“Brennan.”
Working with Sam Brennan was a status symbol in the underworld. He charged a lot, and extra if you expedited the process.
“How much did it cost?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You’re worth it.”
We were deep inside the woods, and there was a pile of human flesh and bone in front of me. They had been tossed intoa shallow grave. Now that he’d mentioned it, some of it did look like craniums.
I blinked, torn between gratitude and anguish. The girl I left behind in Russia didn’t dare dream of getting revenge. She barely hoped to survive the memories she’d carried with her.
“Aw,shit. I fucked it up, didn’t I?” Achilles laced his fingers together at the back of his neck, pacing. “I knew I should’ve just done the job and spared you the exhibition. Or…did you want to do it yourself? I didn’t mean to steal your thunder. I’m still new at thi?—”
“No.” I reached to put a hand on his arm to stop him from pacing. “I wanted to see it. I just wasn’t expecting…this.”
This grotesque and beautiful gift that cost more than any designer bag and took effort, time, concentration, and hunger for justice.
To my annoyance and horror, tears prickled in my eyes. I didn’t let them loose, but I knew my eyes were shining. I forced myself not to break our stare. He deserved to see me vulnerable. Even if I couldn’t bear to show my fragility to anyone.
Achilles cupped my cheeks. “Baby…”
I shook my head, sniffing. “I’m okay.”
“These are good tears, right?” He plastered his forehead to mine. I breathed him in greedily, my head spinning with sorrow. How did I let us not be together for an entire decade? How did I give him up?
“The best.” My words were delivered in a broken moan. “It’s just that…no one’s ever fought this hard for me.”
Achilles forced himself to disconnect from me. He stomped to his gunmetal Ferrari, tossing the trunk open and taking out a tank of gasoline. He returned to the edge of the shallow grave and poured the liquid all over it.
“Where’re the rest of their body parts?” I wiped at my nose.
“Evaporated,” he said through a clenched jaw. “On that note, I need to buy my parents a new outdoor pizza oven.” He took out a box of matches from his pocket, lit one, and handed it to me.“ Wanna do the honors?”
“Certainly.” I took the match and tossed it inside, watching what was left of my rapists’ corpses go up in flames. The fire was so little but the distribution so big. It was my very own moth—the one I’d burned almost to oblivion—who served me the most precious gift of all:Revenge.
“Can I take you somewhere special?” he asked.
“Sure.” I smiled.
He took my hand and led the way.
____________
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I clutched my seat belt in Achilles’s passenger seat, strangling it with fury. “When you said you wanted to take me somewhere special, I thought you meant a restaurant.”
“We can go to a restaurant after you’re done.” Achilles killed the engine, popping off his ball cap and running his fingers through his short hair. “I’ll wait downstairs.”
“I’m not going up there, you asshole.”
“Dr. Andrews is the best therapist in New York,” he said evenly, his impenetrable expression telling me I could kick and scream to the high heavens, but I was going up there. “Her waiting list is six months long. And I promise I won’t have access to her records.”
“How charitable.” I narrowed my eyes. “Do you realize how condescending it is? To makemego to therapy? Twice a week at that.”
“You need professional help.”
“This is rich coming from a cannibal who just gifted me five corpses,” I fired back. “If one of us needs professional help, it is definitely you.”
“I’m seeing someone, too.” He swiped his tongue over his lower lip. “I told you I’m serious about this, and I am. Sure, I don’t tell him about my…careeror about what certain business trips of mine entail. But I talk about what we’ve been through. About the stalking. I want to change.”
