the most delicious way.
He gestured to his lap, leaning back and spreading his thighs. “Come here.”
“Why?” I chuckled, though didn’t hesitate to do as he commanded. It was awkward, the wheel and the center getting in the way, tangling up my legs. But we snorted and laughed as I got myself positioned.
But when I expected him to kiss me or touch me, he shifted himself, and that mess of limbs and grunting continued as he climbed over to the passenger side, leaving me half hanging off the driver’s seat.
“What the hell?” I spluttered, frowning, settling into the seat.
“Drive,” he said plainly, nodding to the road.
“No!”
“Drive. Burn some of that energy by focusing on controlling this hunk of junk.” He patted the door. “This is basically a fucking go-kart; you can do it.”
“I never did get a go on the bumper cars,” I told him, my hands gripped the wheel so tight my knuckles were white. It was alien. Theo laughed, then scoffed.
