Chapter 49
Sunny
It was stupidly easy to find Sam when you have two killers and a cop at your heels.
He was hiding out in The Shack after being denied solace by the Bones Brotherhood, because they don’t want to be collateral in my killer games. So much for friends.
“Please, don’t kill me, please!” he pleads, while tied up to a tree.
“I love hearing my victims beg,” I muse.
I step back to watch him squirm against the trunk. The poor fucker pissed himself in fear.
“But you will die today.”
“Please, no!” he screams. “Let me make it up to you, please, I am begging you. I only took our kid, that’s it.”
I raise a fist and punch him in the nose, and he yelps in pain. “You took everything from me!”
I approach Atreus, who stands in the grass like a soldier, his hands behind his back, observing the scene.
“Are you ready?” I ask him.
He nods. “Show me.”
All right then. If he wants to see the depravity I’m capable of … who am I to deny him the pleasure?
I grab his belt buckle and slowly undo it. His eyes connect with mine in a flurry of emotions, but I want him in particular to watch what’s about to unfold.
He needs to see the full scale of my depravity.
The worst of the worst.
All three of them need to witness me so they know that I will not fucking yield to any man.
Orion
She pulls the belt from the loops in a whisk and turns, only to strike Samuel right in the face. Blood gushes from his wounds, his face cut open, eyes bulging as he shrieks.
“Sunny, I’m sorry! Please, have mercy!”
“Apology not accepted, bitch!”
She keeps hitting him over and over, and the blood sprays from his body like a fountain of youth she’s extracting straight from his veins. I dare not intervene. Her revenge is hers and hers alone to take.
The way she moves as she hurts is like she’s dancing among the crimson droplets, and my pen is whooshing across the pages from the sheer inspiration she’s given me.
Goddess of vengeance
Truest intent
Justice shaped in metal and grins
A fire so hot it burns the sun
She embodies all
Singing the flames that surround my heart
She ignites me
God, how I love this woman.
This murder-obsessed walking death sentence.
I admire every meticulous cut she applies, every open wound she manages to slice deeper, and I have never, ever felt more alive than when I am watching her kill.
She’s brought me back from the brink of death, and I linger there, ever so in love.
Not just with the idea of her, but with life itself.
Because what is the point in living if I cannot adore every single second I get to spend with her?
Xavier
I watch in awe as she slices him to pieces with the belt alone, then casts it aside, breathing ragged breaths while covered in his blood.
Samuel hangs on by a thread, and she grips his slumped face by the cheeks—or whatever is left of it—then grits, “Now you know my fucking wrath.”
She shoves him back into the tree and steps back to admire her work.
“What now?” Atreus asks, standing in the middle of the grassy area and staring at the body.
She glances back at him, pausing, as if she’s wondering whether he’ll intervene.
“Is it done?” he adds.
“Xavier. Pin his arms up,” she says, still looking at Atreus.
I nod and immediately grab his arms to drag them up the tree sideways, then wrap the rope around them to secure them. His blood stains my shirt and skin, but it’s a small price to pay to witness her murders.
She pulls her favorite butcher’s knife from her bag and stabs Samuel repeatedly, cutting into his chest under Atreus’ watchful gaze. She’s given him a front row seat to the show, as if she wants him to bear witness.
Roaring out loud, she pulls Samuel’s rib cage out of his chest, bone by bone, and tears them to the side. The lungs are ripped through a hole in his back, splayed on each side of his ribs like a bird’s wings.
Atreus’ knees slowly cave in on him. “Blood eagle.”
The macabre display of violence has even me feeling queasy, but Atreus does nothing but stare at the onslaught, confused, dazed, numbed, or turned on, I don’t know.
But I am all of those, and more.
She manages to turn any man into a faithful worshipper.
A terrible, terrible power to hold … to keep.
Men don’t like to be owned.
They aren’t easy to tame.
But she … she’s worth it.
And she’s gotten all of us on our knees.
Every hampered breath when she chokes me with those manicured nails.
Every fucking heel she puts on my chest, I adore.
To be smothered by her depraved needs is the greatest honor.
When she’s done, Samuel is splayed out against the tree like a plucked bird, and Sunny is doused in his blood. She runs her fingers down her face and throws me a look so devilish I flinch.
She laughs out loud and grins. “Are you scared, pup?”
Even if I am, my pants are tented to the max.
Watching her kill … is the lifeblood of my obsession.
I fall to my knees in front of her.
“You should be. I could kill anyone I wanted to kill,” she says.
She cups my face with bloodied fingers and forces me to look up at her.
I whimper, “Is it over?”
She nods, smiling. “You did well.”
The relief that washes over me is unnatural.
So good that it makes my entire body tingle.
And when she leans in to kiss me, I’m on cloud nine.
This … this is all I ever needed. This is what I’d kill for. This is what I’d die for.
My woman.
Atreus
This is it.
There’s no going back.
Not after witnessing this.
My stomach nearly turns over, but I manage to keep myself together as I look at the ghoulish scene in front of me. Samuel’s transgression earned him the worst punishment I’ve seen in my lifetime, and nothing I ever expected to come across.
This woman is beyond anything I could ever imagine.
Yet … I’ve fallen for her so hard I don’t know how to ever look away.
She’s a serial killer with a scorned soul, and I’ve been a small piece of the puzzle that made her story. The devious conniving it takes to plan that all and have the pieces fall exactly as they were supposed to.
God, it’s riveting.
In some sick, twisted way, I actually admire this kind of violence.
She’s done what my agency—what I—haven’t been able to achieve in years; take down several high-ranking Bones Brotherhood figures. Is it truly justice to let them walk when the evidence lacks? Or is it more merciful to the world to rid it of their stain?
She kisses Xavier with passion, and a pang of jealousy flickers through my body.
I don’t deserve her.
Not after what I did.
But I cannot give her up either.
When she stops to take a breath, she glances at me over her shoulder. “Have I gone too far now?”
I lick my lips. “I knew you would kill him.”
“You just didn’t know how,” she muses, stepping back from Xavier to focus on me. “Does it make you want to arrest me, Detective Foley?”
I swallow away the lump in my throat as she stands before me. “I already tried that once.”
She giggles. “And you failed.”
“How many times could I cage retribution?” I ask.
She tilts her head. “As many times as you think you need to try … to understand that it’s futile.”
I suck in a breath. “I understand now.”
“Do you?”
I understand.
I’m wholly in love with this woman who has destroyed my sense of righteousness.
Because she became righteousness herself.
“… I think I love you…” I mutter.
Her eyes flicker with bemusement as a deliciously evil smile slowly shapes her face. “I knew you would.”
Of course, she did.
After all, I wasn’t the one who chased first. It was her.
She stalked me and lured me into a trap from which there was no way back, and she knew every step of the way what she was doing to me.
And I let her.
Because I never had a chance at winning.
Not from a girl so twisted she could reshape the very fabric of my goddamn soul.
“Have you had your vengeance now? Are you happy?” I ask.
She nods. “But killing gets me so fucking riled up.”
Her finger slowly pushes down my bottom lip, drawing it down until my jaw is forcefully opened, and she sticks two fingers inside further and further until I gag.
And even then, she doesn’t stop, not until she’s all the way down my throat and I have to fight with every ounce in my body not to push her back.
But those eyes.
God, those eyes are pulling my soul right out from underneath me.
Daring me …
Go on. Push me away. Show me you despise this. Take the chance. Run.
But I refuse. I refuse to ever give up on the one thing that’s gotten me possessed.
Her.
I need her.
I need her more than I need my career, my life, more than I need my soul.