Chapter 57
Slade
Len didn’t have a game plan or much more intel when she returned later in the evening. When I asked why her team wasn’t here, she explained that they preferred to keep a low profile.
During her visit, the only thing she asked me was to recount my time with Antwane. I managed to do so without spiraling; Bane sat beside me, and I gripped his hand like he was the tether that kept me anchored to this world.
But when she kept circling back to questions about whether Antwane had said anything about his brother, Bane demanded to know why. She stared at us for a beat, then explained her team’s theory.
And honestly, it shook me to the bone, and I haven’t been able to sit still since. Len is gone now, and I’m pacing the living room, chewing my thumbnail.
“Talk to me, Slade.” Bane sits on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees, watching me.
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“A psychopath’s mind rarely makes sense, let alone two psychopaths’ minds making sense.”
I shake my head, switching to chew my other thumbnail, and he rises and comes to me. He pulls my thumb free and wraps his arms around me.
I stare up at him, but my vision is blurred with the flashing images of the way Antwane tortured and killed the Numbers.
The way he made me kill Number Thirteen.
He recorded it and sent it to his brother.
My demons want to overwhelm me, but I remain in control as Bane helps to give me that strength.
“I’ve always wondered why Antwane made me watch as he tortured and killed them.
” I force the words through my closed throat.
“He hated that I’d cry for them. The cuts he gave me…
telling me they were my penance and punishment…
He was trying to break me.” Bane’s thumbs drag over my cheeks, gathering the tears that have slipped free. “He was trying to groom and mold me.”
This supports Len and her team’s theory.
“Len’s team doesn’t have evidence, though, that Randolph Vanderall is a twisted, sick fuck like his brother.” Bane’s jaw ticks. “But yeah, their theory makes some sense.”
Their theory was that Antwane was trying to break me, mold me, possibly to become a serial killer’s accomplice, for either Antwane or Randolph’s use, or maybe entertainment.
A shudder ripples through me. “That’s why he went to the Broker and took out a bounty contract for criminals to find me and bring me to him instead of the police. Because if I was in police custody, and then he wouldn’t be able to get his hands on me.”
“No law enforcement agency would see you as guilty, Slade. That video clearly shows Antwane forcing your hand to kill that woman.” When I shake my head, his hold on me tightens, and he says fiercely, “You are not to blame for that woman’s death or any of them, Slade.
Do you hear me?” I try to pull away, but he won’t let me go. “Do you understand?”
I want to. The logical part of me does, but Antwane twisted and broke me, even if he didn’t fully accomplish his goal before I killed him.
No matter how much time or healing I find with Bane’s help, or from the therapy I most definitely need, a part of me—the part that’s still stuck in Antwane’s cabin of hell—will feel that guilt.
But for now, I nod that I understand. Bane sees right through my bullshit, though, and his jaw ticks harder.
My fingers reach up to brush over it, and he relaxes. Reaching up further, I thread my fingers through his hair.
When I pull his head down, so his mouth meets mine, he doesn’t stop the kiss or force me to continue talking and speculating. He does what he does best: helps me feel.
It’s me who deepens the kiss, who pushes his cut off and pulls his shirt over his head.
It’s me who undoes his belt and opens his jeans.
He toes off his boots while I push his jeans and boxers down to free his cock.
Then it’s me quickly shedding my clothes, shivering with the slight chill in the darkening cabin, and pushing him to sit on the couch, then straddling him.
It’s me who angles the broad head of his shaft to my entrance and who sinks down on him, working to take him inside me, inch by inch, with a deep, contented sigh.
But it’s us for the next part. The part where he stares up at me, his hands worshipping every inch of me, including my scars. It’s us who makes love rather than the savage, primal sex we usually have, while whispering how much we mean to each other.
My orgasm feels like it breaks me into a million pieces mentally and physically, and Bane holds every fractured piece in his strong hands, helping me to recreate and mold them into something new and stronger.
His release follows soon after mine; he whispers of all the children he’ll fill my belly and our future home with, and he looks at me like a man who has everything he cherishes and will bring destruction to the world just to keep me safe.
My eyes close as I sag against his chest, feeling both a peace and a strength entirely new to me.