Chapter 27 #2
I suck in a breath through my nostrils. “You know, I heard you were once a killer yourself. My own mother told me how you and your little gang once tried to save her from the Bones Brotherhood, and that she took care of them herself. Yet here you are, sitting in your chair all high and mighty, trying to tell me, the daughter of an infamous female serial killer, that I’m not allowed? ”
“I made a fucking deal!” he yells, shocking even me.
I glare at him for a good five seconds as he regains his composure.
“What deal?” I grit.
But he refuses to answer me, keeping his lips sealed.
Of course.
“You have to stop, goddammit,” he says after a while. “Stop. Before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
His nostrils keep flaring, and I can see he’s very much on edge.
“The police can suck my tits,” I say, sticking up my middle fingers.
“This is far beyond what the police can handle,” he says, and I don’t know if he’s referring to the people I kill or me.
“Let’s fucking see then,” I quip.
Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door, and I look up.
“This couldn’t come at a far worse time,” Dean Felix says, and he gets up from his chair to open the door.
“What do you want?” he barks.
His shoulder is gripped by a hand, and he’s pushed aside, and none other than Atreus fucking Foley steps into Felix’s office like he owns the goddamn place.
When his eyes settle on me, I stand from my chair, knocking it onto the floor. My eyes dart from every corner to the only exit, where he blocks my path, nerves scattering about.
I’m fucked.
Absolutely fucked.
His eyes narrow, his lip twitching into a devilish lopsided grin.
Fuck.
He’s here for me.
“I already agreed to your cops flooding my campus. What more do you want?” Felix growls at Foley.
“I’m not here for you,” he says, still keeping his gaze fixated on me. “I want to have a chat… with her.”
I swallow, the gravity of his words slowly sinking.
I wasn’t fucking done yet. None of this is going according to plan.
How did he fucking find me?
“Give me one good fucking reason,” Dean Felix retorts.
The two square up, muscle against muscle. “I don’t need to. This campus is now under my watch, and as such, I have the right to interrogate anyone. And it is now her turn.”
“I won’t allow it.”
Foley’s jaw clenches. “Step. Aside.”
Shit, they’re gonna fight over me, and if that happens, all gloves are off. Our families against the institutions that ground the people in their make-belief that their society is safe and protected from criminals.
If this happens, it’s jail for everyone, and I don’t want that to happen for any of my loved ones, including my goddamn uncle. No one has to fight my fights for me.
I grab Felix’s arm and say, “It’s fine. I’ll talk to him.”
“You don’t have to,” my uncle replies.
There’s no other choice if I want to keep him from being killed, or worse … thrown in jail.
“I want to,” I reply, narrowing my eyes right back at Foley.
Let’s see where you want to take this, Foley.
Uncle Felix glances at me over his shoulder and blinks a couple of times, as if he wants to ask me whether I’m sure about this. But there’s no way around this. Foley has found me, and he and I know we have far more to discuss than a simple disappearance on campus.
I am his stalker. And he has been such easy prey.
I step forward. “I’m ready.”
Detective Foley clears his throat and steps back from my uncle. “We’ll take this somewhere private. Come with me.”
I follow him out of my uncle’s office and glance back at him over my shoulder to wink.
Just to make him feel reassured, that’s it.
I’m pretty sure, after all of this is said and done, I will be the one to rise.
Because men are so easy to manipulate and control … I don’t doubt I can wrap Foley around my finger.
A vicious smirk forms on my face as we both walk down the long hallway of the third floor and head down the stairs, ignoring all of the other students gawking at us with their mouths wide open.
No one expected me, the killer queen on campus, to come willingly.
But I have always had a trick up my sleeve.
One they will never, ever, see coming … until it’s far too late.
“You’re awfully quiet for someone who’s about to go to jail.”
I snort. “You’re not taking me there.”
He refuses to look at me while we go on our delightful walk of shame through the entire main building of Spine Ridge University.
“I will refrain from putting cuffs on your wrists … for now,” he says.
“Aw, and I was hoping I could convince you by saying ‘cuff me, Daddy.’”
He throws me an utterly annoyed glance, and it lights my heart on fire.
God, the way he loathes me and craves me at the same fucking time is magnificent. I love it.
We walk toward the main doors, and I keep wondering when he’s going to officially arrest me, but it never happens.
“Do you think you can keep up with me once we’re outside?” I mutter. “I’d love to go for a sprint.”
“You will come with me out of your own damn free will … or I will make sure your boy toys are put behind bars for life.”
Boy toys?
My eyes widen, but I keep my lips clamped shut so I don’t give any information away for free.
The outside air is unusually chilly. Especially with all of the students gossiping about us.
“My car is parked outside the gates. Follow.”
So stern, he truly believes this facade of control, doesn’t he?
Too bad for him, I am always three steps ahead.
He doesn’t know it yet, but he will… eventually, they all understand. There is no defeating a scorned woman.
Smiling, I walk with him toward the overgrown gates of Spine Ridge University. He hasn’t looked at me once since we walked out of the building, but I reckon it’s only so he can keep up the charade of being in control.
Not just of me … but of his own needs.
Because I can tell from the little beads of sweat rolling down his neck and the twitching in the palm of his hand that he’s very much affected by my presence.
“Tell me, how many hours does it take for a police officer to escape zip ties?” I ask, tilting my head.
Without so much as flinching, he opens the door to the back seat of his car and says, “Get. In.”
But that twinge of annoyance at the end of each word gives him away.
“Was it five?” I narrow my eyes slyly. “Minutes … or hours?”
His tongue briefly darts out to wet his lips. “I will not repeat myself, Miss Reed.”
“Aw … already calling me miss,” I say. I slink into his back seat. “Who’s a good little cop?”
He slams the door shut in my face, but it only makes me grin harder.
He pulls his phone from his pocket and starts a conversation. I can’t hear what they’re saying, because he’s still outside his car, mouthing heavily into the phone. Then he tucks it away and marches to the driver’s side to open the door and sit down, slamming the door shut equally as harshly.
“Who was that?” I ask. “Someone from the station?”
“A contact.”
A contact. So not a police officer. A contact. An informant. A spy. It could mean anything.
“Put on your seat belt.”
I laugh. “Don’t act like you care.”
“It’s the law.”
Keep reciting that, like it means anything to me.
I snort again, but he’s deathly serious, staring at me through the rearview mirror like he’s going to force me if I don’t do what he says.
“I’d rather die in a car crash than go to the police station with you,” I reply coldly.
Suddenly, he leans backward, muscles bulging out of his suit as he grabs the seat belt right beside me and rips it out of its containment to cross it over my body tightly, locking it in place before throwing me the filthiest of scowls imaginable.
And that sweet, sinful rage of his over my inability to follow his asinine rules just made my fucking pussy throb.
“You like putting women in their places, don’t you?” I egg him on.
He swallows as he starts the car and drives down the mountain. I roll my eyes and look out the window, disappointed by the lack of response.
It’s no fun when he won’t play along.
I swallow and glance at him, but he refuses to look anywhere else but the road, keeping his hands tightly on the steering wheel, as if just a single glance could make him spiral, and a smirk spreads on my lips.
My sickening greed for his slutty body really stuck with him, didn’t it?
As we drive through the city, there are far fewer apartments than I expected where we’re going, and many more industrial buildings. We’re heading toward the outskirts of Crescent Vale City.
Do the police have another station here that I wasn’t aware of?
Atreus parks the car at an abandoned gravel parking lot in front of an iffy-looking warehouse that’s all too familiar, and my heart rate shoots up.
This … this is where I killed my first victim since I came out of the hospital.
Does he know?