A negative shake of her head. “Not right away. That took time. I started at the bottom. I learned and I grew. I worked my way through the ranks. I quickly discovered the world was full of monsters. So many more monsters than everyday people realize.” And that was why she’d fought so hard to get on Gray’s team. Because he understood monsters. “They are the worst kinds of predators, and someone has to stop them.”
“You’re that someone.”
“I might not look overly intimidating.” A twisted smile curved her lips. “But it’s better for my enemies to underestimate me that way.”
His stare did not waver. “I will never underestimate you again.”
“But you are my enemy.” Something he had not denied. Why not? Just deny it. Please.
He stepped closer to her. Still did not touch her. “I do not want to be your enemy.”
“I told you about the tattoo, and, in response, you told me that I was trying to get you to kill the boogeyman. Like the Twin Cobras weren’t real when you were sporting one of their tattoos on your back!” The betrayal gutted Agnes.
His eyes glittered at her. “We were interrupted during that conversation. I seem to recall a jackass breaking into our motel room and shooting at us.”
“Shooting at me,” she corrected. “I was the one in the bed. You were the one on the floor.”
“The prick didn’t know that, Agnes. He was shooting at us.” Cass’s hand rose. His fingers skimmed against her cheek. Rough calluses. Power held in check. “I’ll do it.”
His touch seemed to burn her skin. “You’ll do what?”
“I’ll kill the boogeyman for you.”
“I don’t need you to kill him.” Was he listening at all? “I’ll do it.” She would make the kill with no hesitation. “I just need you to help me find the bastard! I never saw his face. He kept his stupid visor on when he was near me. I saw the tat on his wrist. He turned away, when he was sure I was gonna bleed out and die next to Max, and the man made a damn phone call. He flipped up the visor as he walked away, and he was bragging about getting a redhead. He attacked me because of the color of my hair!” Tears filled her eyes. She could feel them, and they made her angrier. “Is that the shit that your group does? You go out and attack people like it’s some kind of game? What in the hell did you have to do in order to get in that freaking club?” She had the gun between them now. She’d lifted it up, and it pressed to his stomach.
Cass glanced down. “This would be why I took out the bullets.”
“I’m not shooting you! I’m not the monster!” Or, wait, was she? Sometimes, Agnes wasn’t so sure. Sometimes, she didn’t know who—or what—she’d become. “You lie to everyone,” she breathed. “Why? I don’t want lies from you. I want the stark truth. I sided with you. I turned my back on the FBI to be here with you?—”
“All for show,” he cut through her words to say.
A tear leaked down her cheek. “The hell it is for show. I am here because there will be no going back.” Gray had guessed at her intention. He’d warned her that, sometimes, you just couldn’t go back. Not when you crossed certain lines. “I’m getting my justice.” One way or another.
“I will do it for you.” He wiped away the tear.
“You’re one of them.”
And…
Something broke on his face. In his eyes. “The fuck I am!” Cass rasped. His shoulders heaved. “I’m breaking them the hell apart. They are my last mission. The final takedown. You think it was easy getting inside? You think I was gonna play their games? I don’t hurt innocents. Not fucking ever. So to get their attention, to get in with the bastards who are fucking serial killers playing some kind of game as they zig-zag across the US, hell, yes, I had to do bad things. So I took out bad people. I made my own rules. I tracked the SOBs, and I am within range. I am eliminating them.”
“Serial killers? No.” She shook her head. No, he was mistaken. “They are killers, yes, but not serials?—”
“It’s not all the Twins. Not all the members, I mean. Don’t you see that? It’s two. Two at the top of the hierarchy of the Twins. Two sadistic pricks playing a game. Two killers.”
Her life—Max’s life—had not been a game.
“Two heads. Two monsters.” Rage rumbled in his voice. “You have to cut them both off to kill the beast. A pair of killers. It was hard to notice the patterns because they are spread across the country. I came across one of the matched kills by accident. Local cops were thinking it was a robbery gone wrong. It was not. It was deliberate. a matched set of victims over one thousand miles apart.”
The drumming of her heartbeat was far too loud. Betrayal burned viciously inside of her. All the time that she’d been chafing, wanting so desperately to find the monster from her past—had Gray been deliberately misleading her? Why? “How many victims?”
“I don’t know.” His mouth tightened. “But if I’m right, the game has been going on for a very, very long time so…a lot.”
Her breath came faster.
“You said the man who attacked you made a call. He told his partner who he’d targeted, and…I’m betting his partner then killed a woman who looked just like you. Probably a woman and a man since they took out your fiancé.”
Max’s blood, pooling toward me.
