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Love is not supposed to be beautiful. It’s supposed to be a raw, gritty struggle that forces you to face the most vulnerable parts of yourself, so that when the good times come, you can savor and enjoy them, fully appreciate what they’re worth. Otherwise, you take it all for granted. —Lana Myers Fuck the list. It’s time for the endgame.
“Yeah. I can’t be friends with someone who could watch me fall in love with someone like that and not tell me the truth.” Her eyes narrow, and her lips tremble. “Someone like that? Someone who would kill or die to keep you safe? Someone who loved you so much that she almost gave up her revenge?”
The handcuffs are tossed on the floor, along with the sheet. And everything Lana brought is gone. I swallow against the knot in my throat, slowly lowering myself to the bed. She saved my life. I cast her aside.
“I knew you were coming,” he drawls, leaning up. “So put your gun away. If I was a threat, you’d already be dead. Fortunately for you, I happen to enjoy breathing, and I’m not sure Lana would be okay with me retaining oxygen if I laid a hand on you.”
“When she told me she was screwing around with a FBI agent, I almost had a fucking brain aneurism,” he says, looking away while laughing humorlessly. “I’d killed myself trying to make sure no one ever figured out who she was.”
“I loved him,” he says as he turns back around, unshed tears battling to drop from his eyes. “I loved him and treated him like my dirty little secret in public, while loving him with all I had behind closed doors. Marcus accepted the scraps I offered, because he loved me so much he couldn’t let me go, even though he deserved better.”
My mind feels like it’s gone through a mind-fuck blender. Up is down. Right is left. Good is bad. Before I can stop myself, I slam my fist into the wall, ignoring the searing pain that shoots up my arm when my knuckles strike the unforgiving wood. I learned to control all my emotions long before I joined the FBI. I learned to hide the anger. Learned to be stoic. Learned to taper any sort of feeling that was too strong. But not today.
I fall apart, tossing everything in the cabin as my heart gets yanked out of my chest, and I lash out for the first time in over fifteen years.
“He doesn’t love me like I love him,” I say hoarsely. “I love him enough to burn the world to the ground in his name.”
I choke back a sob, refusing to fall apart again right now. Jake’s eyes are full of tears as my lip trembles, but I go on. “He’s so pure. So good. So honest and genuine. So gentle and kind. It’s all those qualities that made me fall in love, because he was everything—everything!—I’d always wanted in someone. And he loved me. Yet, I wanted to taint the very things about him that made me fall in love, just so I could selfishly take him to the dark with me and keep him. It was wrong.”
“You are not sick. Marcus was right—you’re the strongest fucking person I know. You’re not sick, Lana. You’re a fucking dark angel that can set the world free from this sick town.”
Avenge my family. And burn this town to the ground.
She rolls her eyes when I don’t crack a smile. “You need to pick a side soon, Logan. You can’t hang out in limbo. I chose mine, and it’s her.” “So you’ve been falsifying all your forensic reports on—” “Haven’t had to. Lana is too good to leave behind trace evidence.” She sighs as she stands. “But I would have. Yes. As far as risks go, you’re the only one she’s ever taken. You’re the one string to unravel all she has worked for since the night they shattered her and her brother. Are you going to take that away?”
I sway with the music, listening to it with my eyes closed. My father was always a Bach man, but Mozart had so much more emotion in all his compositions, in my opinion.
Then I pull out the paintbrush I brought, and I dip it into the blood. Instead of painting a wall this time, I leave a message. A message for the man who broke my heart. A message for the man I never should have loved. It’s completely juvenile, but I can’t help myself.
They stole. They lied. They brokered peace with the devil in exchange for the souls of an innocent family. Yet you call me the monster. Fuck you. <3 The little heart on the end is definitely a signature Lana used to leave for me. Apparently she’s going to personalize these kills now, even address them to me without using my name.
“Just who the hell are you?” a man’s voice asks. Everyone wants my name. There’s a Rumpelstiltskin joke in there somewhere.
I drop the bag and spin, bringing my elbow up to collide with a face, but a hand grabs it, and my breath seizes as another hand comes around, grabbing my other arm. In one smooth motion, I’m shoved against a tree, and a hard body bears against mine. The only thing that halts my lethal reaction, are the familiar blues staring directly into my eyes. My breaths turn painful as I heave for air that escapes me. It’s not because he’s hurting me, it’s because it hurts just to see him.
“I had no idea you were Victoria when I fucked up. I never would—” “Does it really matter?” I ask bitterly, hoping those damn tears don’t start falling, even as they crowd my eyes and turn him blurry. “I’m still the twisted monster of the night, while you’re the honest hero in the light.”
“I can’t let you go,” he says against my lips as he shuts the water off. My eyes meet his as my lips fall away, losing the contact that keeps me grounded in reality. But then I’m on him, kissing him again, passionately, deeply, hungrily… And I stave off the onslaught of emotions that would surely wreck me if given that sort of power. I can’t let you hold on, I silently tell him, refusing to ruin any more of our night with heartbreaking truths.
I’ve never once thought of killing someone as a desire. I’ve never blurred that line. That’s not the case at the moment. I hope she fucking kills every last person with a badge who didn’t come to save her when she was left to bleed out.
Weak. Pathetic. All of them.
“Your son was a monster, Sheriff. Holding a bible or wearing a badge doesn’t offer you absolution from your own inhumanity either.” I tilt my head, watching the fury and unprecedented indignation sweep over his eyes.
“Using you to fulfill a fantasy,” I quip as I close the shower curtain. “Two fantasies, actually.” Staring at the white, plain shower curtain, I pull out my knife. A dark smile curves my lips before I start playing the music from my phone, and I stab him through the curtain. A cry of pain and surprise echoes off the bathroom walls. But I stab again. And again. And again. Until he’s just gurgling sounds. Then I jerk back the curtain, smirking. “Life goals,” I say to myself, still smiling as I leave the dying man in the tub.
“I’m having a moment,” Jake says, biting down on his knuckle as I finish loading the last of the weapons into their designated spots on my body harness. “What?” I ask, arching an eyebrow. “Times like these remind me why I can’t give up women. Something about a girl with a gun, and right now, you’re every nerd’s comic-book-sexy fantasy girl.”
I roll my eyes. “Seriously! The tight pants, all the guns, the sleeveless shirt—” “All meant for functionality,” I state dryly. “Still doesn’t shatter the illusion.” He mocks a dreamy sigh, and I laugh despite the impending madness I’m close to stepping into.
“I love you, little sister,” he says softly. “I love you, big brother,” I say back, clutching him tighter. He pulls back, cupping my chin in his hand as our eyes meet. “Now go kill them all while I burn the town to the ground.” I nod. “Phase ten.”
The machine that is monitoring his heart beeps just a little faster at the mention of Jasmine Evans.
