Kill Switch (Devil's Night, #3)

by Penelope Douglas

Banks

I miss my girl

“I didn’t erase my brother to keep her safe so you could come along and fuck with us, too. I went that far, and I’ll do what I have to do again.”

He killed one person, making that self-defense. Make it a habit, and that becomes risk. He had lots to lose now.

And I almost laughed. Bet his dick grew another fourth of an inch off that big-boy threat.

Was Michael doing anything? Of course not.

This is what happened when you fell in love. You lost your nerve because you didn’t want to lose what had become more important.

She stared at me only a moment before realization dawned, and a smile spread across her face. She glanced at Kai, who looked at his wife curiously, and then back to me, digging out her cell. “For us?” she asked, looking excited. “Minutes.”

I love banks

Or do we do all the work and you just watch?

Banks planted a quick kiss on her forehead as she scrambled around her, giving her arms and chest smears of blood. “Love you. Mean it,” she chirped at Alex sarcastically and then looked up at me, smiling. I couldn’t help but give her one back. Like old times.

I love banks

We all broke into laughter again, picturing the sight, and my head was light and my stomach unknotted for the first time in a long time. I hadn’t laughed like this in a while.

Really happy, actually.

But they couldn’t forgive. And this couldn’t happen.

I didn’t want her to know I craved it. The sex would not become habit. It was a move in the game, and I needed to figure out my next one.

Three years in jail for doing something she wanted me to do.

I didn’t terrorize her. I never hurt her. I just wanted what I wanted.

“I thought I was in love. I was a naive, stupid kid. Do you know what it’s like to think someone loves you and then you find out you were nothing but meat?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

I knew what it was like to have horrible things being done to your body, and to watch it betray you and make you think you’re bad for liking it when you knew you didn’t.

I’d told her in the janitor’s closet seven years ago that I killed my mother. She thought I was talking shit. Now she knew.

“In the fountain when you were eight and I was eleven,” I told her.

“You’ll have my kids and be my woman and fuck me, because that’s what I want.”

“You’re different than them,” I whispered, pulling off her shirt to feel her tits against my chest. “Different than my friends. Different than Ari. Different than my parents, my sister, and every woman. You see everything.”

myself. “I told her the only way I could stay married to Ari for a year was if we were together as little as possible,”

“I told her that I wanted you,” I went on. “That you loved me, because there was no faking what happened in that fucking video, and I told her that I loved you, too, and I was sorry for stealing you the way I did, but it was the only way I could get close to you.”

“I told her that I never intended for anyone to see that video,” I admitted, “and I needed time. Time to convince you that you were mine and that you wanted to be mine. We just needed to be left alone.”

I married Ari to get into this house and because she was easy, but they all knew what I was really after.

That Winter and I were fucking in love, and we needed space to get through our shit.

But as hard as I was and as much as I wanted to strip her down and take full advantage of having the house all to myself with my sweet new little sister-in-law . . . this bitch sent me to jail with no hesitation and no regret.

“I love fucking you,” I told her. “There’s no struggle to connect in bed. No mystery with you.”

“It’s comforting how it’s always the same,” I said. “How all you cunts turn into sluts once you’ve got a good dicking.”

As if she finally understood . . . I was here to hurt.

CHAPTER 20

Maybe years down the road, when I was out of college, and she was older and away from her parents . . .

No, that wouldn’t happen, either.

About who I was and what I did to her these past few years. I didn’t ...

But unlike Winter, Rika I could hate, reminding myself what women were for.

I’d never see her. What if she stayed there after high school?

I didn’t want her in my head. I don’t want this. I wanted her to stay perfect.

But instead, I walked past the staircase, through the kitchen, and out the back door, locking it behind me as I left the house.

Hours later, I drove Michael’s Mercedes G-Class, his brother next to me, and Will and Rika in the back.

It was perfect. I needed this. I needed someone else. Someone who was nothing.

Nothing personal, kid. You’re just a distraction.

“You want him, don’t you?” I asked, playing with her. “Michael, I mean.”

She was sixteen. Did she really think she’d keep him entertained? Satisfied?

Like we’d fall in love just as we were starting to have fun?

“he wants you, too. He watches you. Did you know that?” I shot her a look in the rearview mirror. “Man, the look on his face when he saw you dancing tonight.”

“Yeah,” I went on. “He never gets that look over a girl. I’d say he was damn close to taking you home and popping that little cherry of yours.”

“He doesn’t like virgins. He never wants to be that important to someone, and it’s a lot less complicated to fuck people who know there’s a difference between sex and love.”

Boys will be boys, and she teased you, didn’t she? She wouldn’t let you have it, I heard my mother’s voice in my head.

Love always hurt. Sooner or later.