I gave her a smile. “I’m not arresting you tonight, Destiny.”
She relaxed a little. “Oh.” She studied me. “You really came to pick me up for…” For a woman who worked as a prostitute, she was remarkably good at playing coy. Too bad I wasn’t in the mood for coy. I wasn’t in the mood for a lot, considering there was a half-dressed woman in my car who I was fairly certain was beyond skilled with her tongue.
“I’m having a party, and the guys voted on the entertainment.” I shot her a look. “Don’t worry, Destiny. I’ll pay fair for each of them.”
Destiny was slow to smirk. “Don’t tell me your party involves other boys in blue. I’m not sure if my poor little heart can handle all that.”
“The only cop who’ll be there is me,” I said. “And I’m not on duty.” My eyes flicked to her as I drove to the house. She’d come with me for the money. Normally they didn’t go too far from their turf, and they had a chosen motel where most of their business occurred. Still, I felt she was hesitant. “I’ve always wondered how good you are with that mouth.” Flirting wasn’t one of the things I was best at, but I had found most women take a shine to a man who wasn’t afraid to say what he wanted, to say the truth.
Though, Destiny wasn’t getting the entire truth, and by the time she realized it, it would be too late. There would be no running for her. No escaping from the fate Ed and I had planned for her.
Destiny let out a half grin. “Somehow that don’t surprise me none. I always knew there was something off about you. I just didn’t know what.”
The rest of the ride, she was amused to herself, and I let her think I couldn’t get women on my own. The truth was I could get anyone I wanted, man, woman, or not. I could take them, and they wouldn’t be able to fight me. I was too strong for most people, too intimidating for others.
To say I was just like everyone else would do a disservice to me, because I was so much more. I was a beast, an animal, and sometimes killing did not sate me. Sometimes I needed more. Until now, Ed was the only other person who truly knew me for me, who knew who and what I was behind the mask I wore in my everyday life.
Would Stella become the second person to do so? Would she want to? Would she go along with this willingly, or had Ed vastly overestimated her craziness? I’d admit, I didn’t think she’d tell us no, because I didn’t believe Stella was the type of woman who looked away from the blood and the gore.
No, she was the kind of person who stared at things head on. The kind of person to look the bull in the eyes before getting the horns. Soon enough we’d find out whether she wasn’t crazy enough for us, or if she was just right.
As I pulled into our driveway and into our garage, Destiny made a big show about looking around. “I didn’t see many cars on the street,” she said, probably because we didn’t live in a cozy residential community. We lived on a street where people loved to speed by, never paying any attention to the houses on it.
I turned off the car and hit the button on the opener to close the garage door. “Can’t have my neighbors thinking I’m some party animal,” I said. At least Ed’s car was already here, meaning he was somewhere inside the house. Not that I thought this woman would get the better of me, but just in case.
You couldn’t be too careful. Sometimes people surprised you.
Sometimes they didn’t.
Destiny nodded along, as if my flimsy excuse made sense. About as much sense as her outfit, which was garish and ugly and ridiculously revealing. A tiny skirt which showed most of her ass, along with a tube top that looked vastly uncomfortable. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure how she fit her tits into it.
I waited for her to walk around the car in her dollar store high heels, grabbing her hand as I led her into the house. She spotted an empty living room and kitchen, immediately saying, “Where the hell is the party? What—”
It was all she had the chance to say, before I turned on her and gave her a chilling smile. This smile was more akin to how I felt inside. This particular smile was one hundred percent dead inside, and she knew it, for her confused expression twisted into one of fear, and she muttered a string of swearwords as she tried to yank her hand from mine.
She was nowhere near strong enough to escape my grip, which she soon realized as I started dragging her through the kitchen, to the door attached to the stairwell. With her free hand, she reached to her side, pulling out a tiny, pink can of pepper spray. Before she could shoot any of it at me, I grabbed her wrist, slamming her against the wall of the stairs. My thumb increased pressure on her wrist until I nearly broke it, and the bitch held onto the pink plastic can until the very last second.
“Fuck,” she whimpered, dropping the spray to the floor. “I knew you were fucked up. I knew it from the first moment I laid eyes on you—”
I gave her an unimpressed look before releasing the hand that had very nearly sprayed me, backhanding her across the face. I didn’t even blink as I did it, but Destiny…oh, she felt it, and her skin was red instantly. I flung open the basement door and tugged her along.
She wailed, cried, shouted. She struggled and tried to pull away from me, but I had her other arm still, and no one ran from me. Especially not this one. The streets wouldn’t miss her, and neither would my precinct.
The moment we emerged from the stairs and Destiny saw our basement in its full glory, she froze. “What the fuck?” she whispered, and I only smirked as I brought her to the wall where the chains hung, meeting her questioning eyes as I locked her up. Wrists and ankles.
Once she was restrained fully, I took a step back, studying my handiwork. She looked good, chained to the wall, even with her makeup running with the tears forming in the corners of her eyes. My dick ached in my pants when I thought about Stella cutting into her. She’d have to enjoy it.
Before leaving Destiny in the darkness, I said, “I look forward to watching you bleed, bitch.” When she started wailing, when she began to shake the chains and rattle them against the wall, I spun and left the basement, closing the door behind me, blocking out her cries.
I bent to pick up her tiny can of pepper spray the exact same moment Ed came down the stairs, running a towel over his head. He wore only pants, its button and zipper undone. “You got her?” he asked.
I nodded, swinging her pink can of pepper spray around my pointer finger. “Yep. The bitch almost pepper sprayed me.”
“But she didn’t.” Ed inhaled a giant sigh. “And now we have her. All that’s left is to get Stella over here.” The hand moving the towel over his hair dropped to his side as he thought. “Let’s give her tonight. Tomorrow, her whole world will change.” His blue eyes flicked downward, noting the bulge in my pants. “You might want to take care of that, though.”
I wanted to punch him. Obviously I had to take care of it, and since Stella wasn’t here to relieve me—and the bitch downstairs was off limits—my hand it was. My fucking hand was nowhere near as fun as making someone else do it, but after tonight, hopefully it would be the last time. With any luck, Stella would be around to take care of these things for me in the future.
Because that bitch in the basement? Destiny wasn’t going to be our kill; she was to be Stella’s.
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Stella
They kept me alone for a long time, chained to a table. I wasn’t in jail, not in a cell, but I might as well have been. The room was boring and plain, white and blue, save for the one-way mirror on the wall and the tiny camera in the room’s upper corner. I stared into the camera, at its flashing red light, wondering what those watching me saw.
Did they think I was the culprit? Did they believe me to be the Angel Maker? Preposterous, and stupid. I wasn’t nearly as muscular enough as one would have to be to impale someone with pipes and lug their body into a parking lot without struggling and getting caught. No, if these cops thought I was their suspect, they had another thing coming.
I wasn’t the Angel Maker. I couldn’t be. And while they kept me in here, it was very probabl
e that he was out there, continuing his spree.
Of course, now that I thought about it, it was official. Eastland county had its own serial killer. We had our own, and he was mine.
I wasn’t claiming to have made him, but I dubbed him the Angel Maker. I wrote to him in my blog and he came to me that same night. We had a special relationship, me and him. I just had no idea who he was or why I was so important to him.
Important. I had to be important to him, otherwise why would he have let me keep my life? What was another life to a grand serial killer? I should’ve meant nothing to him, and yet I clearly meant more.
These cops…I hoped they wouldn’t keep me here forever, because I had someone to meet, a trail to follow. I needed to know who the Angel Maker was, not to turn him into the authorities, but to just know.
I had to know.
I had to know, because I felt some strange kinship to him. Granted, I’d never cut off someone’s skin and peeled off wings from their back, but we were alike in so many other ways. The outcasts of society. The people who no one looked at twice.
Let’s be serious here. If I didn’t have heterochromia, no one would look at me. No one would notice me. I would fly under everyone’s radar. I wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous. I wasn’t unique in any way, other than my eyes. I felt as ostracized from society as the Angel Maker did. We were more alike than he knew.
Or maybe he did know. Maybe he knew we were the same, and that’s why he was doing all of this for me.
Because it was for me. I knew it was all for me. These people—Sandy—they were all dead for me, and instead of shocked and horrified, I was grateful. I no longer felt dead inside, and I owed it to the Angel Maker.
I would get out of here, and I would meet him.
I would thank him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine - Killian
This wasn’t how I thought it would go. This wasn’t at all like how I planned our weekend to be. If Stella hadn’t run away from me, everything could’ve gone according to plan. But no—here I was, in the early hours of dawn, parking my car a few houses down from hers, getting out with a scowl on my face.
I had leather gloves on, and they itched as I headed to the sidewalk and walked up her driveway. After tossing a look behind me to make sure no one was out and watching, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my kit. I was inside the front door within a minute, closing it behind me.
The house was not hers. It was rented, the same house she’d been in for the last few years, ever since she graduated from college and moved here with her friend. Callie.
After waiting a moment and not hearing anything, I started to investigate my dear Stella. I found a mess in the living room, a plate of half-eaten pizza and a single can of pop. A blanket hung over the couch, used. I ran my leather-clad hand over it, slowly curling my fingers around it and bringing it to my face, inhaling.
Like lavender. Like Stella. A calming, soothing scent.
I set the blanket down, moving to the hall. It seemed no one was home, which was a good thing, because right now I needed time to think. I knew Stella had gone home with that blonde from the bar. Deep down, in my gut, I knew it and I hated it.
So I did a little stalking. It was something I was remarkably good at.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered she was with not only one man but two. Two guys, yet she couldn’t even look at me for longer than a minute without disgust crossing her face. Those guys didn’t know who she was. They didn’t know her like I did. I’d known her for years now. I’d broken up with Julie for her. I ended things for us, because I knew Stella was supposed to be mine.
I would not give her up to two strangers.
I took a quick peek into the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror before opening the medicine cabinet and looking inside the drawers of the vanity. I left everything how I found it, and I was about to close the last drawer when something round and orange caught my eye. Hesitant, I lifted it from the drawer, spinning it to see the prescription name and the date it was given.
It was a year old, and still full.
I didn’t recognize the name of the medication, but I filed it away in my head as I returned the pill container to the drawer and slowly closed it.
Stella’s room was right next door to the bathroom, and I went straight there, surveying the space. Not a huge room, but full to the brim with her smell. Her clothes and her belongings. I’d never felt closer to her than I did right now, when I stood in her room, unknown to her. This was where she slept, when she wasn’t caught up in those two assholes.
This was where I would make Stella mine.
Because she would be mine; she just didn’t know it yet.
I spent the next few minutes searching her room. I wasn’t sure what I’d find. Maybe I wasn’t searching for anything. Maybe all I wanted was for her to walk through the door, see me, and realize what she’d been missing. I wanted her to grasp her mistake and do her best to remedy it, to fix it. I wanted her to come to me, lead me to the bed and get to know me in a way we’d never gotten to know each other before.
I had been the world’s biggest idiot for letting Sandy take me to the bathroom. For letting her yank down my pants and put her mouth around me. I had been weak, but I swore to myself I’d never be weak again. I would be strong, for Stella.
Everything was for Stella.
In a few minutes, I left Stella’s room, moving across the hall to Callie’s. In all the time I’d known her, I’d only ever seen her text her. I’d never actually seen Callie, even when I tried to get Stella to bring her to the Christmas party last year. If Callie was such a huge aspect of her life, I wanted to know about it. I needed to know everything there was to know about Stella, and Callie would’ve been the easiest way.
But maybe it was better this way. I liked a challenge just as much as the next guy; it would only make my victory that much sweeter.
When I stepped into Callie’s room, I spotted a made-up bed. Nothing was out of place in her room. It was all so…clean and orderly. Which, judging from Stella’s stories of her, was not what I’d been expecting.
A desk sat along the wall, and I turned to study it, noticing the laptop sitting atop it, plugged in and fully charged, by the look of it. A phone rested on top of the laptop, also plugged in and fully charged if its little green light meant anything.
Something was wrong here.
If Callie’s phone was here, where was Callie?
I hit the phone screen, and the screen lit up, showing me dozens of missed calls and over a hundred text messages, from various people. From someone named John, from someone labeled Mom, and even some from Stella.
This…this wasn’t right. No one left their phone anywhere nowadays, let alone let so many texts and calls go unanswered.
I ran a finger across the desk’s wood, slowly realizing the entire thing—laptop included—was covered in a thick layer of dust, as if it hadn’t been touched in months.
Odd.
Rubbing my fingers together, I studied the room in a new light. This entire room was like someone cleaned up and then forgot about it, never stepping foot in it again. Even the air inside was stale.
I stepped near the window, about to lift it open, but my eyes saw something weird as I gaze out into the backyard. A simple square of green grass, surrounded by a wooden fence…except for the lone flower bed directly outside of the window. Completely out of place, as if someone had put it there as an afterthought.
My energy was renewed as I left Callie’s room, returning to the bathroom, taking in things I didn’t see before. Things my eyes glazed over my first trip here. One toothbrush. One shampoo in the shower. One towel on the towel rack.
Just…one of everything.
Suddenly, I knew.
I went through the house, moving to the door that led to the attached garage. I flipped on the light, illuminating the dark space. A spick-and-span garage with no car inside. Gardening tools were arranged on the walls, and I moved before the tool I need
ed. In my gut, I already knew, but I had to be sure.
Stella was definitely throwing me for a curveball here.
After grabbing the shovel, I exited through the garage’s side man door, and I headed around to the backyard, stopping only when I stood before the flowerbed. I stared at it for too long, let my mind wander too much before I got to work. The flowers were strong and healthy, their stalks thick and sturdy. This flowerbed had been here for at least this season.
I started digging.
It was early enough in the day no one else was outside, before the sun rose in the sky and started to warm the world. I had peace and quiet as I tore through the flower bed. It was about a foot and a half down, and I knew it the moment the tip of the shovel hit something hard. The sound of metal crunching through skin and bone bounced in the air, and I immediately dropped the shovel and fell to my knees, reaching into the hole, flicking away the dirt until I saw it.
Or, maybe I should say, until I saw her.
Until I saw a rotting neck, flesh that had not seen the light of day for a while.
Callie.
My heart nearly stopped. I didn’t think…I mean, not once did I ever suspect Stella of being capable of something like this. Really, it wasn’t a wonder why I was so drawn to her from the beginning.
God, I fucking loved that woman, and I’d do anything to make her realize she loved me too.
As I began to return to the dirt to its hole, the sound of a car door slamming caught my attention. My back went rod straight. Odd. I could’ve sworn it came from the front of the house, which was impossible, because no one was here. At least, no one should be here for quite a while, not that I knew Callie was six feet under, metaphorically speaking.
More like two feet, but still.
I gripped the shovel tightly, moving slowly around the house. There was a car parked in the driveway, and with a sinking heart, I knew whoever it was was already inside the house. I went in through the side of the garage, still gripping the shovel tightly as I went inside.
Cruel Black Hearts: A Dark Reverse Harem Romance Page 19