Wretched (Never After, #3)

by Emily McIntire

“A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.”

Grief is a weird thing. It’s the only emotion in the world people claim to understand yet treat as an inconvenience. “Time heals all wounds, Evie.” Spare me. Time heals nothing. Just gives things more space to grow and fester and rot.

Nessa always told me I was a slave to my impulses, so the least I can do is try to contain them. It’s her memorial Mass after all.

Yeah…grief is a weird thing. But so is anger.

I’m angry at Nessa for getting herself killed. And I’m angry at Dorothy for killing her.

“Why her?” A slow smile tips up the corners of his lips and he leans back in his chair. “Don’t you have a thing for pretty daughters?”

Honestly, I’m not even that attractive. Not compared to my sister’s delicate facial features, but throw a pair of tits in a man’s face and all the blood rushes to their dick instead of their brains.

“I don’t want to stalk you, pretty girl.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I want to fuck you.”

Quick and dirty and like he doesn’t want anything else but me.

“That’s it, pretty girl. Give it to me.”

when I shoot a bullet into the neck of Andrew the bartender three hours later in the back alley, watching his blood douse the cracked pavement while he drops the imitation drug in his hands and falls to his knees…all I can think of is how I wish I could have given Nicholas my name.

“God, don’t start that shit, Woodsworth,” Seth groans from beside me. “You know I can’t stand it when you ‘never mind’ like a woman.”

I’d have killed Dorothy years ago if it weren’t for the fact that it would devastate my dad, and while I don’t care much for people in general, family was everything to Nessa, so as a result, it’s everything to me.

See, what Dorothy doesn’t realize—what nobody else knows—is while our father may be the face of the family business, he’s not the brains. He needs me for that. So she may have his attention and get showered in his love, but she doesn’t truly have his favor. I do. And it starts right here, in my greenhouse full of poppies.

“There’s no one like family, Evie, and there’s no place like home. We have to stick together.”

“I bet the commissioner would fuck you too if he knew you were the mysterious Oz. He’d probably come just from the thought of being able to use you himself.”

“Tell me to sit and eat like a good boy, and I swear to fucking god I’ll do it.”

He doesn’t have much, but he does have the fucking audacity.

Physically, I’ve never wanted to throw someone down and fill them with my cock more, but mentally, she fills me with disgust.

How can someone so fucking beautiful be so goddamn bad?

“I want you to get down on your knees and lick my pussy like a good pup.”

She moans and I dive in immediately, because if I don’t get to taste her right now, I might fucking die.

“Give it to me, pretty girl. Show me how fucking filthy you are coming around the fingers of the man you claim to hate.”

“I bet you’d let me flip up your little skirt and pull down your panties right here, wouldn’t you?”

“I could bend you over the hood of your car and slide my cock deep inside you, right where everyone could see.”

“Don’t worry.” I smile. “He can still be your little lapdog, Dorothy. I’m not interested in training new bitches.”

“Jesus, pretty girl. You could ruin lives with a smile like that.”

“You don’t have to trust me, Evelina. But words are your safe space, the same way that they’re mine.” My fingers thread through his hair. “Let me be your calm in the chaos, pretty girl.”

“That’s right, pretty girl,” he groans. “Suck yourself off my tongue and see how good you really taste.”

“I’d kill them if they touched you. This is mine,”

He slips the tip of the gun inside me, the metal scratching against my opening, sending pricks of pain, and I’m coming, blinding lights shooting across my vision like fireworks.

I like the way you make me feel.” The corner of her mouth tilts. “Even when I’m trying to kill you?” I laugh. “Especially then. Gives me a reason to fuck the brat out of you.”

But if I’m her calm, then she is my chaos, and if I can’t live with her forever, then I don’t want to live at all.

I hate myself for loving you.” He takes a step closer. I stop moving, dropping my hands to my sides. “But I hate the thought of not having you more.”

I would pick her a thousand times over, even if it meant rotting in hell.

this doesn’t feel like home anymore. I don’t think I knew what home was until I found it in her.

“I didn’t know that I could love until you. And you’re not perfect, okay? You piss me off and you do things I never thought I’d be all right with, and you’re moody as hell. You’re actually the furthest fucking thing from perfect I’ve ever seen. But, Evelina…you’re perfect for me.”

“I don’t want you to forgive me right now. I just want to know you’re out there and there’s a chance. That one day, maybe we’ll meet again, and I’ll walk up to you and say I’m Nicholas Tennyson Woodsworth, my favorite color is blue, I hated school, and I am so fucking in love with you that I can’t imagine living in a world that doesn’t have you in it.”

And with that single smile, I know I’ve made it home.

“I’m so fucking in love with you, Evelina Westerly,” he cuts me off. I grin, rising up on my tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. “Every wretched piece?” He brushes the hair back from my face. “Every single one.”