I ambushed him.
Both hands on his face.
Lips locked on mine.
Catching air while he lifted me off the ground.
He tastes like my future.
He feels like my king.
And worthy asfuckis this messy Irish head.
A matching crown will sit real pretty on it…
“Bleedin’ Christ, get aroom.”
Fuck that. I have ahouse.Ourhouse. And that’s exactly where I’m starting over, with this nerdy, tattooed degenerate at my side.
So, his name is Dan.
And Dan…likes to tell half-truths.
I think I like Dan.
Not only were the stragglers strung up using the same handcuffs that they used on the girls…they were also zip-tied face down, all fours spread…over the men that paid to rape us. My heels clacked over the wooden floor as I walked around the beds, admiring this work of pureart.
“Doesn’t feel so good, does it boys? What if…I go search the house for any available broom stick? Mop? Didn’t one of you use a cattle prod as a punishment on Adrienne forcrying?”
Declan popped his neck and stretched. Simon scraped a huge blade on the edge of a nightstand that was falling apart. Malek…just bounced impatiently from one foot to another.
“I think that’s a swell idea,” I continued, earning pleads from a couple of them, and growls from another. “Let’s see if they like the taste of their own drug before we show them the preview of coming attractions, yeah?”
“Fucking bitch! You fucki—”
Dec slammed one of their foreheads against the head of the dead patron underneath, and…well…he didn’t say anything else.
Pout.
We did exactly what I suggested. It wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it might be, but‘Simon says’…it just means I’m not a hundred percent evil. I got a cool anatomy lesson, watchingMr. Miyagi sever a couple of Achilles tendons for spite. I almost stepped on a tongue laying on the floor.
Declan had only been here for a small bit of all this, and so I went to find him—only to learn that he’d hung Mikhail from the ceiling in my room by old ceiling fan wires and was patiently waiting for me to have my fill while he threw knives at his corpse.
Just when I think I can’t love you more, Declan McCann.
I walked hand-in-hand out the front door with him, smiling while the bitches screamed for mercy inside…
Boom.
CHAPTER 18
The Pawn
“Police are still adamantly searching for the individuals responsible for the safe return of twelve missing women, and an end to what they have referred to as a ‘ring of pure evil’. Parents of two of the underage girls, whose names won’t be disclosed, tearfully pleaded for their ‘heroes’ to come forward. Authorities say that an explosion north of Castine may be linked to the miraculous rescue, but the investigation is still ongoing.”
Bridget snored against my chest, curled against me on the couch, and I muted the television. My arms tightened around her and her damp hair smelled less like smoke, and more like rosemary and sage. I’m just happy I get to smell it from her actual presence and not from sniffing a bottle, wondering if I’d ever see her alive again. Mid-day sunlight casted her in a glow that hides every bit of the psycho I know is beneath the surface…right now, she just looks like something that came crashing down from the top—right into my fucked-up life.
I pressed my lips to the top of her head, smoothing back her hair, and tried to convince myself that justhoursago…we’d been vicious killers. Weeks ago, we’d been the likes of an old married couple, arguing about chores and eating ice cream out of a tub. Years ago, we’d been gangsters, making dirty moves and fucking behind curtains. And now, we’re also vigilantes that saved the lives of twelve innocent girls. They think we’re heroes…and they’re wrong. At the end of the day, we’re just a bunch of misfits in the mortuary business…kinda.
