Freaks (Dirty Nasty Freaks, #3)

by Callie Hart

“Remember, Son. Pride cometh before a fall. After murder, pride is the most heinous sin of all. Do not succumb to it. Do not bow down to your ego. You’ll only ever end up hurt, or hurting those around you who care about you. Do you hear me, Felix? Are you listening to me?”

“I need the information off the thumb drive. You need the information off the thumb drive. I say we bust our way up onto the roof, fuck this Oscar guy up, take the damn thing and get the fuck out of here. We can make copies and we both get what we need. Simple.”

“All right,” I said. “But a word of warning, Zee. My life means very fucking little to me. I don’t care about pain. I don’t care about suffering. I don’t care if I have money in my bank account, or a roof over my fucking head. There is only one thing that matters to me in the entire fucking world, and that’s the woman currently waiting for me in my apartment. If I don’t get that drive, she isn’t safe. And if anything happens to her, I will stop at nothing to bring down the fieriest vengeance upon the heads of the people who stood in my way. Do we understand each other?”

“I’m furious with myself, not you, Sera. You have no idea… You have no idea what it would have done to me if he’d fucking killed you.”

“Nothing will ever be simple after you, Sera.” Unraveling my hair from around his finger, he reached down and took my hand. Thoughtfully, he turned it over and began to trace the lines of my palm. “I’m unwilling to even think about what my life would look like if you decided to turn around and walk away from me.” “You don’t need to think about it. It’s not going to happen. But if it did,” I said, arching an eyebrow at him. “Then you’re supposed to tell me you’d never want anyone else. That you wouldn’t even consider sleeping with another woman.” “My, my. Are you getting a little possessive over my dick, Sera Lafferty?” “Of course not. It just…belongs to me.” I tried valiantly to keep a straight face. Fix lit me up with those devastating silvery eyes of his. I was locked onto his mouth, watching his full lips form the words, when he said, “My dick’s like a Porsche, Sera. You just bought it. Paid an insane amount for it. But you’ve been sitting in the passenger’s seat, afraid to get behind the wheel. You’ve been letting me drive it ever since we met. I think it’s about time you took control, don’t you? See what this thing can really do.” Flushed with heat, heart somersaulting, my pulse galloping, I opened my mouth…and realized I had no clue what to say to that. Fix hummed. He placed his hands either side of me, trapping me between his arms. “You’re blushing.” “Thanks for the notification.” “You’re throwing off enough heat to give me sunburn.” “Heat doesn’t give people sunbur...

“Should I be making some sort of joke about your stick shift?” I whispered. “Only if you want me to make one about my engines revving.” “Yeah, let’s skip the jokes. How about I just do this…”

“I’m going to fuck you,” I informed him. “And if you’re a very good boy, I might just let you come when I’m done with you.”

“I’m not giving him mouth to mouth,” I said. “I won’t kill him, but there’s no way I’m fucking resuscitating him.” Sera rolled her eyes. Stepping into the room, she seemed relieved as she skirted around the tub, studying the huge form on the ground. “He doesn’t need mouth to mouth. Look. He’s still breathing.” “Bummer. I was hoping he’d have the decency to die anyway.”

“Don’t expect me to thank you for stopping,” he growled. I looked around the bathroom, sighing heavily. The place was a fucking mess. This entire situation was a fucking mess; cleaning any of it up was going to be a fucking nightmare. “I don’t care if you thank me or not, asshole,” I said. “If it were up to me, I would have let you die. It’s Sera you should be thanking.” I looked up at her, feeling the weight of her gaze on my shoulders, her judgement more precious and terrifying than my father’s ever was. “I call her my angel, because she brings me back from the edge. She reminds me I’m not entirely lost. That there might be a way back for me, one day, when all of this bullshit is over. She spoke up for you just now. I’ve no idea why, but turns out she was your guardian angel today, too.”

“Let me give you a piece of advice for the road, little girl,” he rumbled. “The man standing at the top of those stairs? There’s no such thing as a life with him. There’s excitement, there’s danger, and there’s adrenalin. But there isn’t much of anything else.” “Is that supposed to be your ironic attempt at looking out for me, after you came here to kill me?” Zeth huffed—maybe the suggestion of laughter. “No, not even close. If I cared, I’d probably be warning him away from you.”

“Sera.” Fix said my name quietly, but the word contained a well of emotion within it. “The fact that you’re having to think about this so hard says enough. Just decide where you want to be, and I’ll make it happen.” He about-faced and walked away, his back drawn straight, his shoulders stiff. I stood there, mouth open, not quite believing that he was bailing on the conversation. Stupid, idiotic, overly dramatic man. “Hey! Where the hell are you going? I wasn’t deciding if I wanted to be with you. I was trying to figure out if there was anything left for me back home, that’s all.” He stopped. He wanted to turn around, I could tell, but for some reason he didn’t. The tension in his shoulders grew. “Why does that make you mad?” Exasperation colored my voice. “I thought you wanted me. I thought you wanted us.” “God,” he whispered. “I’m not mad. I’m relieved, Sera. So fucking relieved. I feel like my chest is about to burst open. It’s not fair of me to want this, though. I’m not proud of how fucking selfish I’m being. Better men would pretend. They’d make sure you were safe, and they would leave you the fuck alone. I’m the very worst kind of creature, the fucking worst, because I can’t do that. I can’t fucking let you go. I’m in love with you, Angel. And it will be the death of us both.” Oh. Well. Shit.

“I love you, Sera. I have for a while now. I’m sorry if that frightens you.” His words were a caress that ran along the length of my spine; I shivered, unable to stop myself. “It doesn’t frighten me,” I whispered. “It fucking should. This isn’t a let’s-date-and-see-where-life-takes-us deal, Sera. This is all or nothing. This is to the ends of the fucking earth and back. This is giving all, giving everything, total fucking surrender. Total victory, and total defeat. There is no going back from it. Not ever. So, I want you to really think this through. Really fucking understand. Don’t you dare tell me you love me unless—” “I do.” The words were out before I could do anything, to barricade them behind my teeth. “I do love you.” His hands dropped to his sides, his eyes widening. He looked astonished. “Sera…” “You’re not the only one who doesn’t do half measures, Fix,” I said. “You don’t have to be the only one who feels too much all the time. I had to feel so little for so long that I swore to myself I would never allow that to happen again. So, I’ll love you as fiercely as the sun fucking burns, and you’ll have to fucking like it, because you did this, Felix. You made me love you just as much as you love me, and it’s never going to go away now. I’m never going to go away. This is it.”

“You want me to drive?” “The cops aren’t likely to pull over a couple in a shitty four-door. They’re even less likely to pull over a couple in a shitty four-door if a woman’s driving. Statistically, anyway. This time of night, they’re gonna assume I’ve had too many beers and my girlfriend’s pulling designated driver duty…” “Pretty sexist if you ask me. I could be a getaway driver.” “Sorry, Angel. I don’t create the stereotypes. I just use them to my advantage.” “Hmm.” She didn’t look impressed, but she got into the car. I got in on the passenger’s side and bit my tongue while Sera fidgeted with the mirrors and adjusted the seat. “You can drive, right?” She stopped what she was doing. “After all the shit that’s happened recently, you really want to die because I killed you for being a jerk?” I held my hands up in mock surrender. “Pretend I didn’t say anything.” “That might be for the best.”

“Who the fuck are you?” “The guy you shouldn’t have.” I walked past him, making sure to keep Sera on the other side of my body. The guy grimaced, his face contorting in anger. He reached out and grabbed the top of my arm. “The guy I shouldn’t have what?” he snapped. “The guy you shouldn’t have laid your fucking hands on.”

“I would never take him away from you,” she said harshly. “I’d help you, too, Monica, if you gave me the fucking opportunity. But you’ve been rude, aggressive and shitty to me since the moment we met. I’m not evil. I didn’t do the things it said I did in that dossier. When my mother died, I lost everything. Everything,” she said, her voice cracking. “And I would never hurt my sister. She’s the only true family I have left. I love her more than you will ever know. I’ve done some terrible things, and I’ve had equally terrible things done to me. I understand the living, breathing pain that exists inside you more than you realize. But if you ever throw anything at me again, I will make you fucking regret it. Do you understand me?”

We were almost back in Brooklyn now, and her anxious wailing had increased instead of tapered off. “Fix, please,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I had no idea he would do that, I swear. Just…please!” Finally, the deadly calm that had fallen over him after he pulled that trigger shattered. Slamming his fist into the steering wheel of our stolen sedan, he bared his teeth at the rear-view mirror, a brilliant silver storm flashing in his eyes. “Fuck, Monica! Really? You really think I’m going to fucking hurt you?” “I—I don’t…” she whimpered. “You’re angry. I don’t know.” “Then you don’t know me,” he hissed at her reflection. “I promised I’d find the guy who hurt you. I promised I’d protect you. But fuck,” he said, grinding his teeth together. “I never thought I’d need protecting from you.” A miserable silence fell over the car.

I’d wanted to fucking kill him for what he’d done. I’d regretted not doing so ever since. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. One day, and one day soon, Sixsmith Lafferty and I were going to have a little fucking chat.

“No one’s supposed to be here,” he muttered under his breath. Silencing the engine, he got out of the car, a stony expression marring his features. I got out after him, my legs complaining as I stretched them. “Are you going to tell me where here is?” I asked. Fix displayed an uncharacteristic level of discomfort as he faced the house, shoving his hands into his pockets. “This,” he said tightly, “is my parent’s house. Or rather it was. It’s mine now.” Ho-ly fuck. I didn’t want to be that girl, gawking in shock over someone’s surprise wealth, but this was just fucking ridiculous. In a city where space was at a premium, the penthouse back in Brooklyn was huge, so I’d known he had money. But this wasn’t money. This was rich. My-ancestors-were-founding-members-of-the-country-and-made-billions-during-the-oilrush-of-eighteen-sixty-seven kind of rich. I tried not to react, but my surprise must have been all too obvious. “You can say it.” Fix’s eyes were hard as flint. “It’s fucking obnoxious.” “It’s not obnoxious. It’s just… it’s…” “Obnoxious. It’s bigger than a department store.” He began walking to toward the front door. “Shouldn’t we wake Monica?” Fix bent down and looked through the window at the sleeping woman, the bridge of his nose crinkled. “She’s dead to the world. I’ll send Richard out for her in a little while.” “Richard?” Sighing, Fix rubbed at the back of his neck. “My father’s man.” I must have been pulling a face, because Fix clarified. “His butler. My father had a...

“Master Felix,” a voice called down to us. “I didn’t know you were coming. I nearly called the police.” “You’re meant to be at home,” Fix growled. As I climbed the final step, I found myself standing in front of a tall, reedy-looking man with eyes that might once have been brown but were now clouded and milky with cataracts. His wrinkled skin looked paper-thin and was a beautiful dark bronze color, and his top lip was capped with a snowy white moustache. His hair was short, salt and pepper curls. It was just after four in the morning, which explained the red, worn dressing gown hanging over his shoulders, but not the crisp white button-down shirt he was wearing beneath it, or the neat black dress pants. The old man’s hands shook a little as he gestured to Fix, beckoning him to step into the light. “This is my home,” he replied churlishly. “Your home’s four miles away. Remember? That three-bedroom villa by the water? With its own private dock?” The man, Richard, gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Psshhaaw. That place? Haunted. As. Fuck.” He hefted his considerable, bushy eye brows up toward his hairline. “Told you not to buy it. Told you I wan’t gon’ live in it. Might as well sell it again, you brat.” The very last thing I expected to be doing at this end of the car ride we’d just taken was laughing, but I couldn’t help it. Fix? A brat? If anyone else had called him that, they’d have been nursing a broken jaw. Fix just scowled at the old man, and then he scowled at me for...

“I used to hate coming back here. Fucking hate it. My mother told me that would change at some point in my life. One day I’d bring a woman here and I would feel differently. I wouldn’t see a cage with high walls and bars at the windows. I’d see a place where I could build a life with someone. Where I could raise a family. She knew I’d end up leaving the church at some point, even before I did.” His smile was sour and strained. “And when I turned around and saw you standing there in the entranceway, Sera, that’s exactly what happened. I imagined a life here, for us, and…fuck. I wasn’t afraid of it. I always thought I would be, but I wasn’t.”

“I’m wondering if you’ll hear my confession, Sera Lafferty.” The apples of my cheeks ached as I tried not to smile. “That might be a monumental task. How long has it been since your last confession, child?” I asked in a mocking tone. Fix was often so stoic, his facial features so well restrained that it must have been difficult for anyone who didn’t know him intimately to tell what he was feeling. I knew his secret, though. He expressed himself with those brilliant silver eyes of his, and right now they were filled with a wicked mirth. “That was far too convincing,” he murmured. “You sure you haven’t done this before?” “First time. But I’ve watched a lot of movies. I know how this stuff goes.” “Well, my lady. In answer to your question, it’s been five years since my last confession. And I have been an unbelievably bad boy,” he whispered. Holy shit. This man was going to be the death of me. “Is there something in particular that’s playing on your mind?” “Actually, there is. I’ve been spending a lot of time with someone new recently. She’s brilliant, and beautiful, and she makes me feel alive. I’ve been having impure thoughts about her. Very, very impure thoughts.” A shiver danced down my spine, sending out a wave of anticipation that made my nerve endings prickle. “I see. And this woman. She’s aware that you harbor feelings for her?” “Oh yes. She’s very aware.” “And do you think she feels the same way about you?” “I know she does.” The low, deep rasp of his voice was tinged...

“I tell her when she is and isn’t allowed to look, though. I tell her that she has to play the game, or she doesn’t get to see anything.” “That sounds like a cruel punishment to me.” “Mmmm. But I am cruel. I make her wait. By the time I give her permission to give in to her needs, she’s panting for me. Begging for me. Whispering all of the things she wants and needs from me.” “You like it when she begs?” My breath hitched in the back of my throat. This was pure torture, and he knew exactly what he was doing to me. He smiled, his mouth returning to whisper in my ear. “The sound of her begging makes me want to hold her down and pin her to the ground. It makes me want to use my tongue to lick and taste every inch of her. Makes me want to slide my fingers between the folds of her wet pussy, so I can feel how badly I’ve caused her to lose control. When she begs and pleads for me to take her, I feel like a fucking king.” My palms were slick with sweat. I wanted to touch him. I wanted to take hold of the hem of his shirt, and I wanted to lift it up over his head, so I could feast my eyes upon the hard, packed muscle of his chest. “You enjoy feeling like a king? Does that mean you want to rule her?” “Yes. I want to rule her. I want to own her. I want to dominate every part of her body and her mind. But that’s the thing about this woman. She’s my queen, and she has her own desires. Sometimes she wants to be ruled. Other times, she demands I obey her commands down to the letter. For...

“I confess,” Fix said, his chest laboring. “There are things I want to do to my queen. Things that would make her quake down to the roots of her soul. She inspires the most twisted, dark, fucked up fantasies in me.”

“Now you’ve heard my confession,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “What will be my penance?” I pressed a kiss against the arm he’d wrapped around me as I closed my eyes. He was still inside me, and he still would be, even after he’d withdrawn and I’d washed the evidence of our sins away. “No penance required, Mr. Marcosa. You and I are square.”

Apologies were difficult things. It was my experience that they were hard for the person who owed them, but just as hard for the person who had to accept them. A few words, even if they were heartfelt, didn’t necessarily banish the consequences of someone’s actions.

“Fine. We’ll go back to Seattle. But on one condition. I know how much you love driving, but I am so fucking sick of sitting in cars. We either fly across country, or we don’t go at all.” He turned a devilishly smug smile on me. “Do I get to fuck you while we’re in the air?” “Of course.” “In that case, anything for my queen.”

Technically, I was going home. But home was no longer a collection of rooms, filled with books and clothes. It was the man sitting next to me, holding my hand.

My hair had grown long enough to tie back over the past few weeks. I undid it, releasing it from the small ponytail I could now manage, shaking it out, sighing with relief. “You’ll feel even better if you take your bra off, too,” Fix rumbled. “And if you’re planning on taking that off, I don’t see why you shouldn’t just take everything else off, too.” “You just want to see my boobs.” “And?” “And we’ve been on the road all day. I feel gross. I need a shower.” Fix shook his head. “You’re not gross. You’re sexy as fuck. I want to bury my head between your legs right fucking now. You’re telling me you don’t want that?” The prospect was mighty appealing, but I had plane all over me, and I was pretty certain I smelled fucking disgusting. “I am showering,” I insisted. “I didn’t say you weren’t allowed to join me, though.” “Now that sounds amazing.”

“Okay,” she said, a wide grin taking up most of her face. “You have got some serious explaining to do, young lady. Who…” She shook her head, screwing her eyes shut, holding up an index finger. “No. What was that? I have no idea how you managed to convince that walking sex god to come home with you.” “Geez, thanks!” “I’m serious,” she said, laughing. “When I turned around just now and saw him coming at me like a fucking MMA fighter on crack, I sent up a prayer and thanked the universe that the angel of death was the sexiest thing I had ever seen. I swear, if he had just killed me, I really wouldn’t have even been that mad about it.” I kept my laughter light and happy, but boy was it hard. Sadie’s joke was ridiculously close to the truth; Fix kind of was the angel of death. I poked my tongue out at her. “Personally, I think he’s lucky to have scored me.” She wrapped her arm around my shoulders, leaning her head against mine as we walked into the kitchen. “I know, babe. You’re a hottie, too. But Jesus fucking Christ. Those eyes…”

“You can’t hide behind your anonymity anymore, you deranged bitch. I swear to god and all things fucking holy, if you so much as think the name Sera Lafferty, I will fucking know about it, and I will come for you. I’ll find a hundred and one ways to cause you pain before I’m done with you, and she won’t be able to stop me next time.”

“Somehow, I can’t imagine a man like you knows what it is to love another human being,” she said. “I never said I was in love with her,” I fired back. God, the very fucking idea of something so preposterous. It was laughable. But still…the fact that she’d made such a statement irked me. “That’s interesting, though. You can imagine that Fix is in love with you?” She didn’t hesitate. “I know he loves me.” “What makes you think he and I are so very different? We’re both in the same line of work. We both have blood on our hands.” She stared at me. Stared through me. Her mouth remained firmly closed. “He and I share many similar attributes,” I continued. “If you know he’s capable of love, then it stands to reason that I would be, too.” “Fix keeps saying the same thing. He keeps saying you’re both so alike, but I see a world of difference. He isn’t shut down. He hasn’t shut the world out. His heart...” She paused. “He has a heart. Maybe you do, too, but you’ll never allow anyone to touch it. To find a home within it.”

“But first…why did you say that to me? Back in that stairwell. You told me I was the one who was no good for Fix.” I thought about leaving this particular question to eat away at her, but then I changed my mind. What would be the point? I smirked, placing my hands on the railing at the end of the gurney, leaning my weight against it. “Women like you are dangerous to men like us. Fix’s heart was probably just as dysfunctional as mine before he laid eyes on you. He was probably just as angry as me. And then you came along and took all of that away from him. You made him weak. You made him mortal again. Now, he’s no longer untouchable.” She processed the words—I could see her doing it. She appeared to consider her response carefully before she answered me. “And do you honestly think he would have it any other way? You think he would choose to go back to the way he was before he knew me, if he could?” The smile froze on my face. “I know he wouldn’t. And that is precisely why you’re dangerous. Because, once men like us fall into bed with women like you, the world could set alight and burn for the rest of time. Society could crumble and fall into ruin, we wouldn’t care, so long as you were safe.” Sera’s expression softened. She closed her eyes, breathing out steadily down her nose. “Then I apologize. I was wrong about you just now, Zeth Mayfair. You do know what love is. I can hear it in your voice. The only difference between you and Felix is that you’re just not ready for it y...

Fix gave me a sidelong look, smiling, the corners of his eyes crinkling. I’d been about to take another bite of my sandwich. I lowered it. “What?” “Nothing. I just never realized I’d fallen in love with a greaser is all. This is a badass car, Sera.” “I know. But I’m a badass. I deserve a badass ride. Count your lucky stars I’m even letting you drive it.” Fix smile wavered. “You are a badass. You’ve been a badass since that night at the motel.” I angled my head, wondering at the odd tone to his voice. “Does my badass status worry you or something?” “Quite the opposite. Your badass status compliments my totally-fucking-awesome-smart-and-sexy-as-fuck status quite nicely.” Asshole. I stuck my tongue out at him. “I’m just wondering if you’ve thought this through, that’s all. You don’t have to be so strong all the time. You’re allowed to be affected by things from time to time. You don’t owe her anything, Sera. Not one thing.”

“Jesus,” I laughed. “If whatever you want to say is causing you this much trouble, then might I suggest you don’t say it?” “It’s not causing me trouble. I’m just…I’m gonna ask you something, and I’m weighing up how badly I’m going to want to hurl myself off a bridge if you say no.” Oh fuck. Nooooooo. He wasn’t. He was not going to ask me what I thought he was going to ask me. I shot him a wide-eyed look, daring to take my gaze off the road for a split second in order to deliver it properly. “Don’t do it,” I whispered. He looked very serious. The joking twitch at the corner of his mouth was nowhere to be seen. “Why not?” “Because. If you ask, I’m going to say yes. And if I say yes, then everything will change.” “Like what?” I wrung my hands over the steering wheel, trying to settle the jittering bounce in my right knee that had just started up. “We’ll have to make plans. We’ll have to decide where to live. We’ll have to figure out if I’m going to sell my business. You’ll have to stop killing people—” “I’ve already stopped killing people.” He winked. “No, you haven’t!” “I didn’t kill Julia. And Monica’s shut down all of our accounts on the dark web. We’re officially offline.” “Until you need money.” “Tisk, tisk. You know I don’t take the money. You know I don’t need it, either. I’d be hurt if you weren’t so obviously shitting yourself right now.” “I—” I gaped, opening my mouth and then closing it again. “I am not shitting myself.” “You are. You’re being a coward.” I reached ...

“Why does it even matter? Like you said, it’s an archaic tradition that doesn’t even mean anything anymore.” Fix sighed as he put down his beer on the counter. Slowly, his smile faded. He took a deep breath as he crossed the kitchen and placed his hands in the small of my back. He smelled like fresh cut grass, and the dusk, and the back field where Amy and I used to play when we were kids. He smelled like happiness. “I used to see really dark, heavy, fucked up shit every day of the week back when I worked for the church. But not on Saturdays. Saturdays were fucking beautiful. They made me not hate the human race. I used to stand up there at the front of the church, and I used to look into the eyes of these two people who’d come to stand opposite me, and I would see the hope in their eyes. I would feel their love as it filled the building, and my fucking soul would ache because I knew you were out there. The other fucking half of me. And it seemed like the biggest tragedy of all time that we were never going to stand in front of a priest and knock him the fuck out with the brass-knuckled love we felt for each other. That we were never gonna look each other in the eye and fucking swear we were gonna protect each other and put each other first for the rest of time. “I’m not bound by the restrictions that denied me that possibility back then, so yeah. It matters to me. It matters to me, now you’ve given me hope. You make me not hate the human race. You’ve made me believe that ...