Chapter 28
Bria
The motel room in south St. Pete smelled like stale cigarettes and old sweat. It was funny how gentrification couldn't wash the desperation out of a place—it just painted over it and called it progress.
I had gotten high here before. Did other things, too—things I'd spent months trying to forget. The stains on the carpet were probably older than me. The cheap floral bedspread had seen more bodies than a morgue.
Now I was standing in the same room, sober.
I was different now. This room was exactly the same, but the circumstances were different. Yet, I still felt a surge like a high.
Kael had a man pinned against the wall—some greasy, fat dude from Philly who came for a gun deal, then ran with the weapons and money after shooting one of Kael's men. Kael had one hand around his throat, his voice low and calm. "You stole from me.”
The man was shaking, his face red, words coming out in wet gasps. "I didn't—I swear—I was gonna pay it back—"
I stood in the corner like Kael told me to.
I knew I should have felt something—fear, disgust, anything—like before when I watched him cut those bodies up in the Everglades.
But something had shifted. I wasn't scared of him anymore.
That fear had morphed into fascination, into wanting, into needing to see what he'd do next. The fucked-up thing was that I knew better than to ever feel completely safe around him, but I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
My eyes stayed locked on Kael's hands, the way his muscles flexed. My heart was pounding.
This was what Kael wanted. I knew it now.
After what we did when I killed Brook, he looked so proud.
After that, he started taking me with him—three murders, six gun deals, and four money pickups.
I realized then that every deal he brought me to, every bloody mess he let me see, every time he put a weapon in my hand, he was building something.
He was molding me into his equal. He saw my darkness, my rage, a capacity for violence underneath the girl who used to be terrified of him.
He was changing me into what I had always wanted to be.
So many nights I had wanted to kill Darius for what he'd done to me.
I dreamed of it, planned it in my head, imagined the look on his face when he realized I wasn't weak anymore.
But I was too scared back then. I had no power, so I shot up instead.
Drugs were my escape, my numbness, my way of surviving without actually living.
They took the edge off the rage I couldn't act on.
But now? Now I had Kael. Now I had his hands guiding mine, his voice in my ear, his belief that I could be more than just a victim.
And for the first time, the rage didn't feel like something to drown.
It felt like fuel, because watching him was like breathing for the first time after almost drowning.
The man's hand moving caught my attention as it darted toward the nightstand. He pulled the drawer open with a flick of his wrist. I saw the glint of metal: a gun.
He swung it toward Kael.
I didn't think.
My hand closed around a broken bottle on the floor. I moved. I shoved Kael. I swung.
The glass sank into the guy's shoulder. He screamed, and the gun hit the floor.
I pulled the bottle out. Blood sprayed across my chest, warm and thick. I watched it drip down my shirt, watched his face twist in pain, watched Kael's expression shift from surprise to fury.
The man was still moving.
I hit him again. And again.
The glass shattered in my hand, but I didn't stop. I kept swinging, using the broken stem, my palm slick with blood—his, mine, I couldn't tell anymore. The sound was wet.
His body went limp.
I stepped back, chest heaving, hands shaking. Blood dripped from my fingers onto the stained carpet. This was my second kill.
Kael was watching me.
I looked at the man, at the mess I'd made, at the blood on my hands.
A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in my chest. It came out wrong.
"He was going to hurt you," I said.
Kael crossed the room in three strides. His hand was on my chin, tilting my face up. His eyes were dark, hungry, burning into mine.
"You killed for me?"
I laughed again. I couldn't stop it.
"Yes. Because you would for me, and I think hurting people is a new high," I said.
He stared at me for a second, then chuckled. He pulled me against his chest, his hand fisted in my blood-soaked shirt, and kissed my forehead.
"That's my Bunny."
I closed my eyes and breathed him in. The blood was drying on my skin, the man was dead at my feet, and I didn't feel guilty.
I felt alive.