24
Luna
Two men . . . On their knees for Cade.
I swallow hard, flailing for my usual cloak of indifference, but my thoughts are whirling in a frantic storm. And highest among those is that hot, bitter knot of jealousy.
Which is completely irrational. I should be repulsed, not want him more.
Cade glances at me as if calculating how much I can handle. And then, suddenly, I understand why he’s being so open.
He’s pushing me.
He’s feeding me these tasty morsels of truth, waiting to see when I’ll finally break and run.
And I will run. But not until I know how deep this fascinating rabbit hole goes.
“So, you’re bi?”
“The scene wasn’t about sex. Not for me, anyway. So, no, I’m not bisexual.”
My fingers dig into the leather seat, my pulse a war drum in my throat. “But you were naked, too?”
Obviously, idiot, the bitch in my head answers for me.
Cade does that infuriating side nod again, lazy as a cat stretching.
“And yet you claim it wasn’t about sex.” I sneer, ignoring the jealousy still twisting my gut.
Cade’s eyes remain on the road as he shrugs. “They were both submissives. Both had a suffocation fetish. I was all too happy to oblige.”
The world contracts to pinpoints: my thundering pulse, the engine’s low growl, my clenched fists. And then the memory slithers in; rosary beads disappearing into Hector’s flesh. Cade is not just messing with me anymore—he’s taken up the test another notch.
“So you’re a . . . Dominant?” I whisper. We both know that’s not the real question here.
His laugh is dark velvet wrapped around a blade, sending shivers racing down my spine. It’s the sound of someone who knows exactly what question I’m too afraid to ask: whether his interest in choking has more to do with sex or death.
“Hector and the submissives, they had something in common,” Cade murmurs. “Can you take a wild guess at what that thing was, princess?
My eyes instantly swing to the metal beads glinting around the back of his neck before disappearing into this white T-shirt.
My pulse pounds in my ears, loud enough that I can barely hear my own thoughts. I swallow the lump in my throat and pull the scattered pieces of the puzzle together. “You’re not gay or bi.”
“No.”
Okay. “And your real name isn’t Rocky Savage, although Hector and Delilah think it is. Which means you’re not really a trafficker”
“No. I’m not a trafficker.”
Rel ief courses through me, but it’s followed by a sinking dread. “You also made those submissives think you were a Dom, right?”
“Correct.”
“You must have studied them. Stalked them. Earned their trust. Took their submission. And eventually, their lives.”
Cade's smile widens, and something like pride flickers across his face—like a teacher pleased with his star pupil’s deduction.
“And Hector?” The words scrape past my lips as I lean closer. “You did the same to him. You earned his trust and spent time getting into the ‘Rocky Savage’ character for him.”
Then he murmurs, soft enough that I nearly miss it, “You are so fucking smart, Luciana.”
Instinct screams at me to stop, to back off, but I’m too far in now. My own curiosity has become a noose, tightening around me. “You pick your targets, groom them, and execute them all in an identical way.”
The truck begins to slow as we approach a stoplight. Cade turns his head, slowly, deliberately, locking his piercing green eyes onto mine.
“Go on,” he commands, daring me to finish what I’ve started.
Panic claws at my throat, but beneath it, a strange certainty begins to settle. Leaving me with a truth so dark, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
“You’re a serial killer,” I whisper.
As the light bleeds to green, Cade turns away with the languid grace of a satisfied cat. And I realize I’m sitting next to a man who turns people’s deepest desires into designer deaths.
He intends to kill Antonov for his interest in Flavia. But it was my father who proposed that marriage .
Does that mean he plans to strangle Papa, too? Am I part of his revenge on Papa? Has he picked his target? Is that why he “saved” me? Because me getting kidnapped would get in the way?
Every interaction between us rushes through my mind. None of it was real. None. He’s been pretending. Getting me to trust him. Reeling me in with my own lust. That’s why he let me touch him, kiss him, toy with him.
I’ve been a willing participant in my own destruction.
My eyes dart to the door handle. Could I throw myself out?
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the red line indicating the locked door. It’s not going to open while the vehicle is in motion.
I’m trapped.
And because I enjoy torturing myself, I continue questioning him.
“So, how many people have you killed?”
He sighs. “It’s hard to put a number on it, princess.”
He makes it sound like I asked him how many books he’s read in his life.
I force myself to breathe normally. “Any women?”
His eyes don’t shift from the road. “Not yet.”
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. A lump forms in my throat, thick and suffocating. I force it down, but it sticks, heavy in my chest.
“You’re not on my list, princess, in case you were wondering.” Cade’s voice is a gentle caress.
My eyes bug out. “You have a list!”
“I meant what I said about protecting you,” he murmurs. “And about you trusting me.”
My nails bite into my palms. “Right.”
I’m supposed to trust that this predator just happened to rescue me out of the goodness of his heart—the same heart that orchestrates elaborate killings.
My voice trembles with the next question. “What did they do to get on your list?”
“Which ones?”
I swallow hard. “Um, the masochists—the submissives.”
“It wasn’t what they did. Their fathers messed with the wrong person.”
My breath stutters, “Their fathers? When?”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Twenty-two years ago.”
My own jaw slackens as I stare at him. At the hardened lines of his profile, the way his skin stretches taut over his sculpted features. The faint creases at the corners of his eyes and the shallow groove around his sensuous mouth tell me more than words ever could. While Cade doesn’t look old enough to carry this kind of weight, there’s something ageless about him.
“How old are you?” My whisper is barely audible over the hum of the engine.
“Thirty-five.”
My stomach twists violently as I do the math. “So you’ve had this list since you were . . . what, thirteen?”
Silence.
Cade says nothing, but the air between us becomes charged with something dark, and I know I’ve hit a nerve.
I shouldn’t ask. Every instinct screams at me to stop. But I can’t help myself. “How many are left? On your list?”
His fingers whiten briefly on the steering wheel. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“If they’re mandatory . . . or optional.”
I blink in shock at the way he paints it—like a to-do list of lives categorized into must-kill and might-kill columns.
“When does it end?” The question spills out before I can stop it, desperate and foolish. “Is there a point where you just . . . retire?”
He exhales. For the briefest moment, I think I see something flicker across his face—vulnerability, maybe, or something close to it. “I suppose when something stops me.”
A sick feeling coils in my gut. The idea that something—someone—needs to physically stop him from killing should terrify me. Instead, I feel something far more dangerous—an all-consuming need to understand what flipped the switch and created this beautiful monster.
“Something happened.” My voice barely holds together, trembling on the edge of crossing a line. “When you were thirteen. What happened to you, Cade?”
The change in him is instant—like watching a door slam shut during a storm. “Your twenty questions session just ended, princess.”