Chapter 44
Kate?ina’s fingers are still tightly tangled with mine as we walk ahead of everyone else outside the church, swallowed by flames.
Grayson comes last and gives me a single nod with a warm smile before he walks away. He’s going home to clean up the slaughter I left behind me—if he hasn’t done it already.
I know he disapproves of my actions, but he still stands by me, saves me, and shoots men inside a church just to make sure my soul doesn’t sink even deeper into the darkest pits of hell. As if that made any difference.
Some truths are never spoken. Some bonds don’t need names to be understood.
It’s in the way he looks at me like he’s failed twice over. Like he’s trying to make up for something neither of us can say out loud.
He was always there in the background, watching me fall apart, letting me ruin everything I touched. But he was also there, protecting me, pulling strings, guiding me in silence when I needed someone I could never name.
He never said it was him, and I never asked. But I always knew. And he saw it in me.
Maybe that’s the real sin we’re both condemned to carry.
“I enjoyed that more than I should,” Adam says, clapping his bloodied hands together.
I look at Judas. He’s standing stiff, arms crossed, eyes on the ground.
“Pretending to be someone you’re not is filthier than anything you did inside,” I mock, crossing my arms.
He raises his amber eyes and looks at me with furrowed brows. “I don’t have a choice now. I need to go against my nature and go back to who I used to be.” He exhales slowly. “Or at least wear the skin of it long enough to be believed.”
“Do you always have to sound so dark and twisted?” Adam asks him, his lip hooked high.
Judas rolls his eyes. “Do you always have to be such a fucking little shit?”
“Do you always have to piss me off and fuck everything up?” I ask, drawing their eyes to me.
“He started it!” Adam spits.
“And I can finish it, pretty boy!” Judas replies, standing stiffly in front of him, matching his eye level.
Judas isn’t as bulky as Adam, but they have the same height. Most people have to look up when Adam walks into a room. Judas and I are among the few who don’t.
“Oh, you wanna go there?” Adam growls.
Judas tilts his head, his smile fading and becoming colder. “I already live there.”
“I will fucking break you,” Adam hisses, punching his palm.
Judas laughs, low and dark. “Get in line. Others have tried. Most of them don’t talk anymore.”
“Do either of you actually want to survive this night? Because if you keep this up, one of you isn’t walking back home,” I snap.
They glance at me.
“Piss off!” They both say in one voice.
Ah! The Mansons.
Born to bicker, raised to resent, and apparently destined to die annoyed with each other. Some families pass down heirlooms. We pass down grudges and middle fingers.
Judas rolls his eyes so hard I’m amazed they stay in his skull. Adam lets out that half-laugh, half-scoff he always uses when he wants to sound above it all but has absolutely nothing smart to say. Classic.
I can’t lie; it looks like some kind of macho parade. One lean and brooding, the other broad and ass-smug as fuck. Two very loud and dramatic fuckers I’d love to toss into a river and drown.
I step back and let them continue their stupid brawl, glancing at Kate?ina. She’s still quiet. Changed.
The church behind us explodes, but I don’t turn to look. I see it reflected in her frost-hued eyes as they flare orange with sparks. Police sirens echo through the silence, and that’s when we know it’s our time to bail.
“So.” I scratch my brow. “This was fun.”
“Yeah, I mean, maybe we can do it again one day.” Adam rubs the nape of his neck, his brown eyes searching the ground.
“Don’t look at me. I have a lot to do after I confess my sins.”
I chuckle and walk towards my bike, pulling Kate?ina behind me. I grab her by the waist, lift her, and place her on the pillion. After ensuring my helmet is secure on her, I climb on and start the engine.
Her arms circle my body and hold me tightly.
Adam and Judas are still there, looking at me like I’m about to ride off with the princess right before my horse rears like in a shitty Western.
I bring my fingers to my temple in a salute. They mirror my movement, both pressing their lips together.
“Until next time, boys.”
I twist the throttle and ride off.
We didn’t go home right away. We went to the beach, still stained and shaking, and walked straight into the water.
The salt burned where the blood had dried, but we didn’t care.
We fucked in the sea, out on the shore, in the sea again, and so on.
Her nails dug into my back so roughly that blood ran from the scratches, and her teeth on my neck left hickeys like we were fucking teens.
But after all that, and while I was fucking her on the shore, something changed.
I slowed down. I looked at her differently.
I kissed her in a way I hadn’t kissed her before.
I moved inside her like it meant something else.
And for a minute or two, I swear she was there with me.
I made love to her. Slow fucking love that eats you alive and consumes your body and soul.
And that’s what fucked me up.
Because that was the only part that wasn’t about control. That moment when she let me in was real.
She didn’t say a word, but I saw it in her eyes.
Then, we returned home, tossed our clothes in the washer like it was a typical day, took a shower, fucked in it again, and crashed on the couch.
Grayson had indeed cleaned up the carnage. He called in a few of his so-called “pest control” friends. You know, the ones who don’t ask questions and don’t leave traces. Then he disappeared into his bedroom to stitch himself up without a word.
The man knows how to survive hell and how to make it feel routine.
“It’s so quiet,” she whispers, leaning into my arms.
“You know I hate unnecessary chit-chat,” I say with a smirk, smoke curling from my lips. “So, the massacre did me a favor. They finally shut the fuck up.”
Her fingertips trail across my torso. “Don’t you think you were a bit too much, though?”
“Nope. I was too gentle.”
She exhales through her nostrils, trying to come up with something to answer, but she knows I’m right.
“And now what? You need new staff.”
I inhale my cigarette. “That’s the last thing I care about.”
“What else?”
The doorbell goes off. Once. Twice. Persistently, pissing me off.
Kate?ina jumps in the air. I guess after everything that happened not so long ago, she’s right to be cautious and alert.
I stand and walk toward the door. She follows me, thinking that whoever’s out there must have a death wish or something close to it.
I open the door. Two cops. Detectives, actually, dressed in black suits. Things are getting serious.
Their eyes flick to her. “Are you Kate?ina R??i?ková?”
“Y-Yeah, that’s me,” she replies, her eyes darting from me to them.
The first one shoves me, grabs her wrists, and spins her around.
“You’re under arrest for murdering Wade Ford and setting Saint Stephen’s Church on fire.”
“But—”
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
The shackles lock tightly around her wrists. My jaw tightens, and I feel the rage boiling inside me.
Suddenly, all my pathetic, weak emotions shrivel away. I snap back into my true self—cold, cunning, and hungry to twist every mind around me. The darkness welcomes me home.
“Cain?” she says with a shaky voice. Her brows are soft, and her eyes are almost watery.
I hold her face close to me and kiss her lips tenderly. “I’ll fix this, little rose,” I whisper against her mouth. “I swear to you I will. No matter what it takes.”
“Don’t let them take me,” she sobs, tears running down her cheeks. “Please. I belong to you. This is my home.”
“You are mine.”
“Enough!” the cop barks, stepping in fast. He grabs her by the arm and yanks her back.
“Cain, please!”
She fights him, screaming, shaking, and kicking at the floor as he hauls her away. She’s crying my name.
And then she’s gone.
The door slams shut behind them.
I just stand there, staring, nothing in my hands but the air she left behind.
People believe there are easier ways to keep someone. Lock them up. Lie to them. Make them love you, pity you. Bring them flowers, play the Prince Charming on the white horse, ready to butcher the dragon and save the precious damsel in distress. Whatever works.
Fuck that.
I don’t do clean. I am not a believer.
I want her fucked up and mine.
Not temporarily or as long as it feels good.
I need more than her love. I need permanence.
I need her bound to me in a way she can’t undo.
She said she’d never leave me, and maybe she even believed it when she said it.
But I’ve seen what people do to promises like that. They vow it’s forever.
And what happens next?
Time chips at them, and doubt sneaks in. The world whispers bullshit in your ear until you start to wonder if you ever really meant what you said. How can you love a psychopath? He is a killer; he is twisted.
So I did what I had to do.
I made sure the world couldn’t touch her again. They couldn’t offer her freedom or convince her to run away.
I made sure that even if she ran, she’d never be clean again.
I broke her where no one could see. I got into her head and twisted it until her will dissolved into mine. That’s what I stole. That’s what I made mine.
I fucking defiled her. I marked what was pure and dragged it into the dirt with me.
Now, there’s nowhere left for her to go. There’s only me.
Call me dangerous. Insane. A psychopath. I see the compliment.
Perhaps she’ll feel the walls I built around her and realize they’re mine and hate me for it. Maybe she’ll figure it out and look at me like I’m the monster they say I am.
I can live with that.
I didn’t do it because I didn’t love her. Quite the opposite. I love her more than I love myself. I worship her more than any god or any religion I ever knew. I’d torch the world to fucking ash, stack the ashes like altars, and still kneel with her name on my lips.
Because real love doesn’t always come dressed like a fairy tale. Sometimes, it crawls out of the dark and takes everything with it. That’s my kind of love.
A kind of love no one ever warned her about.
Don’t tell me you didn’t actually see that coming.
Oh, sweetheart, I’m sure you did.
It was everywhere. No, scratch that. It is everywhere.
My paranoia about loyalty wasn’t just present; it was hosting a damn party, testing people around me with every step they took.
Because loyalty is a sick joke in my hands.
Unless she passes the test …