Chapter 14
Donavan
I’ve been twitchy for fucking days.
I forced myself to get into my truck on the Lindell University campus. The second I drove away, I knew I had to keep going. Leaving has grown increasingly difficult, but I knew I had to put an end to it.
I couldn’t keep showing up. Warning her makes no difference, but that part of me that normally feels justified knowing I’ll have to tell someone I told you so never arrives.
I don’t want her to get hurt, but I also know there’s nothing I can do to keep it from happening.
In fact, she seems hell-bent on getting there on her own. Short of locking her away, I don’t see it as a possibility.
My lip twitches at the prospect of having her all to myself. I think she’d enjoy the hell out of it at first. She’d lift those hips, angle that perfect ass of hers toward me, and offer anything I wanted to take from her.
But eventually, the darkness would be too much. The rough hands would stop being enough. My inability to offer her anything would leave her wanting something else. She’d grow desperate for a softer touch, and that’s not something my hardened self would ever be capable of giving her.
My eyes dart to the left, out my driver’s side window. The drunk man staggering down the block poses no threat to me, so I shift my attention back to the house I’m watching.
Normally, I’d feel something, anything, while working.
There would be a simmer of a thrill for what I’ve been hired to do, but tonight brings none of it.
I’m almost bored tonight, wishing I was anywhere but here right now.
It won’t stop me from getting the job done, but it does make for a very long night.
I stay vigilant, wishing that staking out a house also had the ability to clear my mind.
If I could erase all my memories of her, I’d take it in a heartbeat.
I don’t need nor do I want her in my head.
But I’ve learned from experience the last two months that actively trying to keep her from my thoughts only makes it worse, so I let visions of her swim through my head, ignoring my thickening cock when those thoughts go back to the last time I was with her.
My phone vibrates in my pocket a second before the name pops up on the screen.
Ignoring it only puts it off for a few hours.
If I know anything, it’s that my sister Madelene is willing to call at any time of day or night in an effort to catch me at a good time.
I’ve told her numerous times there’s never a good time to call, but she doesn’t listen.
“Yeah,” I snap when the call connects, hoping she’ll take a hint.
“How are you?”
“I’m working.”
“You’re always working. I never know when to call.”
I clamp my lips closed before telling her that never would be best.
Madelene, much like Maya, is just a ghost from my past. I don’t want a relationship with her. I sure as fuck don’t need one. As much as Hollis thinks he can keep her safe, he and I both know that it’s impossible.
I also hate the reminder that she’s stronger than I ever could be.
Where I faked my own death and disappeared, she stuck around, taking all the abuse the Severino family threw her way.
She could’ve taken the easy way out. The drop from her bedroom window alone was high enough to kill herself, but she persevered.
Many would call her weak, but I saw the strength in it, and it has only been a reminder of my own weakness.
I once loved her, but feeling any part of that now is more weakness that I can no longer afford. The price I paid the last time was much too high.
She stays on the line, seeming okay with just having this connection without saying anything, but there are a million words in the silence shared between us.
It’s been over eight months since justice was served to the Severino family, eight long months of feeling no different from how I did the five years before that.
Their blood pooling on the floor offered no redemption for the pain they caused, and I know it was because of me.
I played the biggest role in their evil.
Maya was on their radar because of me. She died because I was foolish enough to love her, foolish enough to think that I could lie to Marcello and Alessio and keep her safe.
“You still there?”
I shift in my seat rather than responding, and I don’t know why I offer that to her. Usually, by now, I hang up, knowing the only reason she calls is to verify I’m still alive.
I’ve avoided the office as best I can in an attempt not to run into her. I saw Hollis here in Mexico when we went into Cortez’s compound to get Nash, but I’ve only seen her a couple of times since the bloody trip to Chicago.
I know she sees Ayla and Nash often, but I bite back the urge to ask her if Ayla knows her sister is self-destructing without the help of Cortez and his henchmen.
It feels like tattling on the girl. As much as I’ve told myself I’ll never go back to Lindell, I also know that’s probably a lie I’m only telling myself to keep me away a little longer.
It’s only been a couple days since I left, and I’m already feeling like an addict that needs to return.
“Elio, I—”
I hit the end button before she can even continue. She fucking knows better than to call me by that name.
It isn’t the first time she’s done it, and I know from experience that she won’t call back again tonight. It’s the only guarantee I have about anything these days. I also know I’ll get a call from Hollis in the next twenty-four hours with a barely veiled threat about making his woman cry.
My phone chimes with a text, and I sigh in irritation, knowing who it’s from. Hollis isn’t wasting any fucking time.
Hollis: She just wanted to tell you that we’re having a baby, you fucking asshole.
I stare down at the message, thinking the announcement should make me feel something. It doesn’t. I think even if it did, I’d work hard to shove that weakness down.
Madelene is my only existing blood family.
Our mother died while I was “dead” and our father was murdered after Hollis abducted Mads from the Severino brothers.
News of my father’s death didn’t affect me at all.
News of my mother dying almost hurt me, but the reminder that she was no longer tangled up in criminal bullshit eased whatever I might have felt about it.
I reread the text, anger starting to bubble up inside of me.
A baby complicates things. It has the power to control other people. It makes not only my sister stupid but also Hollis. They both have more to lose now, and that’s the most dangerous position to be in.
Me: She deserves better.
I power down my phone before he can respond.
Ten minutes later, the man I’ve been hired to kill is walking out of his house, turning and locking the door behind him as if he has all the time in the world.
I don’t question the briefcase in his hand or why he walks down the street rather than getting into his car. There’s a price on his head, and that’s all that matters.
This isn’t a job sanctioned by Angel, but there’s been a lull in work coming out of his office because of his obsession with tracking and trying to annihilate Raul Cortez. My thirst for blood is too strong to just sit around and do nothing.
The man walking down the street could be a demon, a man who preys on small children. The contract could come from a girlfriend angry he won’t leave his wife. The reason never fucking matters to me.
The only rules I have are no women without proof of their evil nature, and no kids, ever.
I’ll kill the dog or someone’s hundred-year-old Papaw without blinking but those two rules I never break.
Quietly, I climb out of my truck and blend in with the shadows behind him. Unlike Alani, he doesn’t seem to sense me at all.
I try to think of all the things I can do to him once I have him, but nothing seems remotely appealing. It’s just one more thing I can blame her for.
What reason do I have for living if I can’t even enjoy the death and brutality I bring to others?
With less fanfare than I’d normally use, I slit his throat the second I get close enough, preventing his ability to scream.
Instead of taking him to a different location and peeling away his flesh until he begs for death, I let him fall to the ground and then rip open his shirt.
He’s still gurgling, dying through a combination of blood loss and drowning on his blood, as I cut into his chest.
The days are over of people insisting on pictures of a body or requiring fingers or hands to be delivered for proof. Pictures can be faked and anyone can live without fingers or hands.
This job requires a higher level of proof, but it only takes a minute and a half for me to pull his heart from his chest.
I don’t bother hiding his body. Solving a crime like this is damn near impossible. I shove his heart into his briefcase and walk away, stopping half a block away to rinse my hands in the rainwater flowing through the gutter along the side of the street.
I drive right past his body, a smile toying at my lips when I watch the same drunk old man step over his corpse on his way back to his house.
No one gives a shit down here. As bad as it can get, there’s always those that have seen and experienced worse.
I’m honestly surprised the guy didn’t bend down and check his pockets before carrying on his way.