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I turned to go.

  She stopped me. “Wait.”

  “Listen, Shell, I know you don’t want to be alone—”

  She silenced me by placing her lips on mine.

  I was stunned. I couldn’t believe she would kiss me after everything we’d been through that day. It didn’t seem to make any sense. But she was, and her lips were warm, and her body was soft and small. I crushed her against me, loving the way she felt there, wanting to hold her forever.

  But eventually, I had to break the kiss.

  I pulled back. I planted a small kiss on the tip of her nose, another on her chin, another on her forehead.

  “Be careful,” she whispered.

  “You too,” I said.

  And then I did leave. I only paused to make sure that she locked the door behind her.

  I checked the rest of the rooms in the place. There wasn’t much here. The main room, the weapons room, the bathrooms. We had showers down here too, in case you needed to make a fast getaway someplace and wash off the evidence.

  I moved through the shower room, pulling aside curtains in each of the four stalls, making sure no one was hiding there.

  Nothing.

  I found another body, though, outside the bathroom. It was Guns, another of my guys.

  But there wasn’t anyone else inside. I went back to the entrance and keyed in a code on the elevator. Then I dialed the number I had for Kiera.

  She didn’t answer.

  Fuck.

  I hoped something hadn’t happened to her. I was going to have her spread the word to everyone that we were compromised here, that the place was under lockdown, and that no one was coming in or going out.

  But if she wasn’t answering…

  My phone rang.

  I picked up. “Yeah.”

  “Ripper? Danger.”

  “Danger, when did you leave HQ?”

  “Guess you’re in there, then? That why you’re calling Kiera?”

  “How do you know I’m calling her?”

  “We’re together,” said Danger. “I got her out of there. I had a little scuffle with Ice first. Dude’s got very bad blood with you for some reason.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, he’s kind of a bastard right now.”

  “Anyway, I told Kiera not to pick up the phone in case it was someone else with your phone. Said I’d call you back and make sure.”

  “It’s me,” I said. “Was Ice alone?”

  “He had Guns with him. Forced him in at gunpoint. I guess he used him to get the code in.”

  “I figured he did something like that shit.”

  “But yeah, no one else. He started shooting everyone. I tried to take him out, but he got to cover. So, I took Kiera and got the hell out.”

  “Damn it.”

  “I guess you’re calling because you’re locking the place down?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Kiera can still get the word out, right?”

  “Sure, I think so,” said Danger.

  “Good. And tell her I’ll be in touch with a new location when we’re back up and running. Until then, lie low.”

  “Got it,” said Danger.

  And then we both hung up.

  I headed back for Shell, who I found huddled in the back of the weapons room, surrounded by guns she’d pulled off the shelf.

  I reached down and helped her to her feet. “Hey,” I said. “It’s all right. There’s no one here.”

  “It was Ice?” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said, “but he’s gone now.”

  “So…” She looked around. “What now?”

  I pulled her into my arms. “I got to think of a safe place for you.”

  “For me?” She looked up at me. “You aren’t still thinking that you want to leave me someplace, are you? Imagine what would have happened if you left me here.”

  I felt cold all over. I gripped her tighter. “I just don’t want you exposed to all of this, that’s all. I don’t want you to have to see it.”

  She rested her cheek against my chest, wrapping her arms around me. “I’m okay. I’m tough. I’m not going to break.”

  “That isn’t totally what I meant.” I kissed the top of her head. “Every time you see me do something violent, I’m afraid you’ll want to run far away from me. How long will it take before you realize that I’m a monster, and that you don’t want anything to do with me?”

  “I won’t think that.”

  “You should think that.” I released her. “It’s true.” I started out of the weapons room.

  She headed after me, catching me by the shoulder. “Cade, you’re not a bad man. Kiera told me that you save people.”

  “I kill people.”

  “To save other people. You saved me. You saved my sister.”

  I dragged a hand over my face. “But I only did that because…” I didn’t finish. I gazed into her eyes. I wasn’t sure why I’d done it, actually. I didn’t know what it was about Shell Birch. I’d been acting crazy and reckless since she came into my life.

  “I know that you say that you enjoy killing—”

  “I do enjoy it,” I snapped. Then I stalked out of the room. I wasn’t sure where I was headed. I didn’t know where I could take her. Ice knew too much about me. He knew all the places where I might stash someone. And I wasn’t sure if I could trust anyone to look after her.

  “Why do you enjoy it?” she called after me.

  I stopped and turned to look at her. There was an expanse of hallway between us now. Light from the weapons room spilled out around her, lighting her up as if she was some kind of angel. I was in the dark, a demon. “It just builds up in me,” I said softly. “I have to get it out.”

  “But how do you know that?”

  “I told you that I grew up with my aunt, right?” I looked down at my shoes. “What I didn’t tell you is that my father sent me there because I was acting up after my mother’s death. I saw her die.”

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  I never talked about this. I’d only ever told one other person. Ice. And look how well that had turned out. I didn’t think it would go over well telling Shell about it. But she had asked, so I plunged onward. “I was five years old,” I said. “She and I were out together running errands. We were at the bank. We happened to be there at the time of a robbery. They grabbed my mother and put a gun to her head and told everyone to stay calm and quiet. And everyone listened. But it didn’t matter, because there was this car horn from outside, something completely unrelated, but the robber heard it, and it startled him, and he pulled the trigger, and…” I shook my head, and suddenly I could see it all again.

  My mother’s body, falling lifeless to the ground, her eyes like dead marbles in her skull. My skin, covered with a fine sheen of red dots. Her blood. Sprayed everywhere.

  Shell was coming down the hall for me. “Cade, I’m so sorry.” She was stepping out of the circle of light, into the darkness with me.

  “Stay there,” I said in a choked voice. “Don’t come near me.”

  She stopped, cocking her head to look at me. “Cade, I only want—”

  “I hated it, that my mother was dead,” I said. “But I could never stop thinking about it. I would dream about it, every night. Wake up screaming for her. My father would hold me, try to calm me down, but it wasn’t enough. And I started to act out at school. I went after the bullies on the schoolyard. I put a kid in the hospital. I kept smashing his face with a rock. He needed reconstructive surgery.”

  “Cade, that doesn’t mean—”

  “My father couldn’t handle me. He couldn’t stop me. He sent me to live with my aunt in England, because he… I think he was afraid of me. I think he saw the monster in me when he looked into my eyes.”

  Shell took a step toward me, stepping out of the light completely. She reached out her hand.

  I shut my eyes.

  And then she was next to me, and she was holding me, and we crumpled to the floor together.

  She smoothed her
hands over my face, cupping it. “That doesn’t make you a monster.”

  “You don’t know what it was like,” I said. “You don’t know how it felt on that playground, bringing that rock down over and over on that kid’s head. You don’t know how much I liked it.”

  “Shh,” she said, and she kissed me.

  Suddenly, I was clinging to her, like she was my only solace in a rainstorm. I put my lips to hers, and my kiss was hard and desperate. It was different than every other time I’d been with her. Some part of me had still been in control then. Certainly, there had been moments in which I’d fallen apart under her touch. From her words or from the feel of her body. But now, I was already falling apart as I kissed her.

  And I was desperate for more of her.

  I put my hands inside her shirt, skimming her ribs and pushing aside the cups of her bra.

  She gasped as I gathered her breasts in to my hands.

  I kissed her. I caressed her. Pinched her nipples. Twisted them. “You don’t know what I am at all,” I muttered.

  “I do know,” she insisted, and she tugged my shirt over my head. “You’re good and sweet. I know that’s what’s inside you. I can tell.”

  “You’re wrong.” I shook my head. I pushed her back into the floor and covered her body with my own.

  She ran her fingers over my shoulders.

  It made me feel shivery. Vulnerable. I grasped both of her hands to keep her from touching me. I wanted to regain control somehow.

  She looked into my eyes. “Cade.”

  “Stop,” I said, trying very hard to make my voice cold, but there was a tremor in it, and I couldn’t get rid of it. It angered me, and I grabbed her by the hips and turned her over so that she was on her hands and knees.

  She gasped, arching her back, driving her ass back.

  Fuck me, she was turned on by this. I shut my eyes for a second, feeling any tethers that I might have on control of myself slip away, and then I was yanking her pants down, baring her ass and her pussy.

  I spanked her.

  She cried out.

  “I’m not good,” I said.

  “Neither am I,” she said in a tight voice.

  I hit her again. Hard. And I didn’t bother to rub her, to take the sting out. “I’m not playing fucking games, Shell.”

  “You don’t know what I did,” she said.

  “You didn’t do anything,” I said. “Stop acting like you’re anything other than innocence and light. Fuck, you didn’t even know you’re fiance was gay.”

  “Fuck you.” She turned to look at me, and there was hurt in her eyes.

  Good. She needed to understand.

  I tugged her to her feet. Her pants were around her ankles, and she could barely move, but I forced her back down the hallway, back into the light of the weapons room.

  There were some restraints in here. Hand cuffs, chains, things we used.

  I picked up a pair of the cuffs and chained her hands behind her back.

  She let out a little huff of air, and when I looked at her face, she was wide-eyed.

  Good. She shouldn’t trust me, especially not know, when I wasn’t in control. Not at all.

  I shoved up her shirt and bra, so that her tits were on display. Now I could see all her secret places, but I hadn’t really removed any of her clothes. I ran a lazy hand over one of her breasts.

  Her nipple stiffened in my wake, and she bit down on her lip.

  I let my hand travel lower. I traced the outline of her mound with one finger, dipped between the lips of her slit. My voice was sarcastic and dark. “What horrible thing did you do?”

  She swallowed.

  I laughed at her, and it wasn’t kind. “What? You don’t want to tell me now?”

  “I never wanted to tell you. I never wanted to tell anyone. I never have.”

  I nudged the nub of her clit.

  She moaned.

  I pulled my hand away. “Did you like that?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “You want my hand there again?”

  “Yes,” and her voice was even quieter.

  “Then tell me,” I said. I liked this even better than touching her. I liked using power over her to force her to do something she didn’t want to do. It was fucked up, but my cock was getting rock hard.

  “Cade, it’s not like what you think. I’m not innocence and light.”

  I raised both eyebrows. “What did you do? Did you cheat on your SATs? Did you steal your sister’s boyfriend in junior high?”

  She flinched.

  “What? I’m right?” I threw my head back and laughed, and my fingers snaked between her legs again. I flicked her clit back and forth in a steady rhythm. I lowered my voice. “Oh, Shell, you really are innocent. You don’t understand anything.”

  She shied away from my fingers, trying to twist away from me, but she couldn’t move her legs easily, and she was really at my mercy.

  I grabbed her by the arm, forced her to stay in place, and I doubled my assault on her clit, lowering my mouth to her nipple.

  Her breath started to come in gasps. I could feel her getting wetter and slicker under my touch. But still she struggled, trying to get away from my ministrations. “That’s not what happened,” she said, her voice strained.

  “Oh, it’s not?” I said, my mouth still on her breast.

  “No,” she heaved.

  I raised my head. I stopped my movement on her clit. “Then what did happen? Tell Ripper the truth, and I’ll let you come.”

  She glared at me, her face twisting with something like real dislike. “I don’t want to come when I’m thinking about this.”

  “Don’t you?” I said. “If you were really like me, you would. If you were really like me, it would make you so hot thinking about all the nasty, evil things you’ve done. It would make you feel big.”

  “Instead of small and powerless, like a little boy? Cade, you could never have saved your mother, no matter what you did. And no matter how many people you kill now, you can’t change what happened.”

  I slammed her back into a rack of sniper rifles. “That’s not why I do it.”

  She winced.

  “It’s not because of my mom. Maybe that triggered it, but it was always in me. I was born this way.” I had been born this way, hadn’t I? “You don’t understand me, so don’t act like you have it all figured out.”

  “You don’t understand me either.”

  “Admit we’re different.” I pinched both of her nipples.

  She whimpered. “I didn’t say we were the same.”

  I thrust my fingers between her legs again. “Tell me what you did,” I breathed. “And then you come, whether you like it or not.”

  She shut her eyes.

  “Tell me or I’ll hurt you.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at me, and there was something like fear in them now.

  I should have backed off, but it spurred me on. It wasn’t enjoyment, not exactly, but it was a sense of triumph. I was close to getting her to do what I wanted, close to making her do what I said, even if she didn’t like it. I had power over her.

  “Hurt me how?” Her voice shook.

  I considered. Then I put my mouth back to one of her nipples, and I closed my teeth around it. I didn’t bite too hard, just enough pressure to create a quick sting. I ran my tongue over the place I’d bitten her.

  She let out a strangled noise, but I heard the pleasure in it.

  My cock pulsed.

  She groaned. “I thought maybe you’d really hurt me. I deserve it for what I did. But everything you do to me isn’t really pain.”

  I bit her other nipple, this time harder.

  She moaned. “I don’t want rewarded for it, Cade.”

  I lifted my head to look up at her. “Tell me, Shell.” I ran my hands over all of her bare skin, everything that I’d uncovered.

  “It’s about my sister,” she said.

  I waited.

  “But not about h
er boyfriend. Well… I mean, sort of. When we were in high school, she was so much better than me at everything, and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t do anything right. And she was always so sweet too. That was the worst of it. It would have been easier to handle if she’d been mean and spiteful, but she was the best fucking sister in the world.”

  I still waited, my hands resting on her hips.

  “I hated her.” Her face twisted. “And I wanted… I don’t know what I wanted. I don’t even know why I did it. She had this video of her and her boyfriend having sex, and I found it, and I… I put it on the Internet.”

  I still waited.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Wait, that’s it?” I said. I laughed. “So?”

  “So, it ruined her. Now, she’s a fucking prostitute, and she got that way because she lost all confidence after everyone saw the video. Because of me, my sister’s life is—”

  “Totally terrible, right,” I said sarcastically. “How much money did you say that prince pays her?”

  “Don’t mock this,” she said.

  I chuckled. “But it’s just not that big of a deal. It’s nothing like the things I’ve done.” I slid my hands over her hips, and I cupped her sex with one hand. I rubbed the heel of my hand against her clit. “Come for me, Shell. It’s not that big of a deal,” I crooned.

  She threw her head back, and she climaxed for me. Not a crazy, crashing one, but I felt it go through her.

  “You don’t understand,” she said through clenched teeth as her pelvis jerked. “It’s worse than what you’ve done. Everyone you killed deserved it in some way… but Starling was never anything…” She tried to catch her breath. “Anything but good… and I destroyed her.”

  I kissed her. “You didn’t destroy her. There must have been something inside her that wanted—”

  “She was a fucking National Merit Scholar,” Shell said, pulling away. “And she didn’t even graduate from college.”

  “So, you want to be punished?” I murmured, kissing her earlobe.

  “I…” She foundered.

  I pulled back and looked into her eyes. Then I seized a handful of her hair and held her head in place. “You want me to hurt you?”

  She sucked in breath.

  With my other hand, I grabbed her thigh, digging my fingers into her skin. I pulled on her leg, freeing her foot from her pants, and I wrapped her leg around my hips.