 
DIRTY

By Callie Hart

Copyright © 2018 Callie Hart

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written consent of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed "Attention: Permissions Coordinator," at callie@calliehart.com.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places and characters are figments of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. The author recognizes the trademarks and copyrights of all registered products and works mentioned within this work.
ONE

LIBERTY FIELDS

SERA

"Ma'am, I don't give a fuck what your GPS is telling you to do. The road's closed. We have power lines down all over the goddamn place and water up to our necks. Now turn around go back the way you came before I have your car towed."

The man wearing the high visibility vest, leaning in through the window of my rental, looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel. His name was Officer Grunstadt, and he'd eaten curry for dinner; I knew this because he'd been blasting me with his spicy breath while I'd been arguing with him about the state of the road up ahead for the last ten minutes. The twitch in his left eye was a recent display of his frustration. The rain had fogged up his glasses, and large, fat water droplets coursed down his face as he, once again, pointed back in the direction I'd just come from. "Liberty Fields is only thirty miles away. There are two motels there and a bed and breakfast, though I think the bed and breakfast was already fully booked the last I heard. You can figure out what you want to do tomorrow, once the storm's died down."

"I can't go back to Liberty Fields. I have to get to Fairhope, Alabama, in two days, or I'm going to miss my sister's wedding."

"I don't know what to tell you, sweetheart. Catch a flight."

"Every flight out of Rawlins and Laramie is canceled until further notice. I need to keep driving, officer. You have to understand, I—"

"I do understand, miss. I understand perfectly well. You're a pretty young millennial with a bad case of 'I always get my way.' You're not used to being told no, and you want me to break the rules. Unfortunately, I have a twenty-one-year-old daughter, and I'm used to all this..." He reaches out his hand, gesturing at my face, "...nonsense," he finishes.

Asshole. Rude, small town punk asshole. "Firstly, sir, please do not gesticulate in my general direction like I'm a piece of trash you found at the side of the road. Secondly, I am not a millennial. I'm twenty-eight years old. I'm a successful business owner. The reason why I'm successful is because I've worked my ass off, not because I've pouted, sulked, or convinced anyone to break rules for me. I know the storm's bad, but the winds are calming down, and Waze does say the road is open and clear just another mile up ahead. You have no idea what stresses I'm dealing with, or the consequences I'll have to face if I don't make it to this wedding on time. So just let me through the damn blockade."

Officer Grunstadt gave me a tight-lipped smile and pointed through my car, out the passenger window, to the other side of the road, where an overweight guy in a yellow plastic rain jacket was eating a sodden Subway foot-long. "See Jo over there? Jo gets four hundred dollars from the state to tow cars. That's why he comes and stands out here on nights like tonight, come hell or high water. If I wave Jo over here, it's gon' cost ya an extra two-fifty on top of that four hundred to get your car outta his lot, and that's after the twenty-four hour holding time is up. So, Miss...?"

"Lafferty," I said, sighing heavily.

"So, Miss Lafferty. Is sitting here, arguing with me worth six hundred and fifty dollars to you? Or would you rather just turn back, get dry, get a good night's sleep, and hope the fallen power lines have been dealt with by the time you wake up?"

God, this guy was a real piece of work. I forged a smile, digging my fingernails into the rental's steering wheel, begging myself not to say anything that would get me into trouble. It had happened before. "You're right, Officer Grunstadt. A night in a shitty motel does sound perfect right now. Thanks so much for your assistance."

The road back to Liberty Fields was narrow and winding, turning back on itself a hundred times before I even saw another car. The whole world seemed deserted. I'd tried to convince Grunstadt the wind was dying down a little, but the truth was it buffeted and rocked the car like crazy as I drove through the hammering rain; I had to focus to keep the thing from careening off the road and into the dark line of trees that bordered either side of the single-lane highway.

"Should never have left Seattle," I grumbled to myself. "Should have just stayed home and watched Shark Tank, for fuck's sake. Wyoming is the worst."

My sister and I had always wanted to road trip across country. Sixsmith, my father, had forbidden us from doing it, which made sense. Sixsmith hadn't wanted us driving off, because he'd known full well we'd never have come back. He would have had no one to torture and manipulate. He'd have had no one to cook his meals and clean his house. He'd have had no one to beat on when he came home drunk and bored.

So I'd waited. I'd waited until Amy was eighteen, a legal adult, before I'd packed up our bags, stole Sixsmith's red Chevrolet Beretta, and got us both the fuck out of Montmorenci, South Carolina, for good. We'd worked in bars and as temps in offices, scraping enough money together to go to community college. Amy had studied languages, and I'd studied business management. Once we'd completed our degrees, unbelievably, Amy had moved out to South Carolina with her boyfriend, Ben, and I'd relocated to Seattle with dreams of creating my own consulting firm. It hadn't been easy. There'd been many months when I couldn't make rent, and many months when I'd thought about giving it all up, becoming a waitress, and living from pay check to pay check. I'd thought about that a lot, but I'd stayed the course. My persistence had finally paid off six years ago, when I'd landed a huge corporate account with a private lender. After that, I'd had more clients than I knew what to do with. I'd had to take on three new members of staff just to cover the workload.

My H.R. department—namely a perma-harrassed woman in her late forties called Sandra—had insisted I take time off to drive to Amy's wedding. If only I could wrap my hands around Sandra's neck right now, I'd throttle her. It would have taken six hours to fly to Alabama. Maybe a couple of hours in a car on top of that to reach Fairhope. But now, here I was, after three days on the road, stuck in the middle of the biggest flash flooding the state of Wyoming had ever witnessed, instead of being tucked up, comfortable and warm in a fancy hotel.

Goddamnit.

As I pulled up outside the Liberty Fields Guest House and Artisan Art Gallery, I mourned the fact that the place certainly did not appear to be a fancy hotel. Fat lot of good my Hilton Rewards points were going to do me out here. The guesthouse looked like a derelict, abandoned farmhouse, perched on the side of the highway embankment as I pulled into the packed parking lot. My teeth rattled together as I traveled over a series of giant potholes, invisible in the near perfect darkness, and I swore colorfully under my breath. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want to be dealing with any of this. It didn't seem to matter what I wanted, though. The car rocked from side to side as I slid my arms into my thick winter jacket, preparing myself to face the weather. Through the windshield, the trees on the other side of the parking lot were bowed, their branches waving like outstretched arms, reaching for help. God, it looked fucking miserable out there.

Opening the car door, I swung my legs out, and my feet disappeared up to my ankles in frigid, inky black water. "Ffffffff—" I stopped myself from swearing. This night just couldn't get any better. Seriously.

There were so many cars parked haphazardly in the lot that I had to walk a solid hundred and fifty feet to reach the dimly lit entrance to the guesthouse. The rain seemed to come down harder as I half ran toward the building, my teeth grinding together. I had no idea rain could actually be this cold. Shit, I needed to get inside. I needed to get inside. The rust-flecked handle on the front door of the motel threatened to fall off in my hand as I yanked on it. A blast of heat hit me in the face as I hurried through the entranceway, and strains of Jonny Cash's 'I Walk The Line' flooded my ears. The left-hand side of the lobby wall was fitted out with a stand—the same kind of stand you'd find in any normal hotel, where local businesses and tourist attractions advertise themselves—but the slots on this stand were all notably, depressingly empty. Liberty Fields was a black hole in the center of the State of Wyoming, zip code: nowhere.

The motel lobby smelled like damp and mildew. A puddle the size of Lake Michigan had collected in front of the rickety looking front desk; it was impossible to avoid the vast body of water as I made my way to the counter to ring the brass bell. Not that it mattered, of course. My feet were already soaking wet, right along with the rest of me. I hit the top of the bell for service, and nothing happened. No sound. No cheerful, inviting, I-need-help chime. Nothing.

"For fuck's sake." I looked around, searching for the night manager, but no one was to be seen. I leaned over the counter, hunting, hoping and praying for a savior to come along and tell me they had a secret, exclusive retreat out back that I hadn't noticed on my way in, but all I found were stacks of rotting newspapers, a metal dog bowl with food encrusted around its rim, and a mouse trap butted up against the wall. Very encouraging indeed.

On the other side of the lobby, I spied a public payphone. Pulling a handful of quarters out of my jeans pocket, I took advantage of the opportunity and I called Amy.

"God, Sera. It's nearly two in the morning," she groaned when she picked up.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry. I just—fuck—I'm still stuck in the middle of nowhere. I have another twenty-four hours to drive, and it looks like tomorrow's going to be a complete wash out. I don't know if I'm going to make it." In my experience, it was better to rip the Band-Aid off as quickly as possible, especially with Amy. She was hardly a no-nonsense woman, but if you strung things out with her, she tended to get a little hysterical.

"What do you mean, you don't know if you're going to make it?" Her voice was a little groggy when she picked up a second ago, but now it was sharp with accusation and worry.

"There's a huge storm, Amy. The roads are all closed. I'm stranded in Liberty Fields."

"Liberty Fields? Where the fuck is Liberty Fields?"

"I—god, I don't know. It sucks, though. I can tell you that much."

Behind me, the guesthouse door chimed, and a loud groan drowned out Johnny Cash for a second. I glanced over my shoulder, hopeful that it was the night manager entering the building, but when I saw the guy who stooped through the doorway to enter the place, I immediately knew he didn't work here.

A creature like that simply didn't exist in a place like this. Tall. Square jaw, lined with a swathe of black stubble. Bright, intelligent eyes—so damn pale, like quicksilver—traveled over me as the newcomer took in the lobby. The black suitcase in his hand appeared to be designer. Definitely not something a night manager would be carrying around with him. He looked like a character right out of Reservoir Dogs. Our eyes met, and there was absolutely nothing. No greeting smile from a fellow, weary traveler. No relief at finding someone else waiting in the lobby. Absolutely no flicker of emotion whatsoever.

"Sera. You do know what'll happen to you if you're not here on Saturday, right? I will disown you and never speak to you again." Amy's voice rattled down the phone. I turned back around, pressing the receiver harder against my ear.

"Yes, yes. Disowning. Eternal silence. I'll do everything in my power to make it, I promise."

"Don't promise me you're going to try! Promise me you're going to be here!"

"Okay! I promise. If I have to get up in two hours and break through the road cordons, I'll make sure I get there. How's Ben?"

"I don't know. Drunk?" Amy said pathetically. "Who has their bachelor party two nights before the wedding?"

"Hmm. I'm sure he's fine," I replied. I wasn't really paying attention, though. The guy who'd just entered the guesthouse was standing at the front desk, and he was about to ring the bell.

"It doesn't work," I told him.

His back was to me; he didn't turn around.

"Sera, we can push the ceremony back to later in the afternoon, but that's it. The weather's not going to hold into the evening. We have to make sure we're inside by five."

"I know." I pinched my brows, trying not to groan. "Everything will be perfect. Please don't stress."

I recognized the manic edge to my sister's voice. The vein in her temple would be visibly pulsing right now. "Oh, okay. My maid of honor's telling me she might not make my wedding, but I shouldn't get stressed. I'll just start popping those Valium Ben's dad pre—" The line crackled, and I couldn't hear Amy anymore. Static flooded down the line.

"Amy? Hey, Aim?" Nothing. The static grew louder, roaring, drowning out the thunderous rain hammering against the lobby windows. I pressed my forehead against the side of the payphone, slowly closing my eyes. Perfect. She was gone. No surprise, with the weather being what it was. I must have seen four or five downed telephone poles on the way into Liberty Fields. It was a miracle I'd even managed to make the call in the first place. God...

She was going to be freaking out so hard.

I turned away from the payphone, resting my back against the wall. The guy with the suitcase had moved away from the front desk and was stabbing at his cell like he was trying to force it into cooperating by sheer force of will alone. "Good luck," I muttered under my breath. "I had service until I turned around on the highway, then...poof! Gone."

The guy glanced at me sideways, and once again I was startled by the intensity of his pale blue, silvery eyes. His mouth lifted up at the corner into half a caustic smile. "You don't say?" His voice was the snarl of a chainsaw: rumbling, low and raw. He'd probably smoked a pack a day for fifteen years to get a voice like that.

If I hadn't already been frozen solid, I would have melted from the wave of heat that exploded across my cheeks. Turned out Mr. Black (as I'd named him in my head) wasn't so friendly. He slid his phone into his pocket, straightened his spine, allowed his head to tip back, and then cracked his neck.

He looked like he was about to say something else, then apparently thought better of it. He rubbed his hand through his dark, wet hair, sending a shower of water droplets up into the air. He was dressed head-to-heel in black, nothing too out there or ostentatious, but it was clear the plain shirt and the plain pants were brand name. His shirt was soaked at the shoulders, and his leather shoes were splattered with mud, but other than that he was very well turned out. His facial stubble wasn't due to neglect. It was the perfect length—not too long, and not too short. His neck and his throat were trimmed neatly, too, showing that he obviously took care of his scruff on a daily basis.

The men in my line of business were a little more showy with their wealth, their clothing, and their personal hygiene. A couple of the guys at the law firm opposite my offices had even started wearing makeup, believe it or not. I certainly had not believed it when Sandra told me she'd found a guy touching up his eyeliner in the elevator mirror one morning. It had taken seeing the exact same guy, doing the exact same thing, a couple of weeks later for the idea to really take root in my mind.

Mr. Black definitely wasn't wearing any eyeliner. His eyelashes were dark enough already, inky against the paleness of his skin. Perfect, really. The kind of eyelashes a woman would lynch a sales rep at Sephora for. I quickly glanced away when he turned to face me. Had he noticed me looking? Fuck, I hoped not. That really would have been the perfect way to end an already shitty day: busted checking out a particularly cold, frosty character in a crappy motel lobby.

"You're in the doghouse, then," the guy said. Once again, his unique, devastatingly deep voice caused a relay of electricity to run up and down my spine, lighting up my nerve endings.

"I beg your pardon?"

He pointed an accusatory finger at the payphone.

"Oh. Oh, right. Yeah. My sister. Her big day's on Saturday."

"And you're stranded in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a giant rain storm."

"Yeah. Bad luck, I know."

He shrugged, scratching at his jaw. "Or bad planning."

I'd been told in the past that my death stare could literally eviscerate a man at twenty yards. Mr. Black didn't wither and die under the weight of my cold look, though. If anything, he seemed to be enjoying the attention. I buttoned my lip, choosing to ignore his barb. Yeah, sure, I could have made better arrangements. I could have checked the weather ahead of time. I could have used common sense and caught a goddamn plane, and yada yada yada. Just because he was right and I did land myself in this particular predicament through my own lack of foresight, didn't mean he got to chide me like I was a complete moron. But I could take the high road. I could be the bigger person and not sink to bickering with a stranger.

"You're upset," he offered.

I flared my nostrils, exhaling slowly down my nose. "I'm fine. I just want to get a room, get some sleep, and get out of this shit hole. Just like you, I'm sure."

Mr. Black laughed silently, propping his black suitcase up against the threadbare, heavily stained couch that had been positioned beneath the large picture windows by the front door.

"Not at all. I plan things very well," he informed me. "I'm right where I need to be."

"You came here on purpose?"

I was met with stony silence and a flat, indecipherable stare. "Liberty Fields is an historical landmark. Why not?"

I'd been out of the habit of rolling my eyes for well over a decade, but I felt prompted to give the ceiling tiles a once over in this instance. This guy was something else. He was baiting me, being difficult on purpose, and it didn't look like he was going to quit any time soon. "All right, buddy. Well, I hope you have a stellar Hicksville vacation."

"I'm here for work, actually."

If this conversation had been a text message, I'd have given him the big blue thumbs up by now. Being passive aggressive was a nuanced art, and far easier via emoji, especially when you didn't actually want to start a fight with someone. Mr. Black didn't seem to care that he was being kind of hostile, though, so why the hell should I? "Let me guess. Playing in an emo 80's cover band? Vampire coven gathering? Tarantino cos-play convention?"

Mr. Black's smile was cool and unruffled, though he seemed to be spitting sparks of ice from his eyes. His irises were the color of winter. The color of early morning skies in February. They reminded me of being very, very small. Smoke on my breath and stiff, unresponsive fingers. Stomping my thick rubber soled boots against hard-packed snow, trying to regain feeling in my toes.

It was amazing how visual or auditory cues affected me sometimes. I could be waiting in line to buy popcorn at the movies, and then the next second I was being dragged backward through time, to fifteen years earlier, when my very first boyfriend tried to make me touch his dick in the back of his pick-up truck.

Every time I saw the ocean in person or even on TV, I immediately smelled the peachy, light, fragrant scent of my mother's perfume, instead of the briny, salty sharpness of the water. My mind played tricks on me all the time.

"I'm a hitman. I took a job here in town," Mr. Black said nonchalantly. He ducked down, unzipping his suitcase, and pulled out an iPad, which he turned on. The white flare of the screen as it powered up briefly lit up his face before it dimmed. I jabbed my fingernail into the rubbery seam that ran down the side of the public payphone, considering his last statement.

"I hear it pays well. Being a hitman."

"It does." He was distracted, not really paying attention.

"So, you roll up on a dark and stormy night. You secure a base for yourself. Then you sneak across town while the place is in chaos, and you..." I made a gun out of my hand, pretending to take aim, "...pull the trigger."

"Pretty much. Something like that. Though, I'm going to wait until morning. Roads aren't safe right now. Wouldn't want to end up being responsible for an accident or something."

That made me snort. "So you're going to kill someone, but heaven forbid you cause an accident while you're at it."

"If I'm gonna kill someone, it's because I'm being paid to do it. Not because the roads are treacherous and I can't control my vehicle."

Wow. This guy was good. He didn't even flinch as he spoke of murder. Most people wouldn't have been able to keep up the pretense. They would have laughed, or winked, or pulled a face, but not this guy. He lied as if he was speaking the truth. Looked like he believed it one hundred percent.

The lobby entryway opened, and a blast of wind howled through the door, pelting the couch and the small, peeling veneer coffee table with rainwater. A short, rotund, sour looking man wearing a cheap, plastic waterproof poncho bustled inside, swaying a little as he fought to get the door closed behind him. Mr. Black didn't help him, but then neither did I. We both just watched as the strange, oddly shaped figure belted the bottom of the door with his booted foot, slapping his palms against the doorframe, as if he were trying to reshape the woodwork with his bare hands.

"Stupid...fucking...motherfucking..."

The door closed, and the man stopped swearing. He turned around, panting, his wide frame shuddering as he looked from me to Mr. Black and back again. His eyes were a watery blue—inconsistent and weak—and his cheeks were marked with a spider web of ruptured blood vessels and thread veins. "You're outta luck," he said, slurring a little. Shoving away from the entrance door, he pushed himself forward toward the front desk, as if he needed the momentum to help get himself there. "No more rooms!" he cried. Instead of raising the hatch in the counter, walking through and lowering it behind himself again, he ducked down and scurried underneath it, growling unhappily as he struggled to heave himself upright on the other side. I crossed the lobby and leaned against the desk, being very careful not to raise my voice.

"I'm sorry. There are rooms available. Your vacancy sign's lit up in the parking lot."

"So what? Sign's always lit up, no matter what." The man, in his late fifties and reeking like a stale bar rag, flashed me a yellow smile rotten enough to turn my stomach. "Besides, I ain't had no time to turn the damn thing off. I been run off my feet, checking you people in and out all over the place. Don't know if you're comin' or goin', none of you."

Mr. Black appeared beside me and leaned across the counter, taking something from the night manager's hand: a long, scuffed, brass fob attached to a dangling key. On the brass fob: the number twenty-seven. "So you do have a room," Mr. Black said, holding up the fob.

The night manager tore the cheap plastic poncho over his head, exposing a broad section of dimpled belly fat as his shirt rose up; he growled under his breath as he wadded up the waterproof poncho and tossed it into the overflowing trashcan behind him. Above his left shirt pocket, the name 'Harold' had been stitched in black thread.

Harold staggered a little as he turned to face Mr. Black. "I ain't checked that key back into the system. So, no. It ain't free." He lunged to snatch the key back, but drunk as he was, he ended up grasping at thin air and nearly hitting the counter face-first. Mr. Black cleared his throat, flipping the key over in his hand.

"How much to expedite the process of securing this room from you, Harold?"

"Hey! I was here first. If anyone's gonna bribe him for the room, it's going to be me." I was far more successful in wrenching the key from Mr. Black's hand. The handsome stranger standing next to me didn't see me coming, or maybe he didn't expect me to hurl myself at him. Either way, I yanked the key from his grip and shoved it into my pocket, hurling a vicious look at him, just in case he was thinking about trying to get it back.

With the strangest expression on his face, he whispered a word that made my blood run hot and cold at the same time. "Hellcat." His entire body pivoted to one side, away from me, as he curled a finger, motioning for Harold to lean in and speak with him. "I probably have way more money than her. What's it gonna be, cowboy?"

Harold, clearly a little discombobulated, just frowned. "The room's forty-nine ninety-nine for the night."

Mr. Black smirked. "Yeah. But if you give it to me, I'll pay you two hundred."

God, what a bastard. "I'll give you three hundred, Harold."

Mr. Black huffed down his nose, his smirk now a full-blown smile. "Five hundred, Harold. And a box of Cuban cigars. The good kind, not the cheap shit you can buy at customs."

Harold's eyes had glazed over a while back. He didn't seem to be taking any of this in. I grabbed hold of Mr. Black by the arm and tugged him forcefully away from the check in desk. "Look. You heard me on the phone just now. I have to get to my sister's wedding in Fairhope by Saturday. If I let her down, I'll break her damned heart. I'm the only member of family she'll have at this stupid fucking ceremony. Now, please... I need to drive out of this dump first thing in the morning, and to do that I need to fucking sleep. Please! Just let me have the fucking room!"

"You know you say fuck a lot?" he whispered, leaning into me, as if imparting a piece of information I might not yet be aware of. His snowstorm eyes flashed at me, filled with amusement.

"Lady, what's your name?" To my left, Harold scratched at his temple with the chewed end of a ballpoint pen. Oh, thank god. The guy had seen reason. I'd been the first person waiting for a room, so therefore I got it. Fair was fair. I breathed a sigh of relief, releasing my grip on Mr. Black's arm.

"It's Sera. Sera Lafferty.

Harold stuck out his tongue, his brow furrowing as his hand weaved toward what looked like a guest ledger. I risked a victorious sidelong smirk at Mr. Black, but I wasn't rewarded by a look of dismay plastered across his face. The bastard was still smirking, himself.

"And you. What...?" Harold hiccupped. "What's your name?"

"Felix Marcosa."

Of course his name was fucking Felix Marcosa. It suited him down to the ground. What an asshole. Harold obviously agreed with me. He groaned, shook his head, and then scribbled something sideways in the ledger. "I entered you into our state-of-the-art database as Mr. and Mrs...." Hiccup, "...Jones. Twenty-seven's got two beds. Figure it out. Now..." He squinted at me and then at Felix, narrowing his eyes. "What did we agree? Three hundred from you," he said, pointed at me. "And five hundred from you. Plus...a box of Cuban cigars."

Felix Marcosa wasn't smiling anymore.

But then again, neither was I.
TWO

HOW PEDESTRIAN

FIX

A person's hands tell most of their stories. You can learn a lot about someone by simply studying the wear and tear to their hands. As Sera Lafferty lugged her bag down the flooded walkway toward room number twenty-seven, her knuckles were blanched. I noticed the two deep, perpendicular scars that ran across the back of her right hand, silvery and smooth under the bright, white security lights. The scars were defensive wounds. Would have bled a lot. There was every chance her tendons had been severed given the placement of the scars, which would have meant months of excruciating, time consuming physical therapy. She'd been lucky she hadn't completely lost the use of her hand altogether.

What did Sera's scars tell me about her, other than the fact that she'd been assaulted at some point? They told me she was a fighter. They told me she was fierce. I made a number of deductions as I followed close behind her toward the room, my shoulders hunched up around my ears against the rain.

One: Sera Lafferty's attacker was someone very close to her. Someone she knew very, very well.

Two: Ever since she'd been attacked, she'd spiraled out of control, allowing herself to stumble blindly from one dangerous situation to another.

Three: If I wanted to, I could fuck her and slit her throat tonight, and she probably wouldn't even care.

Not that I'd do that, though. I didn't rape women.

When we reached the green-painted door with the gold two and seven etched onto it, Sera slid the key into the lock and tossed an irritated look at me over her shoulder. "Guess you're not as good at planning as you thought you were," she snapped. "You'd have booked a room ahead of time if you were."

"I'm right where I'm meant to be," I said, echoing my words from before, back in the lobby. If only she knew...

Sera didn't notice my repetition. Or, if she did, she didn't say anything about it. Most women in her position would have screamed and pleaded with Harold at the front desk, begging to be allocated the room on their own. If that hadn't worked, other women would have cursed me out, thrown up their hands and gone and slept in their car for the night. A car was a safe, metal box, studded with locks. A car was easily defensible. It had a loud alarm and flashing lights. But Sera simply scowled at me, shrugged, handed over three hundred dollars to Harold, then hurried out to her car to collect her bags.

The inside of room twenty-seven was pretty goddamn miserable. There were two beds, just as Harold had claimed, but they were clearly about thirty years old and heavily sunken in the middle. Both of them were as bad as each other. The walls used to be white at some point. Or maybe...peach? Now they were a scuzzy nicotine-stained yellow, and the air buzzed with the stench of old cigarettes. In the corner, an old television with a dial to change the channels sat on top of an old, scratched dresser, the top drawer of which was missing.

Sera didn't seem to notice any of it. "I'm taking the bed closer to the door," she announced. "If you don't like it, you can go ask for your money back and sleep on that couch in the lobby."

"The other bed's fine." I hefted my suitcase up and slung it onto the mattress, surprised when the whole bed didn't collapse under the weight of the bag.

"Jesus, what have you got in there?" Sera mumbled. "Bricks?"

"Guns," I corrected. "Lots and lots of guns." Being honest was one of my favorite games. It was far more entertaining to tell someone the truth and let them make of it whatever they chose than to fabricate some boring, fake life. Sera, like most people I told the truth, thought I was being ridiculous and decided to mock me for it.

"Oh, right. Because you're a hitman, and you have to kill someone in town tomorrow. Silly me. How could I forget?"

She was beautiful. Beautiful in an unconventional way that didn't meet any of my usual requirements. For me to find a woman attractive, she usually had to be short and petite. She had to have long hair, either red or blonde, and blue eyes. She had to be submissive and pretty damn quiet, too, unless we were in bed. In that case, she could be as loud as she damn well pleased.

Sera was a brunette, her hair cropped into an edgy, shoulder-length style that was longer at the front than it was at the back. Her eyes were dark, dark brown, filled with intelligence and suspicion. She was close to five-nine, though in her heeled leather boots, she nearly stood as tall as me at six-one, and as far as the submissive thing went...I could already tell there was no hope of that ever happening. She was forged in the fire, this one. There wouldn't be any cooling her or calming her down. If she were one of my grandfather's horses back on his farm, he would have eyed her for a second or two, paced around her, looking her up and down, and then declared she needed cutting loose. He wouldn't have even bothered wasting his time trying to tame her.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't turn the television on," she said, unzipping her own bag. "I'm a light sleeper."

"Naturally. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't get your makeup all over every single towel in the bathroom. I'm allergic to all the weird crap they put in that stuff."

Sera huffed as she pulled a blow dryer out of her bag, winding the cable around its handle. "Fair enough. But there's no weird crap in makeup. You don't need to be an ass just because I asked you not to do something."

"Bird shit."

"What did you just say?"

I pulled back the sheets on my bed, inspecting them for any suspect stains. So far, all was clear. "Bird shit. They put that in some makeups and moisturizers. As well as snail secretions. And baby foreskins."

Sera dropped her blow dryer onto her pillow, rounding on me, hands on her hips. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Look it up. All those magical creams, powders and potions you smear onto your skin every day? They're fucking gross. But who cares, so long as they hide the cracks, right?"

Her face darkened to the point where I could almost see the thundercloud hovering over her head. "I don't have any 'cracks.' And also, they do not put baby foreskins in makeup."

"All right. If you say so." I took a shirt out of my bag, then removed my shoes and began picking at the mud that was crusted around the sole. How long was it going to take her to react? Three minutes? Five? 'All right. If you say so,' was probably the most incendiary thing a man could say to a woman. They couldn't fucking stand it. With her fiery temper, it wouldn't be long now before Sera was ripping her own shoes from her feet and throwing them at me.

Instead, as if she knew what I expected her to do and was determined to prove me wrong, she sat slowly in a chair and began humming softly.

I grabbed my wash bag, a set of clean, dry clothes, and headed into the bathroom.

"What are you doing?"

I glanced back at her over my shoulder. "Showering." I smiled my most inviting smile. The one I used to coerce women into my bed. The one that never failed to work. "Care to join me?"

Sera pulled a disgusted face, apparently immune to the smile, right along with the disreputable glint in my eyes. "I'm not in the business of showering with perfect strangers."

"This place is probably running on a generator. Who knows when the hot water's going to run out," I countered.

"I'll take my chances."

"Suit yourself." I closed the bathroom door and locked it behind me. Of course she wasn't going to shower with me. It was fun fucking with such an uptight person, though. Sera carried herself with confidence. She knew she was attractive, and there was nothing wrong with that. First meetings with women like her, sexual or otherwise, were always a power struggle, however. She wanted to assert her dominance over me, and I was damned if I was going to let her. The moment I gave in and bowed down to her, worshipping her for the goddess she was, she'd no longer respect me. Or the idea of me. Whenever a man and a woman met for the first time, it was human nature for both of them to imagine some reality in which they were fucking, regardless of their marital status, desires or inclinations. If you showed me a person who claimed otherwise, I'd show you a liar. I wasn't having her imagining she could dominate me in the bedroom. So baiting her, refusing to be the simpering, weak gentleman she's probably used to, was just par for the course.

I turned on the shower, wrestling out of my wet clothes, and then, naked, I studied my face in the mirror, rubbing my hand across my jaw to see if I needed a shave yet. I usually avoided mirrors at all costs; I had my father's eyes—hard to fucking miss—and my mother's nose. My mouth was my father's, too. What would they both think of me now? The life I'd chosen for myself. The steeply inclined, slippery as fuck path I'd begun descending straight down into hell.

Thankfully, I'd never know their shallow opinion of me. The priest and his obedient homemaker wife were both long gone. St. Peter must have alerted the media the moment my parents arrived at the pearly gates, shortly after plowing into the back of an articulated truck one frosty, dark October night in Upstate New York. If anyone had been guaranteed VIP entry into Heaven, it was those two. They'd been poster children for the Catholic Faith their entire lives. And I was their biggest disappointment.

I scowled at the pieces of Eric and Louisa Marcosa staring back at me in the mirror, defying them in the only way I still had left available to me. My image slowly disappeared, eaten up by the steam from the hot shower that gradually fogged the glass, and the ghosts fled the bathroom, leaving me standing stripped bare and very much alone.

I showered, thinking hard. I had two jobs on my books, and neither one of them was going to be pretty. Tomorrow's job was gonna be really shitty. I'd already accepted the payment, so I couldn't back out of the job, but the more and more I thought about it, the less and less I wanted to dirty my hands with the work.

The guy, Franz Halford, owned an auto mechanics' shop on the other side of Liberty Fields—had inherited it from his grandfather about twenty years ago. No wife. No children. Just a pile of bad debt and a racist streak a mile wide. I always made a point of investigating why my clients wanted their targets dead—due diligence was important. Crucial in my line of work—and this instance had been no exception. When I'd reviewed Franz Halford's file, going over the paperwork that had been supplied to me, explaining why the world would be a better place without Franz Halford in it, it had been a pretty clear cut case, as far as I could see. Franz had raped a young woman. A twenty-year-old college student by the name of Holly Shoji. And he hadn't raped her because he thought she was attractive (though she was), or because she blew him off in a bar one night when he was drunk and making a fool of himself. He'd done it because she was Japanese, and Franz Halford didn't like Japanese people. He didn't like anyone unless they were white.

My own skin was pretty damn Caucasian, but I had Spanish heritage. My great-grandparents on my father's side were both from Altea, a tiny coastal town in the south of Spain, but they'd come over to America just before the start of the Second World War in search of a new life. Ridiculously, I'd had issues with people in the past. When they heard my family name—usually the only clue that I wasn't pure as the driven snow—they'd cast a derisive glance over me, looking for the tell: the set of my features, or my height, or an accent that would set me apart from them, marking me as different. I despised the motherfuckers who looked at me like that. I usually wanted to cleave their head from the base of their neck, which was why accepting a racist as a mark was a horrific idea. I'd been heavily involved in this line of work for the past five years. The only time I'd ever come close to being caught by the authorities was in a situation very similar to this one; a young girl had been kidnapped by a group of Clan members in the middle of bum fuck nowhere, Tennessee. I'd laid the place to waste, taking my time torturing each and every one of those sick pieces of shit for the brutal acts they'd committed to that fifteen-year-old girl's body. I'd broken my own rules and stayed in that dingy, dirty rat-infested warehouse too long, and when I burned out of there in one of their stolen cars, I'd barely missed the fleet of cop cars that rolled up on the place only moments later.

God only knows what they had made of the chaos and destruction they found when they threw up those roller shutters and saw what was inside. They probably still had nightmares about it.

The shower water was scalding, but that didn't seem to have helped the temperature inside the bathroom when I stepped out of the tiled cubicle. The air was frigid, biting at my skin, and I hurried to get dry as quickly as possible. While the rest of my body was suffering from borderline hypothermia, my dick didn't seem to have noticed the cold. I had a raging hard-on that was becoming difficult to ignore. I glanced down at it, contemplating stroking it for just a second, but then I decided against it. There was no such thing as just a second when it came to jerking off—I either completed the task at hand, or I didn't start it in the first place—and I didn't have time to be touching my cock. Not with Sera sitting on the other side of the bathroom door. She was the reason I had a fucking erection in the first place. She seemed smart as well as beautiful, and it wouldn't take much for her to figure out what the hell I was doing in here if I didn't come out fairly soon.

Once dressed, I left the bathroom, rubbing at my damp hair with a towel. Sera pursed her lips as she looked up at me over the top of a book. She'd moved from the chair and was now lying on her bed, propped up against a stack of lumpy looking pillows. "Your cell phone's been blowing up," she said, curving a dark eyebrow at me. "Who, or what, is a 'Fix'?"

Well, well, well. She'd looked at my phone? I curved an eyebrow right back at her. "Naughty girl. You make a habit of invading the privacy of total strangers?"

"I did no such thing. Harold from the front desk called while you were primping and preening in there. He asked me to give you a message. He said, a woman called Monica called, and said..." Sera cleared her throat, closing her book and laying it on top of her chest. "'Fuck you, Fix. You're already late. If you don't come home soon, I'm coming to find you."

Urgh. Monica. What the hell was she doing, calling the motel? I'd only told her where I was so she'd quit calling me every five seconds. Now she had the name of the place I was staying, I'd simply given her another avenue through which to harass me, apparently. And Harold shouldn't have given a message meant for me to another guest, but then again Harold was fucking useless and didn't know his ass from his elbow, so...

I collected my cell from the night stand beside my bed, and sure enough I had six missed calls from Monica, alongside a collection of colorfully worded text messages that would have made a sailor blush.

"You still haven't answered my question," Sera said loftily.

"Hmm?"

"Fix?"

I laughed, sliding my phone into my back pocket. "Felix. Fix. I'm Fix. That's what some people call me." If they knew I murdered people for a living, that's what they called me, anyway. Five years ago, I'd made a decision. I'd stood in a hospital, covered in blood, hands sticky with it, and I'd decided that there was no justice in the world. I'd decided to rectify the situation. I'd set Felix aside, and I'd become Fix.

Since that night, I'd spend every waking moment searching for the bastard who'd hurt the woman under my care. I hadn't found him yet, but I had a long fucking memory. I wasn't about to give up any time soon.

"A verb as a nickname. How pedestrian," Sera mused, lifting a glass to her lips. Her tone was a little mocking, but I could see she was intrigued. She probably wanted to know who Monica was. She probably wanted to know what I was eight days late for. Shame I wasn't going to tell her. The amber liquid in her glass caught the light as Sera tipped it back, taking a healthy swig.

"That's a healthy pour. You plan on driving with a hangover tomorrow?" I said.

She laughed softly, shaking her head. The glass was now empty. "I learned how to throw back tequila when I was fourteen-years-old. I can drink most people under the table. Haven't had a hangover in years."

God. If I were any kind of asshole, which I was, this was the moment I'd offer to test out that theory. I wasn't about to fulfill whatever expectations she'd clearly formed of me, though. Sera and I were still playing our little game of who's in control here? And I didn't lose that motherfucking game. Ever.

"I can leave the room if you need to return all those phone calls," Sera said. Her voice was interesting—a little huskier than most women, which was a nice change. I'd had enough of nasal, high pitched, whiny girls to last me a lifetime. The tequila had probably set a rough edge to her tone, but I wasn't complaining; it was sexy as fuck.

"Thanks. I'm good."

"Ah. So you're a player. You're going to keep little Miss Monica waiting."

Ha! Keeping Monica waiting? That was a fucking riot. I smirked, laying down on my bed. "You want to know if I'm fucking her."

A scandalized look flashed across Sera's face. She had a faint scar running along her jawline that I hadn't noticed before. The silvery line of healed tissue was narrow, no wider than the blade of a knife, and must have been expertly stitched, because it was barely visible. I probably wouldn't have noticed it had she not dramatically reacted to my statement.

"I don't want to know that. I don't want to know anything. I'm merely making an observation."

I assessed her scar surreptitiously, only allowing my eyes to skate over it one more time before I raised my gaze to hers. You didn't get a scar like that accidentally. It was too long and straight and perfect to have been caused by anything other than a weapon. So Sera was interesting, after all. She wasn't just a prissy princess with a bad attitude. She had stories of her own to tell. Not that I was going to ask her to spill. That would make things complicated. That would be a point to Sera, and I was still keeping a weather eye on the leader board. "You're judging me," I said. "You're trying to figure out who I am."

A long pause followed, a small, shallow line forming between Sera's perfectly manicured brows. "And?" She sounded frustrated. "That's what people do when they meet other people. They form opinions of them. They try and decide if they like the other person or not."

"What does it matter if you like me or not? Why would it matter if I was the biggest asshole on the face of the planet? We're here for one night. Once tomorrow morning arrives, you're going your way and I'm going mine. You'll never see me again, and you'll have wasted all that precious time making decisions about me."

I could play this game forever. Sera stared at me for a drawn out second. All my life, I'd been told over and over again how confronting my eyes were. Too blue. Too cold. Too paralyzing. Too piercing. When Sera turned her warm, chocolate eyes on me, I finally began to understand what people were talking about. It wasn't that they were out of the ordinary, or even that remarkable for that matter, but the intelligence that existed in her eyes, shining out from her intricately painted irises, was enough to pin me to the mattress. Looking directly at her was like looking directly into the eyes of a tiger. There was so much happening behind the look, so much going on inside her head, and yet she managed to conceal it all so well. Still, I knew she was sizing me up. Trying to decide if she could take me on, one way or another.

Inhaling sharply, she sat up, breaking off our weird little staring contest. "You're right," she said, reaching for her purse. "I won't waste my time making any more decisions." Out of her bag came a bottle of Clase Azul Reposado tequila, which she set down on top of her comforter, leaning it against her leg so she could unscrew the top. Another considerable amount of the golden liquid went into her glass. She didn't ask if I wanted a drink. She just grabbed the other glass sitting on her nightstand and poured. "Here. Take it. It really is unimportant if I like you, but we do have to spend the next few hours holed up in this room together. We might as well attempt to make them as bearable as possible."

A series of potential outcomes flashed before my eyes as I reached over and accepted the glass of tequila: I drank with her, got wasted, and I woke up to an empty motel room, with all my hardware stolen; I drank with her, got wasted, woke up feeling shitty, and I allowed Franz Halford to get the jump on me when I paid him a visit at his auto-mechanics' tomorrow; and, my personal favorite, I drank with her, got wasted, and ended up fucking Sera's brains out.

This trip was a job, I reminded myself. I was here to take care of business. But how long had it been since I'd fucked anyone? At least three months. I was an attractive guy. No, fuck that, I was hot. Girls stopped their conversations when I passed them in the street. I was followed by double takes and open stares everywhere I went. I was a bad call. I was dangerous. I was a risk that should never be taken. I was the devil, and I wasn't even in disguise, but it didn't stop women from wanting to take the chance. I was selective, though. I didn't just sink my dick into the first available and willing, wet pussy, just because I could.

I took a sip of the tequila, relishing the burn that spread down my throat and into my chest, warming me from the inside. "This is nice. Expensive." Sera might have learned how to drink at a young age, but I'd had my fair share of tequila, too. This wasn't cheap and nasty; it was top shelf liquor.

"It was a gift for my sister," Sera said, considering the contents of her own glass. "We were supposed to drink it tomorrow night when I arrived, to celebrate her wedding. But since it looks like I'm going to be missing the ceremony altogether, I thought fuck it. Be a shame not to enjoy it."

"Sounds like you two are close."

She shrugged. She was tall, her frame strong, but the act of shrugging made her look small and fragile. "Sometimes you end up close to someone because you have no other choice. I used to take care of her, once upon a time."

Did she mean to let these small snippets of information slip? I was learning a lot about her just by sitting here, watching her, but her words told me even more about her past. The scar on her jaw was an act of violence. Her defensive attitude said she was used to protecting herself. And now she was telling me, perhaps inadvertently, that the childhood she'd shared with her sister was fraught with discord. I tossed back another mouthful of the tequila, and my phone buzzed in my pocket again. Damn it, Monica was on a mission tonight. I'd have to call her tomorrow or she really would set out to track me down. That would not end well, for me or for her.

Sera's mouth turned up at the corners, forming a half amused smile. "You think an awful lot for a pretty boy."

"Pretty boy?" I'd just met her. Most girls weren't comfortable teasing me about my looks until at least the fourth or fifth drink. Then again, I didn't usually find myself locked inside a seedy motel room with many women until long after that, and look at where we found ourselves now. "Am I not allowed to think?"

"It's been my experience that good looks aren't often married to intellect," she said.

"Great. We're making sweeping generalizations. I fucking love those. I guess you have an IQ of fifty-three, then. And you're a woman, so you're probably horrible at putting flat-pack furniture together. And you're a bad driver. And you love to shop and waste all your money on manicures and frivolous, sparkly shit. You probably have a wardrobe full of purses and shoes, and you take four hours in the morning to apply your makeup and straighten your hair."

She scowled. Drank. Scowled some more. "You know none of that is true. You wouldn't have said it otherwise."

"Maybe."

"You're the one with the designer suitcase, not me."

"I stole that off a dead man."

Her scathing expression said she didn't believe me for a second. "Come on. You're probably some sort of investment banker or something. Or a military brat. Although your haircut's too fancy for that."

"Thanks. Your hair looks like you've had rats nesting in it." I'd never been told I looked like an investment banker before. Someone claimed I looked like a mortician once, and even that was less offensive than investment banker. I came to Liberty Fields straight from another job, one where I had to look the part, so I could understand Sera making a few assumptions. The old adage, 'never judge a book by its cover', was so pointless. People always judged a book by its cover, and the cover Sera saw when I walked into that lobby earlier tonight was a polished, well turned out, very stylish cover. If she'd met me last week, when I was sporting a full beard and covered in dirt, head to toe in camo gear, she would have formed a very different opinion of me. She probably would have thought I was a survivalist nut with a nuclear bunker full of supplies underneath my house. She would never have agreed to share this room with me, that was for fucking sure.

Sera cocked her head to one side, her eyes narrowing into slits. She probably wanted to come across as assessing and severe, but that wasn't the outcome she achieved. Instead, she looked like a little girl who couldn't make up her mind. "I'm gonna go to sleep soon. Don't even think about trying to climb into bed with me. It's a sure fire way of getting yourself castrated."

"Please. You know you want to sleep with me, Sera Lafferty. You wanted to sleep with me the moment you set eyes on me."

A slow, frankly unnerving smile spread across her face. She was beginning to look like a woman who really would tear a guy's dick off for climbing into bed with her. "You have a very high opinion of yourself, Fix."

I grinned back at her, flashing her my teeth. "Of course I do. I'm really fucking awesome."
THREE

BAD ANGEL

SERA

"Just admit it. Admit it to yourself. What harm will it do? You saw me, you thought I was hot, and you wanted to fuck me."

Where did this guy get off? How could he be so arrogant and brash, without even a glimmer of humility? He was probably the hottest guy I'd ever crossed paths with, hotter than my ex, Gareth, by strides, but with great looks came great responsibility. He should have been humble about his appearance, but instead it seemed as though he'd never even heard of the term.

"Oh, come on. Don't look so pissy. I shoot from the hip," he said, grinning. "There's nothing wrong with taking what you want every once in a while."

"I want tequila," I told him, hefting the half-empty bottle in the air. "I want this stupid storm to end so I can get out of here. I do not want to fuck you." I wondered if that little speech had convinced him. I was fist pumping inside, because to my own ears I'd sounded like I meant it. For all intents and purposes, it was true. Fair enough, I couldn't keep my eyes off Fix. It was all fun and games, imagining what his hands would feel like all over my body, but I wasn't dumb enough to act on those thoughts. Fix grunted. Kneeling on the floor at the foot of my bed, his elbows resting on the edge of my mattress, he looked like he was about to climb up onto the damn thing and prowl toward me like a stalking panther.

"Where are you from?" he asked. The question was out of the blue.

"South Carolina. A tiny place called Montmorenci." I took a swig directly out of the tequila bottle.

"Did you hate it there?" he probed.

"Yes."

"Why?"

I hit the bottle again, then offered it to him. "What does it matter? I was born there. I left there. Now I live in Seattle. Where are you from?"

"Upstate New York. I live in Brooklyn now."

For some odd, unknown reason, it was a relief to know that Fix lived just about as far away from me as he possibly could. He drank, and I watched the muscles in his throat work as he swallowed. Damn, that was diverting. I had no business being turned on by such a simple action.

When he lowered the bottle from his lips, he asked, "What do your parents do?"

"I haven't spoken to my father in nearly ten years. My mother's dead. She used to work for a little insurance company. A little mom 'n' pop place. Dealt mostly with life insurance and agricultural liability."

"Sounds like a thrill a second."

Melancholy washed over me. I didn't think about Mom very often. She'd died when I was eight, so it seemed that the few memories I had of her faded more and more as I grew older. It seemed to me that one day I'd wake up and I wouldn't remember what her face had looked like at all. That eventuality was the saddest thing in the world to me.

Fix didn't seem perturbed by my somber admission. "How'd she die?"

"God, you ask a lot of personal questions. What about your parents? What do they do?"

"Both dead," he answered. "Car accident seven years ago. Happened the day before my thirtieth birthday." Not a twinkle of emotion. It was weird, as if he were completely shut off from what must have been a very traumatic event. Either that, or he just didn't care.

"Fair enough." I sighed. "Two dead parents trumps one dead parent. My mom had an aneurism. She was fine one minute, watering the garden. Yelling at me and my sister to come in for dinner. Next thing I knew, she'd keeled over in the grass, dead. When they completed the autopsy, the doctors said hers was the largest aneurism they'd ever seen, the size of Texas. Completely inoperable. They said she'd probably had it for years and never known. Walking around every day, oblivious, with a huge bomb waiting to go off in her head."

"Better that way." Fix said this as if it were a matter of fact. "She lived her life without worrying every time she needed to sneeze."

I'd spent a long time wondering if it was better that she hadn't known. Would Mom have done things a little differently if she'd been aware her time was limited? She might have pulled us from school, taken us on vacation, spent as much time with me and Amy as possible. She could have sent us to live with her friend Natalie in Utah. She used to talk to Natalie on the phone every day. Sixsmith liked to blame my mother's death for his raging alcoholism, but the reality was he'd started hitting the bottle a little harder then he should have a couple of years before Mom went. I liked to think Mom would have taken us away from him if she'd known the truth of what was going on inside her brain.

"Hmm. Well, it's all said and done now. That was a long time ago." I didn't want to think about Mom. I sure as fuck didn't want to think about Sixsmith.

I took another drink from the bottle, and my head started to buzz. I needed to be careful. I could drink people under the table, but I wasn't immune to hangovers. Tequila hangovers were the absolute worst.

Fix didn't say anything as he stood up, kicked his shoes off, and threw himself down next to me on my bed. I quirked an eyebrow at him. "Uh...what do you think you're doing?"

"I'm sure you like your guys servile and meek, Sera, but I'm not kneeling on the floor forever."

"Then go and lie on your bed."

He propped himself up on his elbow and leaned across my body, reaching for the tequila bottle—a pretty bold move for a guy who'd been more than a little frosty toward me in the lobby not that long ago. "How are we meant to pass back and forth if I'm all the way over there?" he said. His feral smile made him look particularly wolfish. This close, I could see the fine details of his face...and they really were fine. Strong jaw line; high cheekbones; long, curled eyelashes. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome, and he smelled heavenly. I wracked my brain, trying to pin down the scent to a single origin, but I couldn't do it. He smelled like winter mornings, and wet grass after rain, and clean sheets drying on a line. His breath smelled a little of the tequila we were drinking, but there was an underlying hint of mint. He'd probably brushed his teeth after his shower.

"You're staring," Fix rumbled.

"I don't have much choice. You're hovering over me so closely, you're filling my entire field of vision."

"Fair point. Can I kiss you now?"

"WHAT?" If he'd tried to kiss me without warning, I would have kneed him in the balls so hard he'd never be able to have children. Since he'd asked, though, I settled on sending him a look so scathing that it was a miracle he didn't flee the motel room and sleep on that couch in the lobby after all. "Why the hell would I let you kiss me? From the moment we met, you've been an asshole. We're complete strangers. We have nothing in common. You're just bored and looking for a way to pass the time. I'm not going to be your entertainment, okay? Guys like you are unbelievable."

"You've never met a guy like me before," Fix said, tilting his head a fraction to the left. "I'm unique. And who said anything about me using you for my entertainment? I'd rather you used me for your entertainment."

Seriously, this guy. He was striking, there was no denying that, but his arrogance knew no bounds. Unique? His eyes made him one of a kind, but the fact that he thought he could have me swooning over him because he got up close and personal with me made him just like every other guy I'd ever met. "Just...forget it, Felix Marcosa. I'll drink with you. I'll share this room with you. But that's it."

Fix sank back down onto the mattress, sighing. "My dick's pretty fucking phenomenal. You should see it. Grown women have been known to weep when they behold it." He drank from the bottle, long and deep, which was a blessing. Gave me a second to recover myself after that dick comment. I supposed a part of me was curious. He was a giant. His hands were like shovels—strong, powerful and calloused. Hands that had been used to build, create and destroy. What would they feel like on my body? Would their roughness be too much for my skin, or would it make my nerve endings sing with pleasure.

The last person I'd slept with was my ex, Gareth, close to six months ago now. Gareth's hands had looked nothing like Fix's. They'd been soft and well manicured—the hands of a pampered, spoiled rich boy who'd never done a hard day's work in his life. He hadn't known how to touch me. I'd faked an orgasm nearly every time we got into bed together. The times I hadn't faked an orgasm were the nights I'd simply been too tired to even pretend.

"I'm sure your dick is magnificent," I said, groaning under my breath. "I'm sure women across the country have carved wooden replicas of it that they worship daily. It's probably the most stunning cock to have ever gotten a boner. But I'm gonna pass this time."

Fix cracked his neck; the action made the muscles in his throat and in his left shoulder stand out. His shirt was tight enough that his chest muscles were straining against the material, too. The guy had muscles fucking everywhere. Maybe he was a professional athlete or something. A football or a hockey player. That would explain the attitude, if he had hoards of adoring fans chasing him down the street twenty-four seven.

He didn't seem fazed by the fact that I'd turned down his junk. Flopping back down beside me, he pressed the rim of the tequila bottle to his oh-so-perfect lips, up-ended it, and drank. "I think we should shoot the rest of this and kill it. We're already halfway through."

This was really irresponsible behavior. This was flirting with disaster in the biggest way. "Fine." I took the bottle and chugged.

The next hour passed by in a blur. At some point, I started feeling good. Really good. And then I just started to feel drunk, and missed the feeling good part.

My conscience kept whispering in my ear that I should get some sleep, that tomorrow was going to be a long day, but in the end even she began to slur her words and said what the hell. I never cut loose anymore. I was Little Miss Sensible, getting to sleep at a reasonable time, working after hours on my projects, cooking my own meals, and looking forward to Sundays, so I could clean and fold all my laundry.

Where had fun-loving Sera disappeared to? She'd gone out on the weekends with Sadie and gotten rip-roaring drunk, weaving arm-in-arm with her friend through the streets of Seattle, singing bawdy songs at the top of her lungs. She'd gone on adventures for the sheer hell of it. She'd gone kite surfing. She'd seen a guy she'd liked in a bar and made the first move, because she was confident and sexy, and she could be anyone she wanted to be, and do anything she wanted to do.

Now I searched myself, hunting high and low, and found no trace of that Sera left behind. She'd vanished, and no one had bothered to put up missing posters or tried to hunt her down, least of all me. "How old are you?" I asked Fix, peering at him over the top of the pillow I was now hugging to my chest.

"Thirty-seven," he replied. "You're..." He half-closed one eye, studying me. "You're twenty-eight."

"Yeah. Wow. I am. Most guys guess four or five years younger than they really think a woman is, just to stroke her ego. Does that mean you think I look thirty-three?"

"No. You look twenty-eight. I don't play stupid games."

"Pffftttt. Yeah, right."

"I don't."

"What was all that stupid, 'wanna see my cock' bullshit, then? That was a game if ever I saw one."

"I beg to differ."

"You were trying to fluster me. Make me all embarrassed and shy or some shit. Guys think women faint whenever they mention their dicks. It's hilarious."

"I said it because I meant it. I'll happily prove it."

I raised the nearly empty tequila bottle, tipping it in his direction. "Be my guest." He wasn't going to just whip his dick out right here and now. Even a smooth-talking, macho, big talker like him wouldn't just take down his pants and get his cock out. He didn't take those pale eyes off me as he unfastened his belt, though. Continued to stare at me as he unzipped his fly. And he maintained eye contact every second as he pushed his boxers down over his hips, and his cock sprang free.

Oh...my...god.

I'd asked for that one.

I wasn't looking. Hadn't dared look down to see what he was doing with his hands and his dick. I just held Fix's intimidating gaze, doing my damnedest not to react like a prudish little schoolgirl. "You're an asshole," I informed him. "You can put it away now."

"But you haven't even looked. I'll be offended if you don't take a quick peek." His grin was fiendish to say the least.

"Whatever." I gripped onto the tequila bottle so tightly that I suspected I wasn't far away from shattering the glass neck. I looked down, trying to act nonchalant, but I felt my cheeks explode with color the moment I saw what Fix was doing. Not only was he big, but both his hands were wrapped around the shaft of his cock, and he was slowly working them up and down. His dick really was stunning. I was sure plenty of women had swooned at the sight of it, because I was feeling rather impressed, and I didn't typically care what a guy's junk looked like, so long as he knew how to use it.

From the dark, sexual glimmer in Fix's eyes, I could tell he knew exactly how to use that thing.

"You really have no shame, do you?" I said, drinking to hide the blush that had stained my cheeks.

Fix looked down at himself; he sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and bit down on it, pulling it through his own teeth, groaning a little. He squeezed his dick in his hands, then let his head fall back onto the pillows. "Shame?" He laughed. "I know all about shame. I used to wrestle with that bastard every hour of the waking day. Now I don't have the time."

"Jerking off too much?"

Fix hissed out a breath of amused laughter. "Life's just too short for that kind of bullshit. I like being real. I like being honest, as much as I can be, especially with myself. Are you honest with yourself, Sera?"

"Yes."

"Then tell me...is watching me touch myself turning you on?"

I balked at the question. He really had no right asking me personal shit like that, but then again he didn't exactly have the right to be stroking his dick in front of me, either. I'd pretty much invited him to do that. I stole a glance down, my heart stalling for a couple of beats as I watched Fix tease the end of his cock. He was so fucking hard. He must have been hard even before he'd undone his pants and gotten his cock out. He twitched a little as he pumped his hand up and down, and a wall of heat slammed into me, stealing my breath. He was turning me on.

Watching him do this felt...wrong. Dirty. Immoral. But I couldn't tear my eyes away from him. I set my jaw, channeling a defiant streak a mile wide, as I said as evenly as I could, "Yeah. It's turning me on. You know it is."

Fix made an appreciative humming sound, low and gruff, as if it originated in his boots. He seemed pretty damn pleased with my response. "Are you wet right now?"

I downed another mouthful of tequila, grimacing as the bitter flavor bit at either side of my tongue, searing a burning pathway down the back of my throat. "Yes. I'm wet. It doesn't change anything, though. Things turn me on all the time. I don't give in to every single desire and whim that presents itself to me."

"Slide your hand down your pants, Sera. Touch yourself. Show me how wet you are."

Was he for real? I mean, there was no way I was going to do that. I'd never touched myself in front of anyone before. Never. "You can forget it, Fix."

"Why?" I wouldn't have thought it possible, but lust had made the timbre of his voice even deeper. He had the sexiest voice when he was talking normally. Now, visibly turned on and out of breath, the basement register of his voice made my head tilt and spin. If I wasn't careful, I was going to tumble off the bed.

"We're strangers," I said, clearing my throat. "I'm not some outrageous exhibitionist. I don't just start masturbating in front of a guy I only met a few hours ago."

"You should try it. It's fun," Fix growled. "I won't touch you, Sera. Not if you don't want me to. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it yourself. You should enjoy yourself. You should do whatever the fuck you want to do."

"Oh, and you get absolutely nothing out of me lying next to you, fingering myself?" I scoffed. Shit, even saying that out loud made heat pool between my legs. I was beginning to ache in a way I hadn't ached for a very long time. It was inappropriate. It wasn't right that my body should be responding to him the way it was, but I couldn't control it.

"I'd get a lot out of it," he admitted. "I'd benefit immensely from watching you slide your fingers over your wet pussy. It would drive me insane. Especially if you hitched your shirt up and pulled down your bra so your tits were exposed."

"Haha! You're getting greedy." I laughed, but I was getting more and more turned around by the second. Fix was just using his right hand on himself now, and I was losing my battle with impropriety, struggling and failing to look away. Fuck, he really was something to behold. His shaft was well over eight inches, but he was thick, too. Fix's middle finger and thumb didn't meet around the circumference of his hard-on as he tightened his grip and increased the speed with which he moved his hand up and down.

Gareth had never wanted to have sex with the lights on, which was weird given the amount of time he'd spend flexing and posing in front of the full length mirrors in my bedroom. Fix was unabashed and unaffected by what he was doing, which somehow made the whole thing even hotter.

"Sera. Being greedy is great. Be greedy. Be demanding. Be fucking hungry. Take whatever you want. If you want to touch your pussy and make yourself feel good, then do it. If you want to touch me, if you want to stroke my cock and make me so hard that I can't stop myself from fucking your hand, then do it. If you want me to hold you down and bury my tongue between your legs, to lick at you and tease you until you're begging me to let you come, then let's make it happen. If all you want is for me to stop being such a fuck up and jerking off right next to you, then tell me and I'll stop immediately. Whatever you want, just claim it. Let yourself go. Or tell me to fuck off. But be honest."

"I—" My first instinct had been to tell him to put his dick away and go to sleep, but I stopped myself. Maybe...fuck, maybe he was right. I hadn't had a single sexual experience that I'd enjoyed in so long. Where was the harm in doing something if I was going to enjoy it? And...perhaps the fact that Fix and I were strangers was a good thing. He lived in New York. I lived in Seattle. It wasn't as though I was going to have to deal with seeing him walking through my city every other night of the week. He'd go his way, and tomorrow, as soon as the roads were clear, I'd be speeding toward Amy's wedding. My ears were buzzing as I put down the bottle of tequila, exhaling a deep, slow breath.

I was going to regret this. I knew I was. But tomorrow was future Sera's problem, and right now, I was drunk, frustrated and, thanks to the fact that Fix had his dick in his hand and was pumping it up and down with intent, I was getting increasingly turned on.

I didn't say anything. Instead, I unbuttoned my jeans and slid them down my legs, steeling myself, begging my hands not to shake as I ran them up the insides of my thighs.

I typically touched myself every day. It was just part of my shower routine. Being watched made the process far more intense, though. Fix's chest began to rise and fall a little quicker, his eyelids lowering, desire pouring off him as he watched me pull my panties to the side and tentatively rub myself.

"Fuck, Sera. Your pussy is incredible. You're soaking wet." He loosed a sound that resembled a savage growl, and goose bumps erupted all over my skin. This was so weird. It was strange, and it was hot, and it was going to make me wish I'd never been born tomorrow, but the look on Fix's face made me want to continue. He was observing me like I was the hottest thing he'd ever seen, and it made me feel like I was damn well glowing.

"Show me, Sera," he whispered. "Let me look at you." He got to his knees, positioning himself at the end of the bed, and a brief moment of panic clawed at me. I didn't know this guy. He could be capable of anything, and I was trapped in a room with him, and there was a storm raging outside. No one would hear me if I cried out for help. Over the howling wind and rain, my voice would be drowned out and lost. Did I think he was going to hurt me, though? I looked up at Fix, where he was now kneeling in between my legs, and I only saw desire on his face. His cock was standing proud, and I wanted it. I finally admitted it to myself. I wanted to feel it in my hands. I wanted it in my mouth. And yeah, I wanted him inside me, too. I just didn't know if I was going to be brave enough...

I sucked in a deep breath, and closed my eyes, the tips of my fingers working in small circles over my clit.

"Shit, Sera. You're fucking beautiful."

"What...what do you want me to do?" I asked, swallowing down the lump that had risen to my throat.

"This isn't about me," Fix answered. "This is about what you want. If you want me to watch you, if you want me to fuck you, if you want me to leave you alone. Just say the word."

Every time I looked at him, I was taken by surprise all over again. He wasn't just good looking. There was something about him that made me feel very small. He was raw, untapped power, a storm trapped inside a bottle, and I got the feeling he raged day and night, no matter what. It felt unsafe being so close to him, like I was being drawn closer and closer against my will, and no matter how hard I tried to resist him, I just couldn't. Moving slowly, I unclipped my bra at the front, underneath my shirt, and then I slipped the remainder of my clothes over my head, tossing them onto the floor beside me.

"Fuck," Fix snarled. "Your breasts are just..." He raised a hand, then immediately withdrew it. "They're fucking phenomenal, Sera."

"You want to touch them," I said quietly.

He didn't even blink. "Yes. But I'm not going to. Not until you tell me you want me to."

"I do. Want you to. I want you to suck and bite on my nipples." I didn't know where that had come from, but the moment the words were out of my mouth, I realized they were true. My breasts were swollen and full, my nipples throbbing along with the crazed tattoo of my heartbeat. Fix remained absolutely still for a moment, as if waiting for me to change my mind. When I arched my back away from the bed, allowing my eyes to shutter closed, he swore violently under his breath and moved. He cupped both of my breasts, testing the weight and the fullness of them, and then he squeezed and kneaded my flesh, a pained groan slipping free from his mouth.

"You'd look so good covered in my come." His words sounded like metal grinding on metal. "Your body is fucking flawless."

I knew that wasn't true. I had plenty of scars and marks all over me from years of fielding Sixsmith's attentions, so I was far from perfect. None of that mattered when Fix soothed me, running his hands over my skin, though. It was freeing to let someone touch me and appreciate me the way he was doing. He dipped down, and I gasped as he took my left nipple into his mouth, lightly grazing it with his teeth before he sucked.

"I want..." I stammered over the words, not sure how to just spit them out. "I want to go down on you." I instantly regretted saying that, but it was too late to take it back now. Fix leaned back, tracing his fingers down my cheek, over my jaw and down the length of my neck, his fingers pausing over my collarbone.

"You don't sound so sure."

"I am."

"You want me to slide my dick past your lips, down deep into your throat, Sera?"

"Yes."

"You want to feel me getting harder and harder as you suck on me? You want to taste me?"

"Yes!" Fuck me sideways. He was good with words. Good at making me want him more than ever, even though I was shot through with nerves.

Fix leaned down, so that his mouth was hovering mere inches away from mine. He lowered his voice, and I couldn't help but shiver when he said, "You want to take my come, Sera? You want it in your mouth? You want to swallow me?"

"Fuck...yes!"

"Good. Good girl."

I opened my eyes as Fix shifted up my body, kneeling on either side of my head. His cock filled my vision, which made me second-guess myself for a moment. He was huge. I was going to choke on that thing, and Fix was going to love it. Still, my pussy was crazy wet as I parted my lips and Fix pushed himself into my mouth. I was right: I could barely fit half of his length inside.

Fix moved slowly, gently rocking himself in and out, making strained, frustrated sounds and as I sucked and licked at his cock. He tasted kind of sweet—a completely unexpected, vaguely pleasant flavor that wasn't anywhere near as salty as I'd imagined it would be. Angling his body forward, Fix planted his hands against the walls, supporting himself, and began to thrust harder. I couldn't even swallow my own saliva around the girth of him, but Fix didn't seem to mind. I panted down my nose, growing braver and braver every time he pushed himself inside my mouth and I realized how hard he was getting. He was so fucking turned on.

"Your lips look amazing wrapped around my dick," he growled. "I'm gonna be having wet dreams about this for fucking years."

I wasn't going to be forgetting it any time soon either. I grasped hold of the base of his cock, applying pressure there, rubbing my hand up and down as I sucked, and Fix's entire body shuddered. "If you keep doing that, you're going to make me come, Sera."

It was a warning in more ways than one: he was letting me know to expect a mouthful of come any second if I continued down this path, but also that he wouldn't be able to do anything else if he finished. Did I want him to fuck me? Did I really, truly want him inside me? The answer, despite the remaining shred of common sense I still possessed post half a bottle of tequila, was yes, I did. Pushing him back, I gasped for breath, still running my hand up and down Fix's cock.

"I want you inside me," I told him. "I want you to fuck me. I want you to make me come."

Fix bared his teeth, palming my breast, pinching my nipple so hard that I yelped. "How do you want me to fuck you? Be specific."

"From behind. I want you to fuck me as hard as you can," I said. "I want you to make me see stars."

"Oh,...I can do that." It took less than a second for him to rip his shirt over his head, and then he was naked. His chest and stomach were...I literally had nothing even close to compare them to. He was so unbelievably perfect; he looked like he had been conjured out of someone's dream, not born of reality. His skin was a light golden color, a sun-kissed tan that probably came from weeks spent out in the sunshine. I wanted to run my hands over him, to explore and appreciate every curve and defined line of muscle, but Fix had other ideas.

"Get on your stomach and get that ass in the air," he commanded roughly. "Make sure you're spread wide for me."

Thank god my blood was mostly alcohol right now. I'd have died of embarrassment if someone spoke to me like that while I was sober. I rolled onto my front and obeyed him, though, lifting my ass up in the air for him to inspect.

He showed his appreciation by slapping my ass cheek, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to leave a stinging hand print.

"Ahhh! Shit!"

"You wanted it rough," Fix reminded me. "Tell me if you change your mind." The sound he made when he rubbed the tip of his dick over my pussy and my ass sent shivers skating all over my skin. He sounded just as turned on as me, if not more. When he pushed himself inside me, I stifled a moan into the pillows.

"Fuck. Oh, fuck. That...that's too much!"

Fix curved his body over me, his chest to my back, and his warm breath danced over my skin as he whispered into my ear. "Breathe. Your body will work it out. Just give it a second."

So I breathed. Three long, deep breaths, then another, and then another. Little by little, I realized Fix was right. I was relaxing, stretching to accommodate him inside me, and it was beginning to feel good. I whimpered as Fix began thrusting himself inside me, rocking himself forward, holding me by the hips as he gently pushed deeper. God, it was incredible how wet I was. By the time Fix really began to fuck me, I was ready for him and begging him silently to take me.

My pride wouldn't allow me to beg him out loud, but in the end I didn't need to. Fix was in tune with me, reading my body and responding accordingly. I'd never been one of those women who screamed the house down during sex, but I couldn't stop myself from moaning and crying out every time Fix's cock slammed into my pussy. It felt...shit, it felt so fucking amazing. Especially when Fix reached around my body and began to rub my clit at the same time. He was talented with his fingers, and he was definitely talented with his cock.

"Jesus. You're...that's going to make me come," I panted.

He didn't reply. He grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled back on it as he fucked me faster, hissing between his teeth.

"Fuck. I'm—I'm going to—I can't stop it. I'm—" I ran out of words and oxygen at the same time, as Fix railed into me, his fingers digging into my skin. My climax was a thousand fireworks igniting inside my head, and I couldn't see or move or feel my way around it. I could only go with it, allowing the spikes and waves of pleasure to course over and through me as I came. It was fucking spectacular.

"My turn now," Fix rumbled into my ear. "Do you want me to come?"

"Yes." I exhaled the word on an exhausted breath.

"Where do you want me to come?"

"Inside me," I told him. "I'm on birth control." The prospect of him coming inside me turned me on more than anything ever had. I'd never let Gareth come inside me, even though I received the contraceptive injection every three months. I'd just never wanted to be that intimate with him. But with Fix, a man I didn't even know, and never would, I wanted it so bad I could think of nothing else.

"All right. I'm gonna let myself loose," Fix spoke into my ear. "I'm not going to hold back. You still want this?"

"Yes! Fuck yes, Fix. Make me come again."

From behind, Fix wound his hand around my body, his fingers closing lightly around my throat. His lips brushed my ear as he spoke. "Oh, I intend on it. Get ready, Angel."

And he fucked me. He rocked against me, slamming himself home, making me scream every time he pushed himself inside me as deep as he could. It felt so good. More than good. It felt fucking amazing.

When he came inside me, I called out, my own orgasm ripping through me at the same time, and Fix clung to my body, holding me tight, locking me in place as he pumped me full of his come. I was bone tired and weary when he spun me over and laid me out on the mattress.

"See? Being greedy is pretty fucking awesome," he said quietly. His hand slipped down, between my legs, and my eyes rolled back into my head as he dipped his fingers into my pussy. They were sticky and covered in his come when he held them up a second later. I was too tired to ask him what he was doing as he used his fingertips to paint around my areolas and the tightened buds of my nipples. He painted a line down my belly, and then proceeded to rub his semen all over the insides of my thighs and my hips. He smirked like the devil himself when he rubbed his fingers against my lips, and I used the tip of my tongue to taste him.

"Bad Angel," he whispered, smiling as if to himself. "Close your eyes now. It's time to get some rest."
FOUR

DEBT

SERA

How could it still be raining? Water droplets pelted at the windows, the sound of fingers insistently drumming against a table top, and weak, greyed morning light eked through the yellowed net curtains that had been hung from a cheap length of plastic coated wire, suspended haphazardly from hooks screwed directly into the ceiling. I closed my eyes, groaning internally. What time was it? I'd been getting up early my whole life—my internal body clock typically woke me at around six in the morning. Judging by the sun's anemic attempt at dawn, today was no different. I reached out for my phone, patting my hand against the surface of the nightstand before locating the device and dragging it underneath the covers with me. Cracking just one eye, I inspected the screen, already prepared to be angry at whatever was displayed there. The clock read twelve minutes past six. Great. There were two text messages from Amy, asking me to call and let her know what was happening as soon as I could, and three missed calls from Ben, who was probably having an apoplectic fit by now. No messages from the office, though. None from Colby, my dog sitter, and none from Sadie.

I threw back the covers, resisting the urge to nurse my skull. It was my own fault that my head was pounding. That's what happened when you smashed a whole bottle of tequila. Only...

Oh shit.

I hadn't finished that bottle alone. I'd shared it with a dirty mouthed ingrate named Fix, and...oh my god. I'd fucked the bastard.

I laid as still as I could for a second, figuring out my options. The mattress next to me was cold, which meant he hadn't slept beside me. That was a relief. But it was early—he was probably still crashed out in the other bed. Fuck.

This was so, so typical. I was my own worst enemy; without fail, I was blessed with the uncanny ability of taking a bad situation and making it even fucking worse. Time to get all my crap back into the rental and get the fuck out of here. And before my ass hat roommate woke up, too. Only, when I spun around, ready to sneak into the bathroom to quickly brush my teeth before heading out, Fix was nowhere to be seen. His bed was untouched, his sheets only rumpled a little from where he'd placed his bag on it last night. The bag which was now gone. Turning over, I saw the indention in the pillow next to me, the comforter thrown back on the other side of the bed, and I growled to myself. He had slept in the bed with me. He'd just gotten up and disappeared already. I didn't know why, but it irked me that he'd managed to leave before me. It would have been far more gratifying to have been the one to sneak out on him, not the other way around.

I got dressed, treated myself to a two-minute shower, and dashed to the car, swearing loudly at the fact that I was, yet again, getting drenched by rain. It took thirty seconds to toss my bags into the trunk of the rental. I hadn't eaten last night and my stomach was grumbling loudly. The Liberty Fields Guest House sign outside the building claimed the motel offered a continental breakfast between the hours of seven and nine, but I wasn't going to hang around to check out whatever paltry offering was going to be laid out in the lobby. Hell no. I'd grab something on the road, once I'd left Liberty Fields far behind, and the nightmarish place had disappeared from my rearview mirror altogether.

Twenty-two hours and seventeen minutes: the amount of time it was now going to take me to get to Fairhope, when I plugged the location of the church into the navigation app on my phone. The ceremony was a late one—two pm—and last night Aims had said she could push back the ceremony a little to accommodate my tardiness if she needed to. So there was time. Against all the odds, I was going to make it. Thank fuck for that.

I started the engine, spun the wheel, hit the accelerator, and a loud, offensive grinding sound assaulted my ears. What the hell was that? The car lurched forward, but it felt uneven. Wrong. Oh, no. Oh, no. This wasn't happening. Was. Not. Happening.

I sat very still for a moment, staring straight ahead out of the car, my hands gripping hold of the steering wheel, while my mind did back flips. I didn't know a thing about cars. I didn't have a clue what was wrong with the vehicle, but it didn't sound good. It certainly didn't sound like something that was going to go away all on its own. The world outside was a blur of grey, and blue and brown as sheets of water streamed down the windshield. I had Triple A. I could call them and someone would come and resolve the issue for me for free, but how long would it take them to arrive? In this weather, with so many people struggling to get from A to B, it would be hours, and I didn't have hours.

A knock on my window startled me, disturbing my downward descent into despair. I nearly screamed with frustration at the dark, distorted figure standing next to my car, but instead I growled under my breath, slapping my palm against the center console of the rental. A gust of wind blew into the car when I buzzed down the window, and the freezing cold blast of rainwater hit me square in the face. It was Fix. Of course it was Fix. He was wearing a black t-shirt and shorts, and both items of clothing were water logged, plastered to his body. He was covered in mud, his sneakers so badly caked in the stuff that I couldn't even see what color they were, and his bare calves looked like they'd been sprayed down with dirt. His face was blank as he ducked down, resting his forearms against the driver's side door of the car.

"What have you been doing?" I hissed at him.

"What does it look like? I went for a run." His hair was spiky with water, the longer strands on top of his head slicked back out of his face. It was ridiculously unfair: he'd been too sexy to resist last night, and now, looking like he'd just completed an assault course, soaked to the skin, he was even sexier. Dark, brooding, and delicious. I railed against the way my heart rattled at the bars of my ribcage, letting me know exactly what it thought about Felix Marcosa, post run. I was doing my best to master my features into an expression void of any emotion, but I was giving too much away, I could tell.

"Who goes for a run in this kind of—ugh, never mind." I shook my head, slapping my palm against the steering wheel. "My car's broken."

"Not your car. Your wheels. You have a flat."

"Oh. Is that it?" That was a relief. A flat was easy. A flat was actually something I could take care of myself. "I have a spare in the trunk."

"One isn't gonna cut it," Fix said casually, tapping his fingernail against the lip of the window. "You have three flats."

"What? Three? How can you tell?"

Fix looked down, a ghost of a smile lifting at the corners of his wretched, perfect, talented mouth. Lord, the man was divine. "Well. You're sitting on the rims. But it was the huge, 6-inch gashes in the rubber that really gave it away."

"That is not possible." I unfastened my seatbelt and scrambled out of the car, gasping when I saw the state of my tires. They were completely deflated on this side, and just as Fix had said, there were huge, deep tears in the rubber. "How?" I squatted down, sticking my finger directly into the tire, through the gaping hole. "There's no way a rock did this."

Fix leaned his ass against the hood of the rental, folding his arms across his chest. "Yeah. You can safely rule out accident on this one."

"You mean someone did this on purpose?" As soon as the words left my lips, I rocketed to my feet, my mouth hanging open like a Venus flytrap, waiting to catch its dinner. "You!" I jabbed him in the chest with my index finger, rage spilling out of me. "You did this!"

Fix let out a rumble of laughter, his head tipping back as he roared. "Why the fuck would I do that? I like my balls hanging right here between my legs, Angel."

"Gross. Don't talk about your balls."

"Why not?" He practically purred the words. "You seemed to appreciate them plenty last night when they were slapping your pussy as I fucked you from behind."

"Holy..." He was such a pig. I shook my head, then cocked it to one side. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Just...stop. Don't bring up last night again. There's no need for us to rehash my drunken stupidity."

"But I'd love to rehash it." He was leonine. A consummate predator. I didn't stand a chance against him—not with his soaking clothes displaying every outrageous curve and line of his muscular chest.

"Just quit it. You're the only person here who'd slash my tires!" I cried. It had to be him. It had to be.

"Last night was pretty fucking phenomenal, Sera. I very much appreciated your incredible body, not to mention your talented mouth. As of right now, I'd say I'm probably the only person in Liberty Fields who wouldn't want to slash your tires."

I set my jaw, glaring at him with the force of a thousand volatile suns. "I thought we just agreed we weren't going to talk about last night."

Droplets of water coursed down Fix's face. He licked his wet lips, and my mind transported me back to his naked form last night, and the way he'd run his hand up and down his hard-on, looking like he wanted to sink his teeth into me. Oh, for crying out loud...

He smirked, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking about. "Maybe you should just be less rude to people you meet in the middle of a storm."

"This isn't funny, Fix! My sister's going to kill me. I swore I wouldn't let her down, and now I'm going to do exactly that. I'm the only person she's ever been able to rely on. I'm the only person in her whole entire life that hasn't continually dropped the ball. And now I'm going to break a promise I made to her, and it's all your fault."

Fix held his hands aloft in the air, pushing away from the car. "This has nothing to do with me. I swear it. I did not touch your car."

The worst part was that he really did look like he was telling the truth. It would have been far more convenient for me to blame him, because he was standing right in front of me. I could have taken my anger and frustration out on him, and I might have felt a little better at least. But with him apparently innocent of the crime... I dragged my hands back through my hair, fighting back tears. How many more things could possibly go wrong on this trip? It didn't even bear thinking about.

"All right." I scrutinized his stupid, handsome face out of the corner of my eye. "If you're so good at fixing things, Felix, fix this." My voice was small and pleading. "Please. I really need some help right now, or I'm going to lose my mind."

The smile on Fix's face slipped a little. His shoulders dropped at least three inches, and a strange look formed on his face. A look that resembled quiet surprise. "I have an appointment to keep this morning," he replied slowly. "An appointment I can't break."

"Then go! Take care of your appointment, and I'll meet you in Liberty Fields. I just need a ride to the next town over. The next place I can rent another car. Anywhere. Please! Just get me back to civilization. I'll forever be in your debt."

Fix seemed to think this through. For a second, I was sure he was going to say no, and my eyes began to sting like the miserable traitors that they were. Eventually, he said, "I gave you the best fucking of your life last night, Sera Lafferty. You're already in my debt. But I'll give you another ride," he said, mischief and arrogance flashing in his eyes. "And you'll owe me a favor, to be repaid at a later date. Do we have an accord?"

"You sound like a pirate," I grumbled.

"Sera..."

"Yes, yes, fine. I'll owe you a favor. I don't see how you're gonna cash it in when we live on opposite sides of the country, but whatever. You have yourself a deal."

FIVE

ALL-AMERICAN SCRAMBLER

FIX

If she hadn't been so obviously distressed and sorry for herself in the parking lot, I wouldn't have agreed to drive her anywhere. But when Sera looked at me like I was her only hope, and she'd asked me for help, I'd fucking caved. Hopeless. I shouldn't have still been hanging around Liberty Fields. It was a miracle that two jobs had converged, miraculously right on top of one another. I should have completed both of them already and been on my way back to New York, but...

I was distracted.

Sera had thoroughly distracted me, and I wasn't ready to give her up just yet. That made me cruel, and wicked, and evil, and a thousand other things including stupid, but I'd never faltered before. I'd never dropped the ball. I wasn't going to now. I was entitled to a little fun, though.

That was what I told myself.

A long time ago, people used to ask me for help all the livelong day. It had been my job to help people, and I used to like doing it. A lot had changed since then. I'd lost myself, not to mention my soul, on the road about ten thousand miles ago, and I'd never turned back to find either. I should have gotten into my truck and driven away from Sera and her destroyed car just now, but...I just couldn't. I'd liked the way my name sounded on her lips. It had been hotter than fuck hearing her panting it over and over into my ear last night. And so what if I wanted to hear her say it a couple more times before I ended this? She was different. I got the sneaking suspicion that she was more than a little broken inside. She'd obviously been through hell at some point, but the flames had forged her, not burned her to ash. In a lot of ways, she reminded me of Monica.

I hadn't slashed her tires. I had no idea who the fuck had done it, but I wanted to pat them on the back and also shove a whittled down toothbrush through each of their eyeballs for creating this situation, that was already seriously complicated enough.

I'd changed out of my wet running gear and dressed in something a little more murder-appropriate—black pants, black shirt, black leather driving gloves and a ball cap—before heading out to Franz Halford's auto mechanic's shop. As I piloted my way through a network of roads that bore a closer resemblance to swamps than highways, kind of enjoying the huge spray that went up from both front tires whenever I went through a particularly deep patch of standing water, I counted no less than three overturned vehicles, sitting on their roofs, waiting to be hauled out of ditches and away from the medians.

At the turn off I needed to take in order to reach the auto shop, a row of power lines had collapsed, and a confusion of cables, tangled and sparking, were causing havoc for passing drivers, who couldn't quite figure out how to circumnavigate them without electrocuting themselves and dying horribly. A large woman with a tabby cat tucked under her arm, wearing a bright yellow waterproof jacket, seemed to be trying to direct the traffic, but she didn't seem to know what she was doing either, so I wheeled around her and the fast growing line of cars and made the turn regardless.

Idiots.

I'd allowed my phone to go dead last night—there was nothing more distracting than an irate woman sending you a thousand text messages when you were trying to fucking come—but I'd plugged it in to charge when I climbed into the truck. The screen finally lit up as I took a left and pulled into the cluttered parking lot of Halford's Family Auto and Lube, and I braced myself for a litany of messages from Monica. Nothing came through, though. Nothing at all. That was fucking weird. She'd said she needed me to call her immediately, and when Monica said immediately, she meant yesterday. Her patience was wearing thin with me, I knew that, but fuck me if she didn't make my life harder. I was used to having her around now. I was used to her panicked outbursts, and her need for me to check in every day. I should probably have cut her loose by now, but it wasn't that easy. I didn't really have the right to do that to her, either.

The rusting, spray-painted roller shutters that fronted Halford's Family Auto & Lube were still firmly shut and very locked, and a huge, fat, tarnished padlock was glinting in the weak early morning light. Didn't look like Franz was an early riser. Didn't look like anyone was at the shop at all, though it was really fucking hard to tell with all the decrepit vehicles that were sitting in the parking lot. Given all of the dirt, corrosion, smashed glass and bald tires, it was hard to imagine any of the cars were running, but who fucking knew...

Across the street, the neon 'open' sign of a dingy looking café flickered to life, causing a red glow to be reflected across the surface of the family-sized swimming pool that had formed in the café's parking lot. Hot Donuts! Fresh coffee! All American Scrambler Breakfast! I read the sign in the window, not really paying much attention. The food would be shit. The coffee would be shit. Their donuts had probably been gathering dust and rat crap sprinkles for days, but I still got out of the truck, popped the collar of my jacket, shoved my hands in my pockets and ran across the now empty road. My socks were soaked in less than a second.

From inside the diner, I had a perfect view of the auto shop; there'd be no chance I'd miss the comings and goings of one Franz Halford from the booth I selected right in the window, so I sat my ass down on the cracked and peeling faux leather seat and pretended to read the sticky laminated menu that was propped between the salt and pepper shakers on the table in front of me. The garish, very badly taken, very unappealing photos of limp toast and rubbery eggs did nothing to inspire hunger in me. Committing homicide was usually something I liked to do on an empty stomach—things had a way of getting really fucking messy, after all. People shit themselves. They vomited. They bled all over the goddamn place. I'd learned my lesson in the past: food was never a good idea when the potential for bodily fluids was so high. I ordered a black coffee from a pimple-faced waiter when he finally decided to come over and check on me, and that was it. The poor bastard seemed disappointed.

An hour passed, and the caffeine in my veins began to make me antsy. Normally, patience was one of my strong points. I mean, the last job I'd done required me to hunker down for five hours in a forest, amongst the leaf litter and dead tree branches for my quarry to come along, and that hadn't fazed me one bit. Waiting for Franz Halford this morning was hell on earth, though, and I knew why. It was her fault. Sera's. God, her mouth really had been so fucking perfect, pouting, wrapped around my hard dick. And when she'd turned over and presented her ass to me, I'd known I was in fucking trouble. My job was now almost impossible, because I'd been stupid enough to think with my dick. Sera oozed sex appeal from every pore of her beautifully crafted, stunning fucking body. She welcomed a good fucking with every sideways glance she sent you, but she did so unintentionally, without expectation or any true knowledge that she was even doing it. Basically, she was the living embodiment of everything that turned me on. And I was still fucking turned on. My dick hadn't stopped raging since last night—it had still been hard enough to crack concrete this morning when I'd woke up. I'd had to run in the pissing rain just to stop myself from sliding my fingers inside her while she slept. Even now, sitting in the booth, being handed lukewarm, disgusting coffee in a very dirty cup by a teenager who looked like he might not be all that clean himself, my cock was throbbing like a pulsing beacon.

The way she'd hesitantly wrapped her hand around me...

The way her eyes had flashed when she'd squeezed and felt how thick and ready I was...

The way she'd inadvertently wet her bottom lip with the pink tip of that delicate little tongue of hers...

Shit. I needed to go jerk off in the bathroom. These kinds of thoughts would do nothing but claw at my mind, demanding my attention, distracting me from the task at hand, and this wasn't a line of work you could bumble your way through. I needed to be sharp. Focused. Single minded. So long as Sera Lafferty's pretty pink pussy was fogging my brain, I'd never be able to get anything done.

Getting up, I rearranged my cock in my pants to avoid any embarrassment, and then made my way into the restrooms. They were clean, at least, and smelled faintly like lemon. Plenty of paper towels. I grabbed a couple and locked myself into a stall, dropping my pants and pressing a hand against the back wall. I could make myself come in less than a minute if I wanted to. The memory of last night, of Sera looking so perfect and frankly fucking edible, deserved more respect than that, though. I worked my hand up and down the shaft of my cock slowly at first, relishing the pressure and the buzz of pleasure that began to tingle at the base of my dick. Fuck, that felt good. Not as good as Sera's mouth, but still...

I stroked faster, sucking in a deep breath and holding it inside my chest. She looked so fucking hot this morning, her hair damp and curling at the ends, her dark eyes flashing with rage as she realized what someone had done to her car. Her shirt had been tight and a little wet from the rain; the very first thing I'd noticed when she'd lowered her window to scowl at me was her tight nipples, poking out of the material at me. I'd taken them into my mouth last night. I'd licked and I'd sucked them. I'd pinched and rolled them, knowing all too well that Sera would enjoy the frisson of pain racing between her breasts and her cunt.

God, she'd opened up so nicely for me. She'd smelled so fucking good. Her pussy juice had coated more than just my cock; I'd reveled in the silky feeling of her excitement between the pad of my thumb and my index finger. Next time, I was going to lap at her like a hungry dog, and I was going to go back for seconds.

I sucked in a fresh lungful of oxygen, holding that one in my chest, too. My mind transported me back to the moment when I was about to thrust into Sera for the first time, and my balls tightened, my cock pulsing in my hand. The tip glistened with pre-cum, and I couldn't help it. I imagined her on her knees, her hands wrapped around my shaft, the tip of her tongue darting between her lips as she gently licked the clear fluid from me, and my legs threatened to bail on me.

Fuck, it was wrong of me, but I wanted her again. Last night should never have happened, but it did, and now? Urgh. I was never going to stop wanting her. I should complete my work and go. I should just do what I came here to do and get the fuck out of here, but that was the thing about should, though. People rarely ever paid any heed to something they should do. Should was rear-view mirror knowledge, a right hand turn that you could still see over your shoulder if you turned around far enough to catch it out of the corner of your eye. The turning was still there. You could still make it, if you performed an emergency one-eighty and headed back in the opposite direction. But somehow your foot always stayed on the gas, pressing you toward disaster, and there was nothing you could do about it.

I wasn't going to leave Sera here in Liberty Fields today. I was going to collect her from the motel as soon as my task was complete, and then it was inevitable. I was going to fuck her again. I was going to charm the ever-loving shit out of her, and she was going to be laid flat on the back seat of the truck, panting, digging her fingernails into my back all over again. And I was going to love every second of it.

God, it was so wrong...

I screwed my eyes shut, changing out my breath again, biting down on the inside of my cheek as I felt myself slipping and sliding toward oblivion. My hand was coated with pre-cum now, slick with the viscous fluid, which made running my hand up and down all the more enjoyable. It was easy to pretend that I was fucking her. It was easy to imagine I was pushing myself into her hot, wet, slick pussy. Too easy. I tipped my head back, straining as I teetered on the brink of coming, holding it back for as long as I could.

Her eyes, though...

Her mouth.

Her hands.

Her breasts.

Her spread thighs, and the fragile, pale pink between her legs, redder and darker where I slid myself inside of her...

Fuck...

Oh, fuck...

No way I was going to be able to hold it back. I opened my mouth and blasted out the air inside my lungs, making sure the roar that escaped me was a silent, wordless one. My cock throbbed once, twice, three times as I came, sending out jets of hot, white ejaculate that hit the wall behind the toilet. My vision danced. I'd come hard last night, I'd expected it then, but now, jerking off? It shouldn't have felt that fucking good. It shouldn't have felt so fucking incredible that I lost control and blew my load all over a motherfucking breezeblock wall. What the fuck was that?

I felt a little unsteady as I wiped myself off and put my dick away. My legs were jelly, and the back of my neck was burning, hotter than usual, the tips of my ears prickling with pins and needles. For a second I considered leaving my come running down the wall, but then I thought better of it. Leaving considerable deposits of DNA lying around was one thing, but when you were about to commit a crime directly across the street? Yeah, that wouldn't have been the smartest move on my part. Took me a minute to do away with my mess, and another thirty seconds to wash my hands, straighten up my hair and my jacket, and then I exited the bathroom and went to locate my coffee.

Sitting opposite my booth, another customer had come in while I was busy in the back cleaning my rifle. I recognized him the moment I laid eyes on him, but my expression and my body language didn't change. The world had shifted, but to the acne ridden server and the balding, overweight guy sitting at the bar, squinting at a menu, everything appeared completely normal.

"I'll take the pancakes, Jason. And make sure Herb doesn't skimp on the syrup this time. Last time I ordered 'em, they came out drier'n my grand mammy's cooter."

Jason blanched a little—probably was a good church-going boy. Probably only heard words like cooter and references to them being dry when he was here, working in this shithole. Franz Halford didn't seem to realize he'd made the boy uncomfortable, though. He dropped the menu down on the counter and pulled a tin of tobacco, popping the lid and thumbing a small amount of its contents underneath his top lip. Why was I not surprised the guy dipped? Such a gross, nasty habit. I enjoyed a cigarette more often than I should, but shoving that shit directly into your mouth made me want to gag.

I'd been careful not to make eye contact with Franz as I sat down and settled myself back in the booth, picking up my coffee mug and taking a sip. I was a fucking professional, for god's sake. I'd given him absolutely no reason to talk to me whatsoever, but when Jason, the server, turned around and went to hand in Franz's order to the kitchen, the miserable fucker turned around on his stool and grinned at me, a flash of brown liquid running over his teeth as he did so.

"How you enjoyin' this here weather?" he asked. Then he did something I just could not fathom. He turned his head and he spat on the floor. I'd just been flinging my come around in the bathroom like a deranged monkey that couldn't stop touching its own junk, but this was far, far worse. This was fucking unforgiveable.

I hid my disdain. I hid my violence—the violence that lived under my skin at all times, begging to be unleashed. I hid the fact that I wanted to pull out the gun I had resting in a holster in the small of my back at that very same moment we sat there. I plastered a broad smile on my face that said, Hey! I'm utterly enamored by your authentic Southern charm and I am abso-fucking-lutely thrilled that you decided to talk to me, kind sir. "We sure as hell don't get rain like this where I'm from," I announced. To a trained ear, the laughter I forced out of me next might possibly have sounded a little manic and unhinged, but Franz didn't bat an eyelid. He pointed to the bench opposite me in the booth, waggling his bushy eyebrows up and down.

"You want some company while you have your mornin' Joe, or you wanna be left alone? I don't mind either way. I just thought you might like to enjoy some of the local color, seein' as how y'ain't from 'round here and all."

I gestured to the seat opposite and shrugged a shoulder, shaking my head. "Please. Be my guest."

Halford slid from his stool, hiking his baggy, stained jeans up on one side, though the action was pointless. His belly was sticking out from beneath the hem of his Budweiser t-shirt, and hanging over his waistband at the same time—no matter how many times he pulled his pants up, there was no way his considerable belly was going to allow them to stay up. The man grunted like a walrus as he lowered himself down into the seat, then removed his sweat-rimmed baseball cap and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, before returning the cap to the crown of his head.

"I gotta say, people tell me I'm pretty good at figurin' where people are from, sir. I can identify an accent from the other side of a crowded room, and I'm pretty sure I got you pegged. I'd be willing to bet good money that you're from Minnesota or the like." Franz's eyebrows were more than bushy. They were like furry caterpillars that had crawled up onto his forehead and had the misfortune to get stuck there. I couldn't stop staring at them—mostly grey, with a stripe of ginger in the center of each. Weird.

"I am from Minnesota! That's really damn impressive," I told him, taking another mouthful of coffee. Fuck knows who'd said he was good with accents, but they were dead fucking wrong. The Minnesotan accent bore absolutely no resemblance to the thick Chicago accent I was putting on just for him. Screw it. Let him believe what he wanted to believe. From the powerful waves of Jack Daniels that were wafting across the table, and the loose, watery grin on Franz's face, there was a high probability that the guy was still drunk from last night. It was best not to antagonize half-drunk people by disagreeing with them.

"You were in the army, weren't you?" Franz says, his eyes glazing over a little. "You got that look about you."

"And what look would that be?" I say, smiling easily: a lie, a trick, a trap. A spider weaving his web with practice and ease.

"Back's too straight for a civilian. And your eyes are quick," he told me, scratching at the red scruff on his chin. "You're looking at everything here, figuring it all out."

I lowered my head—a show of deference—laughing a little under my breath. "Sad to say, I've never served. Wish I had, though. I'd probably have gotten a lot out of it when I was younger."

Franz nodded enthusiastically, then spat on the floor again. Urgh. Bastard. "I was in the army for fifteen years," he said. "Best years of my life, too. Protected the freedom of my fellow American citizens. Got to see the world. And got my dick sucked more times'n I can count!" He slapped the table, eyes disappearing into slits as he burst out laughing, his belly spilling over onto the table.

This was getting worse and worse by the second. Things would have been far simpler if I'd run into Franz over at the auto shop; now the piece of shit was ordering breakfast, and I was going to have to sit here with him until he fucking finished.

No.

Just no.

Completely ignoring his last statement, I stabbed a finger out of the window at the shop across the street, frowning slightly. "Hey, friend? I don't suppose you know if that auto place is gonna open today? My truck's making a rattling noise. I'm a little worried about driving it in this weather without getting it checked out first."

Franz sat back in his seat, puffing his chest out with an unreasonable amount of pride. "That place most definitely is going to open up today. I'm Franz Halford. I own the place." He thrust out his hand toward me, waiting for me to shake it, face split open with a grin, like he'd just surprised me with the biggest secret known to man or something. I shook, unhappy about the contact, feigning amusement to rival Franz's.

"That's well met, then. I'm lucky to have run into you. All the other places in town are closed."

Franz pulled a face, waving me off with an unsteady flick of his wrist. "Those motherfuckers over at Dimson's are criminals, man. Fucking immigrants. Don't speak a word of English between 'em. They ain't ever open before midday, and when you do catch 'em open, they'll over change you by a couple'a hundred bucks every single goddamn time. It's unchristian is what it is."

A shiver of annoyance raced down my spine, but once again I managed to hide my reaction to the grotesque human being in front of me. "Then I really will consider myself lucky. Listen," I said, making a show of looking down to glance at my watch. "I heard you ordering breakfast and all, but I was wondering...I'm in a serious hurry. If I picked up your tab here and shot you an extra hundred bucks for accommodating me, would you get your food to go and come cast an eye over my engine for a second? It's probably nothing, I'm probably being overly cautious, but I just wanna make sure..."

Franz narrowed his eyes at me, looking me up and down. "A hundred bucks and you pay for my breakfast, on top of the assessment fee for looking at your vehicle?" He pronounced the H in vehicle—one of my pet peeves. I nodded, though, continuing to smile.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, alright then. I ain't gonna argue with you, mister. What's your name again?"

"Ray. Ray Sheraton."

"Ohh, like them there hotels? You own any'a those things? Jason! Put my damn pancakes in a box! We're leaving!" He lost half the sodden tobacco from his mouth when he pivoted toward the counter, suddenly yelling at the server, who I'd decided I now felt sorry for. Jason didn't know which way to turn first as he hurried from one end of the diner to the other, first collecting Franz's food from the service hatch, and then up and down as he clearly scrambled to locate a to-go box.

I paid the kid, Franz took his pancakes and a two-liter bottle of coke, and we headed over to the auto shop. I saw more than a couple of inches of Franz's ass crack as he stooped to unlock the roller shutters. Once we were inside and Franz had opened the side door to the shop, he hiked up his pants again, hawking to clear his throat, and he pointed out into the parking lot, in the direction of my truck. "Shall we take a look at it, then?"

"Actually, I wanted to ask you a question first, if that's okay?"

"Sure thing, Ray. Ask away."

"Does the name Holly Shoji mean anything to you?" I watched as Franz's expression transformed itself into something wary at first, and then something hard and unfeeling.

"I'm sorry, boss. Doesn't ring a bell." The lie was as obvious as the broken capillaries at the end of his nose. He wasn't even trying to convince me he didn't know Holly's name. There was disgust in his eyes as he started to shuffle past me out of the garage. "I have a busy morning, too. If you want me to look at your truck, let's get on with it. If not, I'm afraid we're gonna have to save the chit chat for another day."

Sidestepping, I blocked his path, preventing him from walking outside. It took all of a second to lean over to the wall and hit the switch on the wall—the switch that lowered the roller shutters back down again. Franz studied me with ice in his eyes, assessing me from head to toe.

"You sure you wasn't in the military?" he asked, taking a step back.

"Nope. I never joined up. I thought about it, like I said, but my father had other ideas. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps."

"And what did he do?" Franz muttered in an airy tone. It was funny how many times people did this—acted like nothing untoward was happening, when something clearly was happening. As if, should he keep his voice free from aggression and hostility or panic, I would be held at bay, unaware that a situation was developing, and he would somehow be able to distract me while he escaped. There would be no distracting me, though. No escape, either. I watched calmly as Franz fumbled with his left hand, reaching out for a tire iron that was sitting on top of a messy workbench.

"He was a priest," I said, glancing down lazily to inspect my fingernails.

Franz nearly tripped over his own feet as he tried to back away from me. "So you're Catholic, then. Like me."

"Oh, we're nothing alike, Franz. We're not even the same species. See, I did follow in my father's footsteps. I studied. I became a priest, just like my father wanted me to, and I learned many things. I learned that the Catholic Church doesn't believe in brutally raping people just because they don't share your skin color, or your belief system."

Franz's eyes were wide now. His fear was plain to see, but there was something else there, too: hatred. So much anger and hatred. He didn't agree with what I was saying. Didn't care for it one little bit.

"If you're a priest, then what are you doing here, Ray? Shouldn't you be tending to your flock?"

I smirked, reaching not for the gun in the holster at my back, but for something a little more fun. Something a little sharper. Something a little more...wicked.

"I was a priest," I said, flipping over the heavy, serrated combat knife I was now holding. "I was a priest for quite a while. And then I realized something. Wanna know what I realized?"

Franz shook his head, his jowls wobbling all over the place. "No, man. No. Just go. Get the fuck out of my shop. That filthy little whore deserved everything she got. She didn't belong here. She was taking money from the government to study. And when she finished that course, what then? She was gonna take a job that belonged to a fucking American, man! We're just lettin' 'em waltz in here and take everything from us. I showed that bitch we weren't all gonna take it lying down. That she was gonna have to take something lying down, too, if—"

I tilted the blade from left to right in my hand, peering into the highly reflective surface of the weapon as if mesmerized by its beauty. "I realized I wasn't really helping anyone by spritzing them with holy water and shoving bread into their mouths every Sunday. I realized... I didn't believe anymore. I realized there were better ways to help save people, so I picked up this knife, and I decided to take matters into my own hands. Just like I'm about to do right now."
SIX

CONVINCE ME

SERA

I wouldn't have known it was Fix's truck if I hadn't seen him get in it and drive off earlier. After sitting around in the motel lobby for hours, waiting for him to come back, I grew anxious and begged a ride into Liberty Fields off another woman who was checking out of her room and leaving. I'd hoped I might find a gift store where I could grab another wedding gift for Amy, since I'd demolished the tequila last night. Instead, I spotted Fix's truck and asked to be dropped off in the parking lot of a very run down, sketchy looking auto shop.

The front roller shutters were down, but the side door to the building was open. Inside: Darkness. The smell of oil, grease, and unwashed male. I hovered just inside the door, trying to decide if I ought to go in or not. Sixsmith used to cart me around a lot when I was really small. He used to take me to dark, strange, unfamiliar places like this, and there would always be trouble. Someone would be drinking. Someone would be cooking meth. Someone would be fucking loudly in the back. There would be things young eyes weren't meant to see. And, by the time we left, there would usually be blood.

I could just wait outside for Fix. There was no reason to barge into the shop and start yelling at him for taking too long, when he promised me he'd only be gone an hour or so. I could do that in the truck, once the dark-haired bastard emerged and saw me leaning against his murdered-out ride, waiting for him.

I walked over to the truck and tried the handle to the passenger seat, but it was locked. I checked my phone—another missed call from Ben, but nothing from Amy—and then slid it back into my pocket, trying not to scowl. Things were so much simpler before cell phones. If you didn't want to be harassed by anyone, all you had to do was leave the house, walk away, and not look back. I'd gotten my first phone when I was sixteen, bought and paid for with money I'd earned waiting tables in a diner, and I'd been so excited; everyone else in school had had one for a couple of years, and I'd finally got to play catch up. Now, there were days I wished I could just throw all of my devices in the trash and never purchase another one again.

The rain had eased slightly since I'd left the motel, but it was picking up again. Heavy, fat beads of water thumped against the hood of Fix's truck, falling from the branches of a huge live oak that loomed over the parking lot like a grim sentinel. The tree was bare of leaves, and its considerable, crooked limbs raked upward toward the overcast sky like the fingers of a twisted, grasping hand.

I raised the hood of my jacket, shivering when the already damp fabric brushed against the back of my neck. I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of this town. It was dreary, cold, and far too wet. Seattle was world-renowned for it's miserable weather and grey skies, but at least it had life to it. A lot of life. Music. Great food. Art. Culture. Business and industry. Liberty Fields was an unmarked town on the map that no one visited on purpose, and no one really cared about, apart from the three hundred worn down people who lived here.

I waited for Fix, picking at my fingernails inside my pockets, breathing deeply. He'd come out soon and drive me somewhere I could get another car, and then everything would be okay. I tried not to let my mind wander. When I did, I ended up replaying the events of last night and driving myself a little crazy. Fix must have thought I was used to sleeping with random strangers hours after I'd just met them. He had to believe that, since that's exactly what I did with him. The truth was I'd been more than a little intimidated by him last night. His looks were enough to make my cheeks color whenever he turned his attention to me—skin golden, like he spent a good amount of time out in the sun. His face was all angular lines, sharp enough to cut. His eyes were both exquisite and frightening. It wasn't just their color that froze me to my core. Whenever he looked at me, a very real chill skated over my body, as if his frosty expressions produced their own wintry breeze that bit at my skin. He was an enigma—closed off and secretive. He didn't want to share with me what he did for a living, and that was fine. Annoying, but understandable. Sometimes people wanted to keep things private, or they just didn't realize they were being rude. There'd been plenty of times I'd forgotten the subtle nuances of social etiquette—etiquette I'd had to learn through studying other people at an early age, since my father hadn't been too concerned with teaching me anything at all—and I'd been cold to the point of rudeness. My slashed tires proved that well enough. That traffic cop had probably seen my car parked there last night and decided to teach me a lesson in Southern manners.

A sudden blast of wind pummeled me, hurling cold rainwater into my face, and I bit back the urge to scream. Okay, this wasn't working. If I had to change my clothes one more time, I really was going to scream, and what manners I had left were going right out of the window. Wrapping my jacket tighter around my body, I hurried back across the parking lot and darted into the auto shop through the side door, grinding my teeth together. So freaking cold... I couldn't remember ever being so cold in my entire life. My eyes took a second to adjust to the darkness inside the building. Another second to take in the stacks of molding newspapers that were piled up against the walls, and the numerous, rusting tools that were discarded all over the place. To my left, a tiny office, with nothing more than a small desk and a heavily stained chair inside sat abandoned. The air was stale and reeked of old cigarette smoke, coupled with the sour tang of rotting food—probably emanating from the large, dented metal trashcan that was bursting with old takeout wrappers in the corner of the room. I was about to head further into the darkness, when the low, gruff timbre of Fix's voice reached my ears.

"—so I picked up this knife, and I decided to take matters into my own hands. Just like I'm about to do right now."

Huh. He was talking to someone...and it didn't sound like a particularly nice conversation. From around the corner, in what I presumed was the main floor of the auto shop, another voice cut through the air, loud and edged with something like anger.

"You can go ahead and put that down now, motherfucker. You think I haven't been threatened before? You think this is the first time someone's come in here and tried to act tough with me? I ain't some dumb piece of shit that don't know how to protect hisself. I've killed men before. I doubt you've ever had the fucking stones."

There was a long, pregnant pause, and something changed as the silence thickened—some tense, darkness seemed to develop, that spread from one side of the building to the other, poisoning the air from corner to corner.

"All right," the other voice said quietly. "Maybe you have killed before. So what makes you any different to me, Ray? What gives you the right to judge me, when you've committed the same sins?"

"I've never raped anyone," Fix growled. "And I've never killed anyone who didn't deserve it. I'm very selective about the jobs I take. A set of criteria has to be met before I'll consider taking another person's life."

"Criteria?" There's a loud hawking sound, and then the wet splatter of something hitting the floor. "Sounds like excuses to me. What criteria cursed me to die?"

"You're corrupt. You're irredeemable. You feel no remorse over the pain and suffering you inflicted on that poor girl. You don't regret your actions, and you'll more than likely repeat those actions again in the future."

"Fuck you, man. You can't tell me what I do or don't feel bad about. You can't tell me what I will or wont do in the future."

"You're saying you won't hurt anyone ever again?"

"Yeah, what if I am? Would that change your mind?" The other man's voice was hard and aggressive, filled with defiance. He didn't sound sincere in the slightest.

My heart was thundering like a freight train in my chest. I had no idea what I was hearing, couldn't really make sense of any of it, but my blood had turned to ice in my veins all the same. Fix had told me back in the motel that he was an assassin. He'd told me he killed people for money, but I'd brushed it off as nonsense. Now, listening to the tense exchange that was taking place between him and this other man, it sounded like he'd actually been telling the truth. But there was no way. It simply couldn't be true.

"Changing my mind isn't easy," Fix rumbled. His voice was filled with enough gravel to set my teeth on edge. I'd never heard the promise of such violence in anyone's words before; it made me want to back up, to clap my hands over my ears, to quietly tiptoe my way back outside and run for my goddamn life. I couldn't do it, though. I couldn't make a single one of my muscles move as I stood there, listening to the men talk.

"Convince me that you'll never attack another human being for their differences. Convince me you'll never raise your hand in anger, or take something from someone weaker and more vulnerable than you, simply because they aren't white. If you can do that, I'll let you live."

"All right, then. You have my word as a good Catholic. I won't never do that shit again."

I'd heard that same haughty, smug tone before, the night I'd held a knife of my own up to my father's throat. He'd sworn he'd never touch me again. He'd sworn he'd never touch Amy again, and I'd known he was just telling me what I'd wanted to hear. I'd heard the lie in his voice. I'd witnessed it in his eyes, that had been conniving and glinting with the revenge he was already planning against me. I was sure the same look of contempt and disgust would be on the face of the man Fix was talking to, and that made my heart stop beating altogether.

God, he was going to hurt this guy. Fix was seriously going to injure him. I couldn't understand why, but I found myself propelled forward, toward the sound of their voices. I didn't want to see... I didn't want to watch what was going to happen next, but a part of me felt obliged to stop it, to prevent whatever was about to take place. I didn't know how I was going to accomplish that, but...

My body was numb as I moved. I didn't feel a thing. My lungs quit working as I found myself standing in a doorway. Fix stood with his back to me, and in his hand...

In his hand: the cruelest, sharpest knife I'd ever seen.

The man opposite him was shorter than Fix, soft around his midsection, his face crumpled into a mask of hate and fury. Despite the faint lighting, I could make out the dark splatter across the shoulders of his tired, worn jacket that the rain must have created when they were outside. His jeans were streaked with grease, and frayed at the hems. The baseball cap he was wearing was so worn that the material had split over the brim. Strange that I should notice such fine details, when I should have been charging forward, shouting, demanding that Fix leave the guy alone.

"You aren't going to change," Fix said softly. "The way you hurt that girl... you zip-tied her hands, and you pinned her down. You kept her in your basement for days. You forced yourself inside her time and time again, and you laughed as she begged and pleaded with you for her life—"

"I didn't kill her," the other man protested. It was then I saw the tire iron he was holding in his hand. "I didn't take her life."

"You might as well have done," Fix countered. "What kind of an existence do you think you left her with? Do you think she'll ever be able to sleep again? Do you think she'll be able to go back to her daily routine and forget about everything you did to her? Normal doesn't exist for Holly anymore. She'll never be able to have the normal life she deserved. She'll never be able to form a connection with a man. She won't be able to fall in love, get married and have children. Every time a guy looks at her in the street, every time someone smiles at her and admires her, she'll never be able to smile back. She'll see you. Your hideous face looming over her. You, palming your disgusting dick as you prepare to shove it inside her one more time. She'll remember every single terrible thing you did to her, and she'll die just a little more inside. You robbed her of everything good."

The other man's scowl deepened in the flash of an eye; he'd heard the finality in Fix's tone, the same way I'd heard it, and he knew he was never going to be able to trick Fix into believing him. "That little fucking cunt didn't deserve anything. She deserved exactly what I gave to her. I should have slit her fucking throat. You're right. I didn't stop hurting her when she begged. It made my dick hard. I loved fucking the shit out of her. I fucking loved hurting her. I'd do it all again if I had the chance." When he launched himself forward, I didn't see it coming. He was slow and sloppy, hefting the tire iron over his head, bringing it swinging down in a savage arc aimed directly at Fix's head. Fix sidestepped out of the way with apparent ease; he didn't even raise a hand to defend himself. He simply moved out of the way, tutting under his breath. The other man stumbled, carried forward by his own momentum, and that's when Fix reacted. He flipped the knife over in his hand and angled his wrist, darting it out to the right—a casual, fluid movement that looked like it cost him nothing at all. The tip of the knife plunged into the other guy's side, and time stopped. The other man looked up at Fix, his eyes wide with surprise, and a long, wet gasp hissed out of his mouth.

"You...fucking asshole," he wheezed. "You fucking piece of fucking..." The tire iron moved again, flying toward Fix's shoulder, but Fix reached up and took hold of the man by the wrist, halting his attack in midair. He was so calm. So collected. With his back still to me, I couldn't see his face, but there was a serenity that poured off him, loosening his shoulders. It was over quickly, but the scene would play out in my mind until the day I died: Fix slowly, carefully withdrew the knife from the man's side, and he raised it to his throat.

"I won't let you hurt anyone else," he whispered. "You're done, Franz. It's over. I'll make it quick."

There was resignation in Franz's eyes. He knew Fix was telling the truth, and a part of him looked like it had accepted it. He was welling up, tears threatening to spill down his face as Fix stepped closer to him, holding him tightly by the arm. Franz swallowed, a flicker of pain passing over his face. "You...you're a priest," he gasped. His face had gone white, turned to the color of ash, and tiny spots of blood flecked his lips and his chin. "Absolve me. Free me of my sins."

Fix swiveled his body, the sound of his boots grinding against the concrete underfoot filling the air. "I used to be a priest. I can't help you. And even if I could, I wouldn't. You have to actual repent to be absolved. And I don't take confession anymore." In one swift, predatory movement, Fix slashed out with his arm, and the knife sang through the air. I watched, horrified, as the wicked edge of his serrated blade cut across Franz's throat. Then the blood came. A gushing spurt of crimson that sprayed all over Fix, and up over his head, hitting the wall right beside me.

Franz gurgled and choked as he died. He was unable to scream, which might have been a blessing had he not been trying very hard to do just that. A further jet of blood spouted from the jagged tear in his neck, and he grasped at Fix, hands clawing at him as he tried to remain upright. It was useless, though. Completely futile. The light faded from his eyes in a matter of seconds, and then he was slipping, sliding, hands releasing Fix as he sagged to the ground.

I still couldn't move. My nerve endings weren't responding, even though I was hollering at them to obey. I could have snuck away and hid before being discovered, but the shock of what I'd just seen had me rooted permanently to the spot. As Fix slowly turned around, I knew with every fiber of my being that I was about to die. I'd seen what he'd done. I'd witnessed the whole thing. There was no way I'd be allowed to live to tell the tale. The coppery taste of metal and fear flooded my mouth, so thick and overwhelming that I almost gagged on it.

Fix saw me immediately. He was a vision of terror—face and hands covered with blood, jacket doused and drenched in red. He was the stuff of nightmares, and I was locked in his gaze, unable to run. He didn't look shocked to see me standing there in the doorway. He didn't look surprised at all. There was a darkness shrouding him as he took a step toward me, wiping his face with the back of his hand, smearing the blood like it was war paint.

"I didn't think you'd stay to watch, Sera. I didn't think you'd have the stomach for it."
SEVEN

JUSTICE

FIX

I'd known the moment she'd entered the auto shop. Her perfume had given her away—sweet, soft, floral and delicious, the same smell that had been haunting my senses ever since I'd fucked her last night—and I'd waited, figuring out how I was going to handle the situation. She'd stop me. She'd come running in and save Franz. She'd call the police. She'd have me arrested if I laid one finger on the guy. Those were the things I'd been expecting her to say and do, only she didn't.

She'd remained hidden in the shadows, observing silently, and I'd realized exactly how fucked I was. If I let Franz go, he'd try and come after me. That wouldn't go well for him, naturally, but it was inconvenient. And then what? If he took his anger at being confronted out on another unsuspecting girl? If he raped someone else? There was just no way...

I stepped carefully, making sure Sera could see me clearly as I approached her. No sudden movements. No surprises that might have her screaming. She looked like a frightened deer, trapped in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle that she could plainly see but do absolutely nothing to avoid.

"You killed him," she breathed, her eyes skating to the dead body on the ground behind me. "You...you took that knife and you killed him."

"I did."

She looked at me like I'd just denied my actions instead of admitting to them. "You killed him."

"I know."

"Wh—" She shook her head, grasping for the wall, trying to steady herself as she swayed. "Why? What the..."

"He hurt a girl. I was hired to make the situation right," I said, keeping my voice even. In the years I'd been doing this kind of work, no one had ever stumbled upon me in the act. I'd never been so obviously caught red handed. My mind was reeling. I wanted to pick Sera up, sling her over my shoulder and get the fuck out of there, but that would be risky. If I didn't handle this situation right, and she was bawling and crying as I dragged her through the parking lot, someone was bound to see us. The moment Franz was found dead, it would be easy enough for someone to report what they'd seen and the cops would be on my tail in no time. It was bad enough that the waiter in the diner had seen me with Franz as it was, but the kid had barely looked twice in my direction. There had been no cameras in the diner, the place was far too low rent for any kind of security measures, so the police were going to have to go off a very vague description as it was. But if Sera lost her shit and was hysterical as I bundled her into the back of the truck, that would complicate things immensely.

"He—how is this making the situation right?" Sera had lost all color to her face, and she kept swallowing. Her gag reflex was probably working overtime. I remembered the first time I'd seen someone murdered, and while I hadn't flipped out the way I suspected she was about to, I'd definitely parted company with my lunch once I found myself alone in a bathroom.

"The cops around here would never have pressed charges against him," I said, cautiously wiping my palms against my pants. "And even if they did, the girl's too scared to press charges. So I took the job. If I thought the justice system would have taken care of this, I would have left the whole thing well alone."

Sera sniffed, then covered her mouth with her hand, cringing. "God, the smell..."

The thing about dead people was that, when they were on their way to dying, they often lost control over their bowels. It was more common than not. Combined with the thick scent of blood in the air, the odor of death was already developing from faint to pungent.

"Fuck. I think I'm going to throw up." Sera staggered back, bending over at the waist, but I rushed forward and took hold of her, pinning her in my arms.

"Do not throw up in here. If you're gonna puke, do it outside. Preferably seven or eight miles away from here."

She groaned, a look of panic forming as she took in the way I was holding her. She was going to lose it. Any second now, she was going to have a meltdown, and I was going to have to take measures to calm her. I didn't want to have to knock her out, but I would if I had to. Her body shook, one violent shudder, and she tried to lift her hand to her face again, but she noticed the blood on her jacket and her skin—the blood she had just put her hand in when she tried to steady herself against the wall—and that was it.

Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she fainted.

******

Step one: Get Sera into the truck.

Step two: Calmly drive back to the motel.

Step three: Strip out of my blood soaked clothes and change in the truck.

Step four: Collect Sera's bags from the lobby.

Step five: Get the hell out of dodge.

I completed steps one through five mechanically, not really thinking about anything. There would be time for thinking later. Now was a time for action, and I'd been over scenarios like this enough times in my head that I knew exactly what I had to do. Okay, so maybe not scenarios exactly like this, but similar enough. For some reason, I'd never considered there might be a time that I'd have to lay an unconscious woman down on the backseat of my vehicle and hightail it away from a murder scene. The faintest possibility that something like this could happen just never fucking occurred to me.

So fucking stupid.

We were back on the road before Sera woke up, which was concerning since, as far as I knew, people who fainted generally woke up quickly, but she'd obviously suffered quite a shock. Her body, her mind, must have needed a little time to reset itself. I heard her stir, and then within a second she was scrambling at the door handle, trying to open the motherfucking door. Thankfully, I'd taken precautions to lock them all before I'd started driving again.

"We're doing eighty. Wouldn't recommend a tuck and roll right now."

"Let me out of the car, Fix. Stop the car right now and let me go." She was frightened, and I couldn't really blame her for it. The last thing we needed was her losing her shit while we were moving, though. I pulled over to the side of the road, hitting the hazards, and I snatched up the brown file that I'd placed on the passenger seat, ready for this moment. Opening it up, I grabbed the first photo from within the file and thrust it over my shoulder, snarling under my breath. It was Holly, the girl Franz had so brutally assaulted, covered in bruises, her mouth split open in so many places that her lips resembled mangled meat from a deli counter. She was naked in the picture, and the bite marks and burns all over her skin, her breasts, her thighs, and her stomach were livid and purple. Horrific to behold.

"This is what he did," I snapped. "This is how he left her, when he finally released her. Seventy-two hours, he kept her in that basement, Sera. Seventy-two hours, where he tortured her, and raped her, and sank his teeth into her skin. He gave her hepatitis, for fuck's sake."

Sera didn't take the photo from me. She stared at it, shaking, her eyes filling with tears. A car burned past us on the road, way faster than the speed limit, and the truck rocked from side to side in its wake. Sera just sat there, staring at the picture of Holly, unmoving. I tossed the photo into her lap and grabbed another from the file: an image of Holly's buttocks, which were flayed raw and covered in blood. I tossed that one into Sera's lap, then followed it with another, and then another, each one worse than the one before. "If you're gonna try and tell me that sick bastard didn't get what he deserved, then you're going to have a very difficult time."

Quietly, Sera began to cry. "I don't...I don't know what to think. I just...please. Please don't kill me."

I'd already figured she would think that—that I was going to kill her. Her desperate plea still made me feel sick to my stomach, though. "I'm not going to kill you, Sera. Why the fuck would I kill you? You've done nothing wrong." My stomach tied itself in a knot.

She stopped crying, her body going still. She raised her head, looking me in the eye for the first time since she'd awoken. "Then...what are you going to do with me. Why won't you let me go?"

"I need to know you're not gonna call the cops. I need to know, the moment I let you go, you're not going to send the authorities after me."

With fumbling hands, Sera gathered the photos of Holly's battered and broken body and threw them at me, sending them falling into the foot well. "Do you think I'm stupid? I wouldn't breathe a word of this to anyone, Fix. I fought long and hard for the life I have right now. I wouldn't risk it by snitching on a clearly very fucking deranged and dangerous man."

Ouch. The dangerous part I could handle. Deranged, though? That was uncalled for. I turned around, gripping hold of the steering wheel, sucking in a deep breath through my nose. "I'm sorry if I don't believe you right now, but it's been my experience that people will tell you anything when they're scared for their lives. You heard Franz, right?"

Silence.

I blew out my breath, huffing. This wasn't going well. None of it was. I'd formulated a plan in my mind. It was fucking nuts, completely against what I was supposed to do. I already knew Sera was going to balk at it, but fuck. I couldn't handle the alternative. If she didn't like it...

"Just let me go, Fix. Please. I don't need this, and neither do you. All I wanted to do was get to my sister's wedding. After that, I wanted to go back to Seattle and get back to work. This doesn't change any of that."

She sounded sincere, and honestly I was inclined to believe her. "I'll take you to your sister's wedding," I said evenly, restarting the truck's engine. "Then I'll go with you back to Seattle, and everything will be normal again. So long as you keep your mouth shut and say nothing of what you saw this morning, everything will be fine. Do you understand?"

I pulled back out onto the road, waiting to see what she would say. I didn't have to wait very long.

"You're holding me hostage?" she asked quietly.

"No. I'm not holding you hostage. I'm going to monitor the situation, until I'm certain you won't bring the sky crashing down on my head. That's different."

"You're insane." I could hear the panic in her voice, but it wasn't as bad as before. She was gradually regaining control over herself, believed I wasn't planning on murdering her to tidy up my loose ends, and that was progress. "You're going to drive me to Alabama, and then what? You're going to watch me like a hawk? Pretend to be a waiter at my sister's fucking wedding? Keep tabs on me, and take me out if it looks like I'm losing my cool?"

"Why the fuck would I pretend to be a waiter, Sera? Jesus. It's a wedding. You have a plus one, right?" I glanced in the rearview mirror to look at her, and the expression on her face was more than a little incredulous.

"My plus one? You want to be my plus one? You just killed a rapist, slit his throat from ear to ear, and now you want to be my date to a fucking wedding? I can't...I just can't make any sense of what's happening right now. I feel like I'm having a bad trip or something. The worst trip in the history of drug abuse."

"Don't be so melodramatic."

"Melodramatic? You think this is melodrama? You kill people for money, Fix. You stab them, and you shoot them, and you...you do god knows what else to them. I saw you do it with my own two eyes, and I'm being melodramatic when I don't want to spend time with you at my sister's wedding. You have got to be kidding!"

"A couple of days. All you have to do is make me believe I'm not gonna find myself in handcuffs, and I'll let you go. It's easy, really. If you hadn't come investigating like fucking Columbo, then we wouldn't be in this position in the first place."

She laughed a cold, hard, derisive laugh. "If you hadn't killed Franz, we wouldn't be in this position. I think that trumps the fact that I walked into a building, looking for you."

"Hadn't you better be texting your sister right now, instead of yelling at me? She's gonna want to know you need someone added next to you on her seating plan."

"Fuck, Fix! You're just as bad as Franz was if you think it's okay to keep me with you against my will."

I sent her a sharp, narrow-eyed glare behind me, trying to tamp down my rising temper. She was the fucking crazy one if she was comparing this to what Franz had done to Holly. I saw the moment in the rearview that she realized how wrong her statement was. She didn't take it back, though. She set her jaw, lifting her chin in defiance, and slumped back into her chair.

"All right. Fine. You can come with me to the stupid wedding. You can escort me back to Seattle like the naughty little girl that I am. But the second it looks like you're going to hurt me, or do something I wouldn't like, then I'm going to start screaming. And trust me...I can scream really fucking loud."

I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd just bought us both some time.
EIGHT

LOLLIPOP

SERA

Amy: Who is he? And why are you just telling me about him now? I asked you months ago if you were seeing anybody, and you said no.

Me: I'm sorry. I'm telling you about him right now, though. It's nothing serious. I didn't think he was going to be able to make the date, so I didn't mention anything. He called this morning and told me he was going to come and pick me up, so there we have it. Look, if it's a problem and you'd prefer him not to be there, then I understand. Just let me know.

It was probably a bad idea to tell Amy she could veto Fix's impromptu attendance at her wedding. She was far more polite than I was, however, and barely argued with me over the matter.

Amy: If you're here on time and everything goes according to plan, then I don't care who you bring. So long as he doesn't fuck up my big day.

So long as he didn't fuck up her big day? God, that was a riot. There were a thousand and one ways Fix could fuck up Amy's big day, which included, but were not limited to, murdering one of the guests. My sister's friends were all assholes as far as I was concerned, but Amy was fond of them for some reason, so she probably wouldn't take too kindly to having any of them killed. My ex-boyfriend, Gareth, was going to be there. Things between us had hardly been serious, but when he'd cheated on me and totaled my car, I'd sworn I'd remove his balls if I ever saw his miserable face again. Amy had warned me he was going to be in attendance—as Ben's oldest friend, he'd been assigned best man duties—and she'd begged me not to cause a scene. I'd been dreading setting eyes on Gareth again, but now he was the least of my worries. Fix was going to turn heads. There would be questions. Lots of them. And when someone asked my plus one what he did for a living, what the fuck was he going to say? "Oh, I kill people for money?" He hadn't even blinked when he'd told me that in the motel lobby last night. His comment had washed over me, but if he said that to Amy? God, there would be fireworks. Fourth of July fireworks. The kind of fireworks that could be seen three counties over and would permanently burn the retinas of anyone unfortunate enough to catch sight of them.

"You're grinding your teeth." Fix hadn't said much in the past few hours, and neither had I. I'd been staring at the back of his neck from the back seat, wondering how easy it would be to choke him out and escape without him crashing the car during my attack. I'd decided the chances of him driving head-on into a barrier, or veering off the road altogether, were far too high, and I'd shelved the idea, but that didn't stop me from imagining how satisfying it would be to wrap my hands around his neck and to squeeze as hard as I could.

"I tend to do that when I'm stressed," I answered him. "And, as you can probably tell, I'm really stressed right now."

"This isn't exactly how I'd planned on spending my week either, Angel."

"Oh? And how exactly did you plan on spending your week?" This was going to be good. He probably had another four or five hits lined up or something. I had no idea what his quota was, but he seemed like an industrious guy. Didn't seem like the type to be taking time off to sip whiskey in front of a roaring fire while reading a good book.

His eyes darted to the rear view mirror. I pretended not to see him look back at me. "I had responsibilities back in New York that are going to have to wait now. Believe me, this is highly inconvenient."

"Responsibilities?" A number of possibilities occurred to me: what if he had a wife and a family back home that were waiting for his return? He fucked me last night, but so what? A guy who ended people's lives on a regular basis was hardly going to flinch at cheating. What if he had an ailing grandmother in a care home that he usually had coffee with every Wednesday? Would she know all about his extra-curricular activities? It was then that I remembered the woman who'd been trying to get hold of him so desperately. "Do your responsibilities involve Monica? Does she know who you are, Fix? Does she know what you do whenever you leave the state?"

A ghost of a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, before it vanished. "Monica isn't my responsibility. But yes, she does know who I am. She's probably the only person in the world who does know me. And yes, she knows exactly what I do whenever I leave the state." The tone in his voice hid a shadow of amusement. There was a story behind his relationship with this woman, Monica, but he didn't seem like he was going to share it. I sure as hell wasn't going to ask him about it.

I turned to stare out of the window, leaning my forehead against the cold glass. Wyoming whipped by in flashes of green, blue, grey, brown and white. Columns of smoke poured from the chimneys of homes set back from the road. There were people inside those houses, preparing lunch for their families. Planning the rest of their day. Cleaning and cooking. Paying their bills. Watching television. How could life carry on so normally, so blindly, for some people, when my whole world had been turned upside down in the space of a couple of hours? I closed my eyes, and all I saw was blood pooling on the floor of that auto shop. The body of that rapist lying there on the frozen concrete, rapidly cooling, his eyes open, staring at me, frightened, as if he were pleading with me to help him, even in death. "How many people have you killed, Fix?" I asked quietly.

Silence filled the truck, and I began to think he wasn't going to answer. Then he cleared his throat, and spoke. "Does it matter? Doesn't the death of one person at my hands damn me to hell either way?"

"I don't believe in hell."

Again, another cursory, if a little intrigued backward glance from Fix in the mirror. "So you're an atheist, then."

"I'm someone who believes you shouldn't kill people, even if there is no higher power monitoring our behavior up in the clouds, chalking up points for or against us."

He smirked. The truck was filled with the scent of fresh, cold air and pine needles. It would forever be a smell that reminded me of this moment. If I were destined to have any more moments, that was. Fix's ice blue eyes returned to the road, scanning the horizon, and I caught myself staring at the line of his jaw; his facial hair had grown noticeably overnight, and now he was sporting a healthy five o'clock shadow. I hated myself for it, but once again I found myself stunned by how absolutely, ridiculously attractive he was. He was beyond dangerous, and I was beyond stupid to be thinking such things about him at a time like this, but I'd known it for a long time now: there was something fundamentally fucked up inside me. I'd been in too many messed up situations already to react the way any sane person might when locked in the back of a moving truck with a potential mass murder. And he really was pretty.

"Are you hungry?" he asked. His voice was deep and penetrating—the sound of rumbling thunder. I tightened my grasp around my cell phone, holding onto it for dear life; it was a miracle he'd let me keep it, really. Fix was a smart man, that much was desperately obvious. So there had to be a reason he hadn't confiscated my only current means of contact with the outside world. From the backseat, I could easily send a text, pleading for help, and Fix knew that.

"No. I'm fine," I answered him.

"Okay," he responded flatly. But another five miles down the road saw him pulling off our course and onto the forecourt of a gas station.

"I told you I wasn't hungry."

"And I said okay. But, with all the grumbling and rumbling coming from your stomach for the last hour, I knew you were lying. Also, this truck doesn't run on thin air. If we're going to make it to Alabama, then we're actually going to have to stop for gas every once in a while." He paused while he killed the engine, then turned in his seat and pulled a face that must have matched my own pretty closely. "I know. The laws of potential energy and physics in general are fucking stupid, right?"

The ease of his smile struck me as odd. But then, Fix had had a long time to come to terms with the fact that he was a killer. It was old news to him. I'd had less than a few hours to wrap my head around his entire existence, and it was taking me a hot minute to figure out what the fuck was going on. "I'll have a bottle of water and a bag of chips," I said. "Plain. No cheesy shit."

According to Amy, I had a look that withered men's balls and had them retracting inside their bodies, never to be seen again. I was giving Felix that look now, but he seemed utterly impervious to it. Didn't even bat an eyelash. In fact, he laughed under his breath as he opened up the driver's door and hopped out of the cab, moving with the ease of someone very comfortable inside their own skin. I hissed under my breath when, instead of filling up the car and heading inside the gas station, Fix tugged open the back passenger door—my door—and gestured rather bluntly for me to get out.

"I head inside that building, I'll come out to find my truck gone," he said, smiling from ear to ear. "You think I'm that dumb?"

"I wasn't going to steal your truck, Fix. You took the keys with you, for god's sake."

"You look like a girl who knows how to rig a hot wire. Now come on. And play nice. The guys in these rural rest stops usually have about fifteen weapons strapped to their bodies, they're bored, and they have itchy trigger fingers. One doe-eyed, please-help-me-kind-sir look from you, and they'll be pumping me full of buckshot."

I felt a little unsteady as I slid out of the truck, straight into Fix's arms. His fingers curved around my sides, pressing lightly into my ribs, and I could feel the warmth of his body radiating right through my jacket. "I don't need help, thank you," I hissed, trying to wriggle free of his grasp. He shoved me, stepping forward at the same time, so that my back was butted up against the side of the truck and his chest was flush against mine, my body pinned between the vehicle and his solid, strong, muscle-packed form. I gasped, trying to catch my breath. Trying to figure out which was stronger—Felix Marcosa, or the Ford I was leaning up against.

"Are you listening?" he growled, leaning in so that our faces were mere inches apart.

"And why would I care if you're riddled with buckshot?"

"Because. You don't hate me. You're trying to avoid the thought altogether, but you actually quite like me, Sera. And you're not at all sorry about the guy I left on the ground back there in Liberty Fields. You know you're not. He was a rapist and likely a murderer, too. He was a violent man, who reveled in the misery and the suffering of others, and I can tell...you've seen your fair share of people like him." He reached up and slowly ran his fingers along the edge of my jaw, along the slightly puckered line of my scar, and a jolt of ice rushed through my veins. I whipped my head to the side, removing myself from his touch, shuddering at the very idea that someone, anyone, had just dared to touch such a secret, hidden, vulnerable part of me with their fingertips and their words.

"You have no fucking idea what you're talking about," I snapped, slamming my palms flat against his chest, pushing him firmly enough that he had to take a step back. "You don't know me. You don't know anything about me, my past, what I'm thinking or what I like. You're grasping at straws, trying to convince yourself that I'm safe. That I'm not going to tell anyone what you did. And if that's what needs to happen in order for you to let me go, then I'm all for it. But please...please don't try and convince me of anything. I'm not that simple to figure out, Fix. You'll never see inside me. You'll never piece the fractured pieces of me back together long enough to make a whole picture, so don't even try."

My heart was galloping away from me as I slid around him and made my way across the forecourt. I didn't look back. Underfoot, the ground was buckled and broken, huge ruptures in the concrete creating a giant spider's web of cracks. Weeds had shot up from the earth beneath, ankle high, knee high in places, and I couldn't help thinking it: Amy and I were so similar to those weeds. We'd been born beneath a pile of shit so high that it seemed impossible we'd ever make anything of ourselves, but somehow, between the cracks, we'd managed to push our way through, fighting, and we'd survived. We were still weeds, though. We'd never be anything more.

"Can I help you, miss?" The guy behind the counter, armed to the teeth as Fix predicted, was actually an old woman. Her weapon of choice were a pair of knitting needles. She was probably someone's grandma, and she smelled of talcum powder and gentle, sickly sweet smell of someone who might just die any moment now. Her cardigan was three sizes too big for her. I could see the balled up wad of tissue stuffed up her right sleeve a mile away. Why did the elderly always insist on keeping tissue to hand at all times? And why was a pocket or a bag not good enough? Why did it have to be up the sleeve?

"I'm just gonna look around for a second, if that's okay?" I said softly. My temper was still flying high, but there was no sense in lashing out at the poor old girl behind the counter, knitting what looked like baby clothes. I paced up and down the aisles, eyes scanning over the products stacked on the shelves but not really seeing anything. The strip lighting overhead hummed and spat, the light itself flaring and dimming, flickering epileptically—the first signal in any bad horror movie that things were about to get fucked up. I picked up a can of Pringles, wondering how I'd use the tube of chips as a means of self-defense, and that's when the door opened and Fix sauntered in, flicking his hair back out of his face like some sort of goddamned demi god. The old woman behind the counter stilled, her needles ceasing their rapid-fire clack, clack, clacking, and she just stared at him like she couldn't believe her eyes. Truly, I felt sorry for her. Her accent was thick and local. She'd probably never left this shitty, dull, backwater, and she'd almost certainly never seen a man like Fix before. Not in the flesh, at least. The men around here were beer swilling, overweight, and belligerent, no doubt—of the opinion that brushing their hair or their teeth would make them a 'pansy' and half a man in the eyes of his guffawing peers. Gross.

Fix, on the other hand, looked like he'd just stepped out of a TV screen and accidentally stumbled inside the gas station while trying to find his way back to the Oscars. "Good...good evening?" the old woman said. She sounded confused, as if she didn't really know what time of day it was anymore, or if the evening was any good.

Fix flashed her a smile that could easily have stopped the old woman's heart; miraculously, she survived the experience. "I'd like to pay for pump number four, please," he purred. "And whatever my friend has decided she'd like."

I slapped the can of Pringles and a bottle of water down on the counter, arching an eyebrow at Fix. "Friend?"

He gave me a rueful smile, then shrugged his right shoulder before wrapping his arm around me. "You're right. Sorry, Angel." He gave the old woman a conspiratorial flash of his teeth, his eyes wrinkling ever so slightly at the corners. "She's my girlfriend. We're going to a wedding, y'know. I'm meeting the family for the first time."

"Oh, well don't you be nervous," she said, wagging her finger at him. "Manners. That's all you need to make a good impression. You seem like a charming young man, and you, my dear, seem like a lovely young lady, as well. I'm sure your folks are going to be thrilled to meet your new beau." She poked her tongue out in a really weird and awkward way, winking at me, and I couldn't rein in the cringe that bunched my brow. If she saw my expression, she didn't react to it, though. She accepted Fix's cash, giggling like a little girl when he changed his mind at the last minute and decided to buy a lollipop. He tore the wrapper right off the candy and shoved it into his mouth there and then at the counter.

Two identical pink dots of embarrassment blossomed high on the old woman's cheeks, and a fiendish smile tore across Fix's own face. There appeared to be life in the old girl yet. Fix knew the sight of him sucking on that thing was having an effect on the cashier, and he was delighting in the attention. I mean, I couldn't deny it—there was something damned distracting about a grown man sucking on a lollipop. Fix's mouth was sheer perfection. His lips were full, and fuck me if they weren't perfectly bitable. I'd learned that last night, when I'd fallen into bed with him without a clue who he really was. It was a good thing he didn't cast me a sideways glance; he undoubtedly would have found identical flushed cheeks on me, too.

Grabbing the bag the old woman had placed my items into, I stormed out of the gas station, kicking myself for reacting. I'd made a host of remarkably stupid decisions in my life, but allowing Felix Marcosa to crawl his way under my skin wasn't going to be one of them.

Back in the car, I climbed into the front seat of the truck instead of the back. Sitting next to Fix wasn't high on my list of priorities, but at least I could watch him properly from the passenger seat. And if he tried anything, I had a better chance of seeing it coming.

Fix started the engine, then made a soft humming sound, pushing the lollipop into the side of his cheek. "You're going to have to stop scowling at some point, Sera."

"I'll stop scowling when you get in this truck and drive off without me."

He laughed, as if this amused him greatly. "Then you're gonna develop some deep lines on that pretty forehead of yours, Angel."

He tore out of the parking lot like the cops were already on our tail.
NINE

SIXSMITH

SERA

"This place is a fucking shit hole, girl. What have you been doing all day?"

I tried not to tremble. Sixsmith didn't like it when we showed fear. He also didn't like it when we showed any form of confidence, arrogance or defiance, so I trained my face into the blankest expression I could and rose from the chair where I'd been sitting at the scuffed dining table.

The kitchen wasn't a mess. I'd spent three hours cleaning it, until the counter tops, regardless of the cracked and chipped tiles, were sparkling. The floor didn't have a mark on it. The trash was empty. There wasn't a dirty cup, plate, or bowl in sight, and yet I'd known it wouldn't matter to my father. He always did this—came home steaming drunk in the middle of the night, when Cressida, the bar tender at the dive bar my father frequented every night, finally cut him off and refused to serve him anymore. He'd be pissed that he hadn't been able to get that final beer he'd whined and pleaded for, and he'd come home and take it out on my sister and me. Tonight, I'd helped Amy with her homework and made sure she'd gone to bed early, though. Someone had to wait up to serve Sixsmith his dinner. That someone would bear the full brunt of his wrath, and it served no purpose for Sixsmith's anger to fall on Amy's shoulders, when mine were broad enough to take it, and had done so many times before.

My father stalked around the kitchen, his shoulder-length hair stringy with sweat, his eyes bloodshot and roving; he was searching for something. Something to punish me for. Yanking open the fridge door, he bent over, inspecting the contents inside.

"There's no beer in here," he snarled, straightening, then slamming the door closed. "I thought I told you to make sure this thing was fully stocked by the time I got back?" His mouth was twisted into an ugly sneer as he turned to look at me.

"I bought groceries. I got everything I could. I tried to buy the beer, but the guy at the store asked me for ID. He said he knew I was only thirteen."

The disgust that rippled off my father was a tangible thing, and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. "Don't sass me, you little bitch. You should have convinced him you were old enough."

I'd done my best to persuade the store clerk that he was mistaken, that I was in fact out of high school and almost finished at college now, but he hadn't believed me for a second. Still, I'd tried again and again, until the gnarled guy behind the till had threatened to call the cops if I didn't scat. "His daughter's in my year," I said quietly. "He said he'd seen me at school, and he knew I was lying. There was nothing I could do."

"Bullshit!" My father spat the word, and flecks of saliva flew from his mouth. I tried not to stare at the fine rope of spittle hanging down from the corner of his mouth. "You're a dumb little slut, Sera. You know exactly how to get a man to do what you want. I've seen the way you look at that boy down the street. You push your tits out to try and get his attention. You could have just smiled at that prick and made him harder than concrete. He'd have given you anything you wanted."

This wasn't going well at all. Cressida must have served a little longer than usual, or perhaps Sixsmith had scraped some cash together and managed to fill his hip flask with cheap whiskey on his way to the bar. Either way, he was much drunker than usual, and he was humming with a new kind of rage, even more volatile and unpredictable than usual. His hands were balled up into fists as he stepped toward me, and a bolt of ice-cold fear chased down my spine. The door to the living room was behind Sixsmith, and there was no way I'd be able to make it to the door on my right, the back door leading out into the garden, without him grabbing hold of me first. I swallowed, forcing my body to remain absolutely still.

"I don't know how to flirt with men," I said evenly. "I can't do th—"

Lightning fast, Sixsmith lunged for me and grabbed hold of the first thing he could: my hair. Pain ripped across my scalp—it felt like he was tearing every strand out by the root—but I didn't scream. Screaming did something to Sixsmith that I couldn't comprehend. It made his breathing hard, and lit a wild fire in his eyes that terrified the ever-loving shit out of me. "Don't lie to me," he hissed. "You're lucky I don't take you over my knee and tan your ass raw. I know you've given it up to half the boys in town. You're a whore. You're worse than a whore. At least hookers get paid for opening their legs. You've been letting people ride the shit out of you for fun."

I hadn't let anyone ride me for fun. I hadn't let anyone ride me at all. Brody, a jock in the year above me, had tried to hold my hand last semester, but when I'd attempted to claw his eyes out of his head, screaming at the top of my lungs, hysterical and uncontrollable, he'd shoved me so hard that I'd fallen onto my ass in front of the entire canteen. After that, I'd been branded frigid. Crazy. Retarded. Not a single boy had looked at me since. I sure as hell hadn't been pushing my tits out to get anyone's attention. I'd been strapping them down for the last year or so, desperately trying to disguise the fact that I was developing a woman's body, but eventually I'd had to give up. It was impossible to hide anymore.

Sixsmith jerked my head, and I bit the inside of my cheek; I wanted to fight back. I wanted to defend myself, but I'd been here before. Once my father's temper reached this stage, there was nothing to be done. If I lashed out, pushed him away, or tried to escape, things would be so much worse for me. I formed the shape of a gun inside my head, and I imagined what it would be like to grasp hold of it by its cold metal handle, to slide my finger up against the trigger. To aim the weapon at my father, and pull...

"Now that I come to think about it, maybe I've been lookin' at this all wrong," Sixsmith said, wiping his mouth with the back of his tattooed hand. "Maybe you'd like selling your ass for money. I'm sure you'd be good at it."

My eyes were stinging, filling with tears, but I didn't say anything. Arguing was a bad idea. Moving was a bad idea. Even breathing was a bad idea. Sixsmith let go of my hair and slid his hand down, across my face, over my cheek, cupping my head beneath my chin, forcing me to stand up straight and look at him. He was like a deranged dog. Looking him in the eye was never an option, far too dangerous, so I focused on the end of his nose, praying this would be over quickly. Sometimes it was over quickly. There were nights when he came home and he was so unbalanced by the alcohol in his system that he'd only hit me once or twice, and then he'd stagger into the living room and slump down into his recliner, snoring almost immediately. It was a futile hope, though. Tonight, Sixsmith was fired up. He was probably going to drag this out as long as he could. He was probably going to make it hurt.

Leaning in close, he whispered to me, "You think you're so much better than me, don't you?" His breath reeked of rotten teeth and stale booze, a smell I'd grown so accustomed to that I didn't even flinch at it anymore. "ANSWER ME, BITCH!"

A couple of years ago, Sixsmith hadn't paid the rent on the tiny, dingy apartment we'd been living in, and we'd been kicked out. The three of us, Sixsmith, Amy, and me, had all gone to live at my grandfather's house for a while, until Sixsmith 'got back on his feet'. It'd taken a long time for Sixsmith to get money together for a new place, and so there had been a period of time when things had gotten better. Sixsmith hated his father, but he'd never raise his voice or his fists to us when we were under the old man's roof. My grandfather was an ex-military man, a hard ass that never smiled, rarely spoke, and glowered at Amy and me whenever we were in the room. He would never have tolerated Sixsmith treating us badly, though. He had that one thing going for him.

I found myself wishing we were back there, in that stuffy, silent, mausoleum of a house, under the watchful eye of the General, as the hate beaming out of my father's face flickered, transitioning into something else altogether. The sneer disappeared, replaced by a vacant, loose smile. "I bet Jacob would give me money for you," he said. "That pervy bastard's been sending looks your way for a couple of years now."

Oh god. My heart rate soared through the roof, and I couldn't do it any more. I couldn't live inside calm, flat, lifeless Sera anymore. I became scared, angry, panicked Sera, exploding into action, trying to rip myself free from Sixsmith's grasp. He had hold of me by the throat now, though. And he wasn't letting go. "Sixsmith, please..." I croaked, as his grip tightened around my esophagus, crushing, preventing me from drawing in breath. Was there a way out of this situation right now? I couldn't think. Couldn't decide what to do. Couldn't fathom a way to make him release me so that I could bolt to freedom. A long, torturous second passed, and I watched as a spark of excitement flared inside Sixsmith.

"I bet Sam Harrodan would clear all that money I owe him if I let him sink his dick inside that pretty little mouth of yours, too. The girls he has hanging around his place are always young. Fucker's always acting so goddamn high and mighty, but I know. I know what a piece of shit he is."

"Sixsmith, please! I'm sorry. I'll get the beer next time, I promise." I couldn't think of anything else to say. The inside of Sixsmith's head was a labyrinth of bizarre and confusing pathways that made no sense to me. Trying to figure out exactly what to say to him and when had always completely escaped me, and now, with his hand blocking off oxygen, starving me, I had no clue how to appease him. He was cold, and he was evil, and whenever he got an idea he thought might benefit him, he grabbed hold of it with both hands. There was a chance he was drunk enough that he wouldn't remember this in the morning, but the prospect that he would remember it, that he'd be calling on his friends to see if they wanted to use and abuse my body in lieu of his debts, made my entire being sing in terror.

My father smiled, flashing me broken, crooked teeth, discolored from the cigarettes he chain-smoked every waking hour of the day. "Yeah, Sera. That pleading tone... They'd probably like that. They'd probably like it if you put up a bit of a fight."

Pure instinct clawed at me, demanding I react. I had to get out of the kitchen. I had to get out of the house altogether. But how? Sixsmith wasn't a big guy. He used to be fairly fit, back when Mom was still alive, but over the years since he'd let himself waste. His midsection was bloated and strained against his t-shirt, and his arms were wiry, barely strong at all anymore. None of that changed the fact that he was nearly two feet taller than me and a man, while I was a slender thirteen-year-old girl. I couldn't overpower him, there was no chance of that, so I did the only thing I could think of to break free. I scrambled, trying to steady myself, and then I drew my leg back and I swung...

My knee found its mark a second later, and Sixsmith's eyes widened. There was a moment when I thought the blow I'd dealt him to his balls had had no effect whatsoever, and then Sixsmith's hand fell from my throat. He crumpled forward, groaning, a pained exhalation escaping his lungs as he clutched at his stomach and between his legs.

"You...stupid...cunt," he wheezed. "You stupid fucking cunt. You shouldn't have done that."

A second later, I was running. I smashed my hip against the corner of the table in my haste to reach the back door, and I sucked in a gasp of air, forcing the pain away as I took hold of the door handle and twisted. The door opened, and a surge of relief washed over me. Sixsmith was still bent double, trying to regain himself. He wasn't following after me. I was fast when I needed to be, I could put a considerable distance between us if I pushed myself as hard as I could—

Amy.

My fractured thoughts came to a screeching halt. Oh my god. My sister. She was two years younger than me, but in her head she was much younger still. Her body was still that of a child. If I ran now, if I left this stinking, miserable house, filled with so many terrible, bitter memories, I'd be leaving Amy behind. And Sixsmith...there was no telling what Sixsmith would do to her. If I left, he might use her in my place. She might be the one he tried to barter to clear his debts and earn some extra cash.

My hand stilled on the door handle. My feet were still trying to move forward and carry me away from this god-awful place, but it was as if a solid, crushing weight was suddenly fixing me to the spot. I couldn't do it. I couldn't go and leave her behind. I'd never be able to forgive myself.

My bones were steel. My skin was dread. My heart was fear. My soul was...gone. I turned back around, and I faced my father.

Sixsmith roared as he grabbed the kitchen knife I'd left in the drying rack earlier. I saw the flash of the blade as he hurtled toward me, and I felt my fear leave me. He was going to kill me. After all this. After the beatings, and the abuse, and the screaming, and constantly walking on eggshells every day for as long as I could remember, he was finally going to kill me. I'd denied myself the freedom that leaving would grant me just now, but this was an escape outside of my control. I wouldn't be able to stop him.

"I'm gonna make you beg for your fucking life," Sixsmith growled. Advancing, he held the knife aloft, and my heart stopped. The blade seemed to take forever to reach me. I thought he would plunge it straight into my chest, but he didn't. He held it to my neck, baring his teeth. "Beg, Sera. Beg me not to fucking kill you."

I wanted to. Begging wasn't beneath me. If it would save my life, and save Amy from future misery, too, then I would do it. It was a small price to pay. But when I attempted to push the words out of my mouth, they wouldn't come. My voice had fled me. Everything had fled me. I sighed, letting go of the breath I'd been holding, and I felt strangely light. As if I'd been relieved of a burden I'd been carrying around with me for so long that I had forgotten all about it until now.

Sixsmith pressed the blade harder against my skin, and I didn't move. I didn't blink. My father's eyes were a void, black and bottomless, merciless and cruel. "Beg," he hissed.

When I did nothing, Sixsmith's face contorted into a rictus of pure, uninhibited fury. I waited for the piercing, burning agony that would accompany having my throat slit from ear to ear, but it never came. Instead, pain flared along my jawline, as Sixsmith slashed to the right with the blade. A moment of shock claimed me; he'd cut my face?

The knife clattered to the floor, and then Sixsmith's hands were tearing at me, ripping at my clothes. The NASA t-shirt I was wearing ripped, the sound filling the kitchen, and then he was tugging at my bra.

I thought I'd known fear before. There had been countless moments in my life when I'd been so claimed by my own fear that I thought I'd never be able to surface from it again. At least not whole. But now, with Sixsmith greedily staring down at my exposed body, I experienced a level of fear I hadn't even known possible.

The smell of copper flooded my nose. Something wet and warm was flowing down my neck, but it wasn't until I caught sight of the bright crimson droplets hitting my bare breasts that I realized I was bleeding so badly. Sixsmith lifted his right hand, and it was shaking. I was never going to forget how terribly his hand shook as he reached out and tentatively cupped my breast. I was marble, solid and immoveable. What was he doing? What...how could he... why? My skin was crawling, a thousand insects burrowing into my pores, as Sixsmith sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. He wasn't shouting anymore. His anger had evaporated, leaving behind a strange, rotting silence that coated me like grease. Sixsmith stared. Not at my face, but at my chest. I needed to cover myself up, hide myself away from him. He shouldn't be looking at me the way he was looking at me. It wasn't right. It wasn't right at all.

My father was no longer standing in the kitchen with me. He'd gone somewhere far away, withdrawn into himself, and all he seemed to register now was the fact that he was holding my breast in his cupped hand. Slowly, he moved his fingers, and he rolled my nipple between them.

My mind was fragile. It was going to snap in two. I couldn't...I couldn't even...

"Daddy?"

Amy stood in the doorway to the living room. Her pajama bottoms were twisted around her body, as if she'd been tossing and turning in her sleep again. She'd never been a very good sleeper. Her eyes were wide, her face ashen, drained of all its usual color. There were tears streaming down her cheeks—silver ribbons of abject grief and horror.

"Daddy, what are you doing?" she whispered.

Sixsmith recoiled like he'd been stung, his hand pulling back from my skin. The anger returned in a flash, contorting his face once more. I hiccupped—the strangest reaction to what had just taken place—then I was grappling with the torn material of my shirt, trying to cover myself, hands frantic and trembling.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Sixsmith spat between gritted teeth. "You're meant to be asleep." Rounding on me, he lifted his hand and whipped it out, striking me so hard across the face that I stumbled, my legs giving out underneath me. "Get her to bed. And get this mess cleaned up. You're a fucking disgrace."

The mess, of course, was my own blood. Large, round, fat spatters of red stained the floor, and a good amount of it had run down the length of my body and pooled at my bare feet, collecting between my toes. I hiccupped again, pressing my palm to my burning cheek, biting the urge to burst into tears myself.

The back door opened.

The back door closed.

Sixsmith was gone.
TEN

ROADTRIP

FIX

Sera slept. Dreaming. Twitching in her seat as I drove. She clearly hadn't meant to fall asleep, but about a hundred miles past Wichita her exhaustion had claimed her, and her eyelids had fallen shut. I'd thought about turning on the radio, but then decided against it. I wasn't planning on stopping at all until we reached our destination, so this was probably going to be the only rest she got. Disturbing her, on top of frightening the shit out of her, kidnapping her and forcing her to be my unwilling co-pilot, seemed a little unfair.

I'd stuck to the speed limit and observed the road rules as we'd traveled for hours, the sky turning from overcast and grey, to clear blue, to bruised orange, then red, and then dipping into darkness. The roads were quiet. Barely more than a handful of vehicles passed us as I headed east. Eventually, we hit Memphis, and on and on I kept driving.

At around one in the morning, my cell phone, clipped into the mount on the dash, lit up, signaling an incoming call. Even the rapid, bright flashing of Monica's name on the screen seemed angry. Great. I shouldn't answer it. She was bound to yell at me, and even on the other end of the telephone line that was bound to be loud enough to wake Sera. Monica had a set of lungs on her to rival a UFC announcer. How long could I keep avoiding the woman, though? Time was running out. She'd sworn she'd come and find me if she had to, and I wasn't about to put it past her. She'd done crazier things in the past.

One-handed, I connected headphones into the cell, stuffed the buds in my ears, and hit the green answer button.

"Yeah?"

There was silence for a second, then Monica replied. "Yeah? Yeah? That's how you answer your phone to me?"

Oh boy. "I'm driving, Monica. Is this important, or can it wait?"

"No, it cannot wait. My god, what the hell's gotten into you, Fix? We're working on a deadline here, and you've just...I don't even know what you're doing. You've gone rogue!"

"How the fuck have I gone rogue?"

"Language," she chided, tutting under her breath. "If you listened to my voicemails, or actually picked up your phone every once in a while, you'd know this is important. You dealt with the Halford issue, correct?"

"Yeah." I wasn't about to explain to her what had happened right after Franz had fallen down dead, or where I was headed now. That was just an invitation for an ear chewing.

"Our other client wants to know if we've completed work and we're ready to accept the rest of our donation."

"Just tell him we need a little more time."

"Forty grand, Fix. We already took half. He's getting impatient. Making noises about getting a refund and taking his money elsewhere."

I whistled quietly through my teeth. "It doesn't work like that. We're not J.C. fucking Penny. He can't just get a refund."

"Then you'd better do the work, Fix!" Monica's frustration traveled down the phone very clearly.

Monica and I had never discussed the fact that we shouldn't talk about accepting money for killing people over the phone; it was just common sense. Our client's fees were tailored to match the level of danger and risk the job entailed. Fifty grand for a low risk mark. Seventy for low rent gangbangers and criminals. Ninety for well protected, violent and hazardous individuals. Monica assessed each mark carefully and quoted a price based off the information she gathered, so for her to have assigned a forty thousand dollar price tag to my outstanding job clearly indicated how quickly she intended me to take care of it. I had the other manila envelope in the glove box, waiting to be assessed. I couldn't do it now, though. I just couldn't.

"I'm on the road for the next few days," I said quietly, cracking my knuckles. "I can get to it in a week. Maybe ten days."

"No can do, Fix. This matter's time sensitive for the client."

"I'm sure you'll handle him for me, Monica. You always do. I'll call again in twenty-four hours."

"Fix! Twenty-four hours is—"

"Twenty-four hours is the best I can do," I snapped, grinding the words out. Monica knew my moods. She'd witnessed first hand how quickly I could snap if pushed too far. Even I knew I was frightening to be around once the darkness grappled hold of me. I usually did whatever I could to avoid sinking into that pit of anger and turmoil, but the last day and a half had tried my patience beyond measure. "Be careful," I warned. "Give me a day. Also, give me a fucking break. Don't text or call me again. I need time to work this out. I'll be in touch."

"Fix—"

I hung up the phone, stabbing at the cell phone screen so hard I nearly knocked the damn thing out of its cradle on the dashboard. Motherfucker. Working alone would have been much, much easier than having to deal with Monica. She was hyper emotional, stubborn as an ox, and demanding as fuck. God, it would have been great never to have to argue with her again, or field her constant, prying questioning. But then again it was better to keep the admin and the muscle separate. People were twitchy around me. It had nothing to do with who I was as a person, what I looked like, how I acted or behaved in front of them. Most people had a crisis of conscience when they looked the man they'd asked to murder someone in the eye. They expected judgment from me. Their own guilt convinced them that they saw it written all over me, and they couldn't deal. When they met with Monica, they were faced with a sympathetic, understanding, kind middleman. There was a safe, reassuring code in place during all conversations. There was usually a safe, friendly place to meet. There was usually a glass or two of whiskey to calm the nerves. Monica was a disconnect between action and consequence, and that suited most folks down to the ground. Typically, they didn't want to have any idea who would be committing the act. They just wanted to get it done and move on with their lives, while someone else, somewhere else, lost the privilege of living theirs. So Monica was a necessary, annoying evil. I was stuck with her.

Beside me, Sera's legs tensed, locking out in front of her. Her body went rigid, her back curling away from the seat beneath her, and her fingers twitched violently. Fuck. Had she heard the phone conversation? No. No, when she whimpered, I knew she was still dreaming. Worse. By the looks of things, she was drowning in the depths of a nightmare.

It was one thing allowing her to sleep, to rest and recuperate, but letting her suffer through something harsh enough to make her body twist and contort while she was unconscious was something else entirely. I shouldn't have cared. I shouldn't have given a fuck, but...

I turned on the radio, swiftly adjusting the volume control so that the sound of some rocky, upbeat hipster song filled the cab of the truck. It was enough to draw her from her sleep. Her body bowed, flexing, before she blinked blearily, turning her head as she took in her surroundings, no doubt remembering where she was. Her expression was hard as flint when she pushed herself up in her seat, blowing out a long, unsteady breath down her nose.

"Where are we?" Her voice was softened by sleep, but there was an edge to her words that said she was still very unhappy to be locked in a moving vehicle with me.

"Just passed Meridian."

"How long until we get to Fairhope?"

"Another few hours. We'll get there just after dawn. You'll probably have enough time to pass out for a couple of hours before your sister needs you."

Sera's relief was obvious. Her hair fell in soft waves around her face, framing it perfectly. I'd been with many attractive women before, but there was something different about her. Something that made my chest feel tight. Her features were fine and delicate, and at first glance gave her the look of someone who needed protecting from the world. But the sharp, intelligent, piercing way she looked at me altered all of that. She didn't need protecting. She was capable of taking care of herself, and was ready and able to do so at a moment's notice. Perhaps that's why I found myself drawn to her so much; she was uncontainable, raw, and bold, and she wasn't afraid of me in the slightest. Silly, silly girl. If she'd had any idea what was good for her, she would have been terrified.

"Don't look at me like that," she murmured, angling her body away from me.

"Like what?"

"Don't play games, Fix."

"I'm not playing anything."

She tutted, shaking her head. "You were looking at me the same way you looked at me the other night."

"You mean, right before I sank my cock inside you?"

Most girls would be embarrassed or annoyed at my directness. They'd shy away from the mere mention of what took place between us. I was kind of looking forward to a coy reaction from Sera, but I was shit out of luck. She eyed me fiercely, setting her jaw, her gaze unwavering. "Yeah. Right before you sank your cock inside me," she confirmed. "Right before he fucked me senseless, made me come harder than I ever have in my life, and turned my whole fucking world upside down."

Ha. So much for me being direct. Looked like Sera was the queen of direct. "I can't help it," I told her, alternating my attention between her and the road. "I was fascinated by you. I still am."

"Well, don't be. You lost the right to make eyes at me the moment I walked into that building and watched you kill that guy."

"What you saw doesn't change anything, Angel. You were attracted to me back in that motel room. I saw it on your face. I smelled it on your body. I felt it when I slid my hand down the front of your panties and discovered how wet that beautiful pussy of yours was. An attraction like that doesn't just go away."

Her lips parted into a half-snarl. "You can't be serious. Of course it does! I'm not insane. The moment I saw what you did, any and all attraction I felt for you went up in smoke."

"False. You still can't stop looking at me, thinking about what happened between us, and you hate yourself for it. You don't want to want me. You don't want to know that I've been inside you, and that when you close your eyes you can still feel me inside you, but it's the truth. Deny it all you want. I know it's true. You hate me, hate who I am, but there's a very large part of you that wants me to fuck you again, Sera. My dick's the best you've ever had."

Her eyes were the size of silver dollars as she stared at me, her face growing paler and paler by the second. "You really think you're untouchable, don't you? You think no one can resist you, regardless of the fact that you're a monster."

"No. I don't think that. I think most women would have killed themselves trying to get away from me by now, no matter how great the sex was. You haven't tried to get away, Sera. You've thought about it. I've seen the look on your face. I let you keep that phone in your pocket just to see what you'd do, and you haven't tried to ask anyone for help. The truth of the matter is that you're not horrified by what I've done. You don't care that I'm punishing the bad guys, even though you know you should. And you can't tamp down the need you feel every time you fucking look at me, because I can read it all over your body. Look at your hands right now, pressed flat against your thighs. You're palms are sweating, and all we're doing is talking about sex."

"Well...I don't want to talk about sex anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because! Because it's fucking pointless!" She was flustered. Her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes were shining a little too brightly.

"Okay, okay. No sex. What do you want to talk about instead?" I asked her, trying to bite back a smile. This was more fun that it should be, but it was her own fault. She presented herself in such a tough light. Unbreakable Sera. If she wasn't so determined to maintain her cool, then it would be far less fun watching her lose it.

"I don't care. Anything," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

"All right. Tell me what were you dreaming about just now."

Silence.

I knew I'd asked the wrong thing the moment the words left my lips, but it was too late to drag the question back and reclaim it now. The truck was already swamped with tension. Sera looked straight ahead out of the windshield, and for a long, long time she held her tongue. Whatever she'd been dreaming about, it must have been terrible for her to shut down so abruptly. It was done, though. There was no going back. I could practically hear her grinding her teeth together again.

"How about we don't talk at all?" she murmured.

And so that was that. The remainder of the journey to Fairhope took place in silence.
ELEVEN

DON'T GET ANY IDEAS

SERA

The chapel was iconic. White. Tiny. Cute as fuck. The kind of chapel that went on the top of a wedding cake. It was visible from the bottom of the long, winding, sweeping road that led up to Easterleigh Estates, the venue Ben's parents had paid fifteen thousand dollars to secure for their big day. Madness.

Fix made a clipped, clicking sound as we wound our way up the road toward the main hotel, where the bridal party were undoubtedly still fast asleep. "This place looks like hell on earth," he muttered under his breath. They were the first words he'd parted with since he'd asked me about my nightmare—the same reoccurring nightmare that plagued me so regularly—and they were a mirror to my own thoughts.

"My sister likes pretty things," was all I offered in response.

"And you? You don't like all this...pomp and ceremony?" He wrinkled his nose. "You wouldn't have all the bells and whistles if you got married?"

"I'd never get married in the first place."

He grunted. "You know we're going to have to share a room again, right?"

My nostrils flared, a cold finger stroking its way down my back. I'd already realized we'd have to share a bed again. The hotel was at capacity, filled with Amy's other numerous guests, and on top of that my sister would have questions if the man I brought as my date to her wedding was sleeping in another room. The fact that I'd realized this didn't make the idea of sharing a room with Fix any more comfortable, however. Fix pulled up outside the large, colonial building, lit up by columns of bright light, and I struggled to swallow down the lump that had risen in my throat.

"You can sleep on the couch." I got out of the truck as soon as the engine died, and Fix was hot on my heels. He collected our bags, and I was hit by the strangest sensation: how normal this all could have been. Me, bringing a date to the wedding. Him being a gentleman and collecting our things, before we headed inside together.

"Fair enough," he said airily. "I've slept in worse places."

He'd probably slept inside a dead animal or something, trapped out in the wilderness while he was stalking one of his prey. I could see him doing that so clearly in my mind that a shudder traveled down the length of my body, settling at the base of my skull. "My sister's going to see right through this bullshit. You know that, right?" I said, hurrying up the steps that lead inside the hotel. Fix kept stride beside me, taking three steps at a time.

"She's not going to be investigating the veracity of our relationship. She's getting married. She's going to be focused on her dress looking just right and her flowers arriving on time."

"You don't know my sister." Amy might have fussed and preened over lace and silk, silver and gold, ever the magpie, but her mind wasn't always fixed on the trivial. She saw things, noticed the subtle undertones and subtexts of people's speech and their behavior. Fix was right in that she would be worried about everything going smoothly later on today, but there was no doubt in my mind that she'd sense something was up.

The inside of the hotel was plush and decadent: soft, thick, cream carpet underfoot; warmed light dripping from sconces on the walls and grand chandeliers suspended from the high ceiling; heavy, embroidered curtains hanging at the eight foot high windows; a counter of white marble, shot through with dove grey and gold veins, running the length of the right hand wall. In short, it was absolutely stunning. Ben came from old money, I'd known that for a long time, but this was the first time I saw the luxury and comfort that old money could buy. This was the life he could afford to give Amy, and for one very short moment I forgot everything that had happened in the past thirty-six hours. I was glad, instead. Relieved, in a way. I'd been taking care of my sister for so long that it seemed as though I would always be doing it. I'd never resented the fact that she needed watching out for, but now, with Ben in her life, someone else had taken that burden from me and discharged me of the crushing responsibility once and for all.

Fix dealt with the concierge, explaining who we were: Amy's devoted sister, Sera, and her loving boyfriend, Felix. He took the keys and thanked the guy behind the counter, and as we climbed the sweeping staircase up to the first floor where our room was located, I noticed that the sky was lightening in the east, day just about to break over the canopy of trees stretching off into the distance for as far as the eye could see.

Not long now. Not long until the hustle and bustle that would arrive with the morning. There would be makeup and hair, and squeezing into the ridiculous bride's maid's dress my sister had picked out for me—the dress I hadn't even seen yet. And there would be painfully polite chatter and niceties, and meeting Ben's family members who'd traveled from all over the country to be there for his wedding. I would do what was expected of me, smiling and hugging and shaking hands. It would be a bitch of a day, but I would get it done. And the whole time, I would try to not think about the man standing next to me, and what he had done. More importantly, I would try not to think about his hands on my body or his mouth on my own. Those thoughts were far too dangerous to even comprehend.

When we entered the room, suffice it to say, there was no couch. That was just fucking perfect. I made sure my voice was firm as I rounded on Fix, arms folded across my chest. "I don't care. You're not sleeping in the bed."

"Come on. That thing's big enough for four people."

"Don't get any ideas."

Fix's head lowered, his chin almost meeting his chest as he prowled toward me. His lips curved up on the right hand side—the most salacious suggestion of a smile. "What? You wouldn't like sharing a bed with four people?" he mused. "You wouldn't like three pairs of hands on you, touching you, caressing and kissing your body?"

"No! God! Jesus!"

"Mary? You're missing a few family members."

"I'm sure you'd just love three women in a bed with you," I snapped, snatching my bag from his hand. "I'm sure you've had plenty of crazy, ridiculous experiences with multiple women. But not everyone is as depraved as you."

His mouth curved even higher, and his left eyebrow hitched up to his hairline. "Yes. I have. But who said anything about women joining us? You don't think you'd be able to handle three men at once, Sera? Three guys, all stroking..." He took a step forward, his shoulders rolling in the most sensual way as his muscles shifted beneath his black button-down shirt. "Licking... Kissing... Biting... Sucking..." With every word, he took another step, closing the gap between us until he was standing right in front of me. "Three cocks, Sera? One in your mouth. One in your pussy. One in your ass. Imagine what that would feel like."

Holy shit. He was unhinged. Absolutely insane. How did he even have the balls to say shit like that to me? If he expected me to laugh at his words, to shrug them off, or worse, to actually consider them, then he had another thing coming. I moved quickly, planting my palms against his chest and shoving him as hard as I possibly could. I'd used all my strength, but the bastard had barely moved an inch.

"You're a pig, Felix," I growled.

"Ohhh. Felix. Full-name treatment. I must have been a very bad boy."

"As if you'd fuck a girl with two other guys, anyway. Men are always too concerned about who has the biggest dick."

Fix inhaled, rolling his eyes slowly up to the ceiling, his head slowly angling backward. He hadn't shaved in two days, and the sight of the exposed column of his throat, marked with thick stubble, did something strange to me. Polluted with me with thoughts and feelings that I didn't want to own. "Sera. You've seen me naked. You've seen my cock. You've held it. You've stroked it. You've taken it in your mouth, and your pussy. You really think I would have anything to worry about on that front? You really think I'd care what another guy had going on in his pants? And, in the unlikely event that another guy's dick was bigger than mine, it wouldn't fucking matter and you know it. I've already explored your body. I've already made you quake and shiver. I've already painted my come all over your skin, and you've loved every single second of it." He reached out, his hand slowly rising up to my face, his fingers uncurling until the tips of them were grazing my bottom lip.

I'd stopped breathing a full thirty seconds ago, and my head was starting to spin a little. God, he was so fucking hot. I hated him for it. I hated myself for noticing, over and over and over again. This shouldn't be happening. He shouldn't be able to affect me this way, and have my heart thundering beneath my ribcage. My body, my mind and my heart should all be on the same page—the Felix-Marcosa-is-too-dangerous-to-be-sexy page—but none of them were in alignment. My head knew what was up at least, but my body was overheating like crazy, and my heart had just plain flipped the fuck out.

"I know how to fuck. I know how to make you come. I know what makes your eyes roll back into your head, and I know how to tip you over the edge. I wouldn't give a shit about other guys sharing a bed with us, because I'd know none of them would make you feel as good as I do."

There were no words to describe his arrogance. And even if there were, I wouldn't have been able to form them right now, because my mouth felt like it was lined with sandpaper. Fix leaned in closer, so close that I could see the fine, delicate slashes of silver that threaded their way through his irises. His eyes were truly beautiful. So unbelievably unique. I'd never seen eyes like his before, and I knew I was unlikely to ever see similar again. They sparked with an intense amusement as he tipped his head to the side and lowered his mouth—now barely an inch away from my own.

"You said it yourself, Sera. You're an atheist. You believe you only get one life...so why haven't you been living it?" So slowly, Fix's lips parted, and I watched as the tip of his tongue slid past his teeth. He flicked it, swiftly licking my upper lip, and I gasped, stepping back out of his reach. Asshole. Complete, irredeemable, undeniable asshole. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I tried to rein in the wild response that his one, brief action had created in me, but it was harder than I'd expected. My mouth was burning, my lips throbbing. My throat was on fire.

"Don't do that again. Don't touch me without my permission. You'll regret it."

Fix didn't look so sure. "Would I? How would you make me regret it? Would you kick and scream? Would you use your teeth on me? Would you hurt me? Do you want to hurt me, Sera?"

"You're goddamn right I do! You're...you're fucking impossible! You act like you're just some guy who's interested in showing me a good time. Have you forgotten about what happened? I saw you kill someone. I witnessed you murder someone. Am I just supposed to wipe that memory from my mind? Pretend like it didn't happen? Pretend like your actions haven't scared the shit out of me? And while we're at it, am I supposed to overlook the fact that you shoved me in the back of your car and took off with me without my consent? I'm not some airhead bimbo who's going to fall in love with you, just because you have a pretty face, y'know. Lines have been crossed. Massive, irrevocable lines. Once this wedding is over, I'm going to go back to Seattle, and I'm going to force myself to eradicate you from my mind. I'm going to move on, and I'm going to black out this entire week. It's the only way I won't be permanently traumatized by what you've put me through."

Fix shrugged. It was a calm, carefree response to my heated rant—a shrug that told me he was cold and dead inside. He didn't care about me, or what I saw. He was going to follow through with this ridiculous farce of a plan, and he wasn't going to give two shits if it worked out or not. He didn't care about the consequences if this charade failed. All he cared about was making sure I kept my mouth shut. And if he wasn't sure I was going to keep his secrets, then...then I didn't doubt he would take measures to ensure I kept my mouth shut for good.

"Have it your way, Angel. Fool yourself if you like. Tell yourself whatever you need to in order to get yourself through this. I can get on board with that. I'll play my part. Just make sure you play yours."
TWELVE

PLEASED TO MEET YOU

FIX

"Bless me father, for I have sinned. I...I touched myself three times this week. Between...between my legs. I couldn't help it. I knew it was wrong, but..."

The soft, female voice on the other side of the confessional grill paused, and I could hear the woman sitting in the darkened, cramped space breathing heavily. Days like this, I was sure none of my congregation were getting laid. I knew the woman's voice—it was Yvonne Prescott, a young, pretty woman in her late twenties who'd married a guy called Gus last winter. Gus was one of those preppy motherfuckers who pretended like he had his shit together, like he was one of the sainted few who never put a foot wrong. Worked in the community, was the first to stick his hand up when there was volunteer work that needed doing at the church or in the community. He'd been in here twice this week, crying his eyes out, though, sobbing over the fact that he'd jerked off to porn on his computer repeatedly in the past week. He didn't just like watching porn. He had an addiction, and it wasn't the vanilla, everyday shit he was watching. He liked to watch gang bang porn—skinny Czech girls laid flat on their back, while a line of over thirty guys in masks waited for their turn to shove their cocks inside them. He liked to watch groups of guys thrust their dicks into a vulnerable girl's mouth and her ass, to use and abuse her like she was a toy. It was more normal than people realized: repressed guys liked to see a woman defiled in the basest of ways.

I rubbed at my temple, trying to ease the headache that was lurking behind my eyes, threatening to make an appearance. "Have you spoken to your husband about your urges, child?" I asked. If Yvonne was honest with Gus and revealed herself to be a sexual creature with the same desires, wants and needs that most women had, perhaps Gus could lay off his dick and actually satisfy his wife for once. I already knew what she was going to say, though.

"I—I can't," she whispered. "He's devout, Father. He tries to lead a holy life. If he knew the feelings that overcome me sometimes..." She started to cry. "He deserves a holy wife. I want to be pure for him. Clean. And if he found out that I was driven to such wanton acts...he wouldn't...he couldn't love me anymore."

For fuck's sake. Did these people not talk to one another? Were they so closeted and shut down that they truly didn't realize that they were all as horny and fucked up as the rest of the human race? "Don't cry, child. In the grand scheme of things, masturbation isn't the end of the world. Say three Hail Mary's and get back to baking those cupcakes."

"Cupcakes?" Something thudded on the floor. Sounded like she'd just dropped her bible. "You...you know who I am, don't you?"

I huffed out a breath, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Of course I do, Yvonne. Only twenty-six people come to this church."

She whimpered. "Oh. Right. Aren't you supposed to tell to me refrain from doing it again, though?"

Fuck. Seriously? "Yeah. You should stop touching yourself, Yvonne. It leads down a dark and scary path. Now, if we're finished here..."

"I don't think you're taking this seriously, Father Marcosa. Your father would have given me a proper lecture on the dangers of..." She launched into a tirade about the Father Marcosa who had preceded me, and I ceased to listen. It made sense that people compared me to my father. We shared the same name, for fuck's sake. And I looked like the man, there was no denying that. He'd been dead for well over two years, though, and I was sick to death of people holding me up to the light, comparing the two of us. I was nothing like my old man. I was never going to be anything like that dour, miserable, tyrannical piece of shit.

"All right, all right, Yvonne. You want to feel absolved of your sins. I understand. For your penance, say twenty Hail Mary's, three Glory Bes, and three Our Fathers. Hopefully that will make you feel better. Now, I've really got to prepare the homily for Sunday. If you don't have anything else you'd like to discuss, then..."

Yvonne had shut up when I'd interrupted her. She remained quiet for a moment, before saying, "Twenty Hail Mary's, Father? That seems...a little..."

"Twenty Hail Mary's," I said firmly. The three I'd prescribed a moment ago were obviously too low to make her feel like her slate was being wiped clean. Now, twenty made her feel like she was being unreasonably punished. Well, fucking guess what, Yvonne? You can't have it both ways. "I'll see you at Mass," I said, getting to my feet. I was meant to wait until Yvonne had vacated the confessional and had a chance to get the hell out of dodge, but my patience was non-existent, and I really did have to write the damn homily. My hand rested on the edge of the thick, black curtain that covered the entry to the confessional; I was about to pull it aside, when a high pitched wail of terror sliced through the air. It was a woman's voice, and it wasn't just a cry of pain. It was also a cry of abject terror.

"Lord!" Yvonne hissed. "What was that?"

"Stay here, Yvonne. Don't come out until I tell you it's safe." I carefully, quickly slid the curtain aside, scanning up and down the length of the church, searching for the source of the cry. At the far end of the building, the door to the rectory was cracked open; strange, since it was usually kept locked. Only two people had a key to open that door: myself and the sister on shift, charged to welcome congregation members, maintain the church and keep everything clean and tidy throughout the day. I wracked my brain, trying to remember who the sister on duty was today, but I drew a blank. I'd been stranded in my office all morning; I hadn't seen or spoken to anyone before I stepped into the confessional booth. The sisters never typically needed to enter the rectory, though. And there was certainly no reason the door should be open like that, either.

My cossack billowed around me as I hurried down the aisle, checking the pews as I went, making sure there were no other people sitting there who might have come in to pray. The place was empty. Hurrying through the apse, my footfall rang out, echoing off the high stone walls, reverberating around the church, emphasizing just how abandoned the place truly was. When I navigated my way around the lectern, reaching for the handle of the rectory door, seconds from pushing it open all the way, that's when I noticed the crumpled five-dollar bill on the floor.

It was covered in blood.

Shit. What the hell was going on here? Once, when I was thirteen, a drunk, homeless guy had walked into the church one night and demanded that my father hand over all of the donation money from that evening's service. I'd been tidying away the hymnbooks, and I'd watched on in horror as the man had staggered toward my father, a knife thrust out in front of him. I'd expected my father to swing for the man, to knock the weapon from his hands, to beat him black and blue for trying to steal the church's charitable donations. When my father had handed over the money without so much as a second thought, I'd been wracked with shame. My father had been a coward. He'd turned over the money instead of defending it. The man had left, reeking of alcohol and soiled clothes, and I'd turned on my father, admonishing him for not standing up to the man.

The words he'd said to me then were still with me today. "Felix, what do we use that money for?"

"For helping people. For clothing and feeding the poor," I'd snapped.

"Okay. Well, then. That money went exactly where it was meant to go."

As I stared down at the blood-flecked bill lying at my feet, I realized, once again, that my father was a better man that I was. Because I wasn't just going to let someone walk in off the street and rob my fucking church. It was wrong of me, I knew it was, but I was going to find whoever had broken in here, and I was going to knock their fucking teeth out.

I stepped into the rectory, and...

...the world....

...oh, god...

I threw out a hand, steadying myself against the wall, trying not to fall down.

Blood.

There was so much blood.

It was sprayed up the walls, had drenched the curtains at the window, and had formed a ruby red pool on the floor, that had seeped into the waxed canvas material of the backpack I'd left on the ground earlier when I came back from my morning run. The air smelled sour, contaminated, with a chemical edge to it that made my nostrils burn.

I found her in the hallway, sprawled out on the polished wooden floorboards. Her wimple was gone, her head uncovered entirely, and her bright blonde hair, almost white, spread out around her head like spilled milk. She was face down, one arm thrust out, as if she were trying to reach for something. There was blood all over her hands, along with the simple white shirt she was wearing. Her black skirt wasn't where it was meant to be. It had been hitched up around her waist, and her bare buttocks were exposed...also covered in blood.

She wasn't moving.

A consuming rage swept over me, and for a second I could do nothing with it. I couldn't claim it. I couldn't push it away. I stood there, hating the scene before me, unable to look away, my blood seething through my veins.

One of the sister's shoes was missing. A sensible black shoe with a very small heel, barely a heel at all. Gone. Her stockings were ripped and torn, bunched up around her ankles. Where...?

I looked around the entrance to my living quarters, frowning, not breathing, not understanding.

Where had her other shoe gone?

"Oh my god!"

I didn't turn around. I wanted, no, I needed to process what had taken place in here, and I needed for it to make sense. Yvonne obviously hadn't listened to me, and had followed me in here. She was behind me, whimpering under her breath, low and quiet. She sounded winded and numb. Shortly, the shock she was experiencing would wear off and she'd become hysterical, no doubt. I had to get my shit together before that happened.

"That...is that Sister Rayburn?" Yvonne sobbed.

"Rayburn?" My voice was flat. Emotionless. I didn't know the name.

"She just moved here from Canada. She came as part of the Young Missionary program. She's...god, she's only twenty-two."

Oh. Fuck. All the churches in our archdiocese had been enrolled in the program—I'd been told to expect someone this week, but I hadn't realized she was already here. I had no fucking idea she'd been carrying duties right under my nose.

"We need...we need to call the police," Yvonne stammered.

I should have replied. I should have done as she suggested and called the cops. I should have done something. Anything. But I was still rooted to the spot, staring at the bloodied, mangled body that had been left in such an undignified, degrading way, like so much trash, discarded by the side of the road.

I did nothing.

I did nothing, until...

A twitch.

Yvonne screamed, grabbing hold of my arm, digging her finger nails into my skin through my cossack. "Oh my god! Oh my god, her foot moved. Did you see that?" Yvonne wailed. "God, she's still alive!"

Then I was running, charging toward the broken body on the floor, slipping and sliding in the blood as I tried to stop myself next to her. I lost my balance, toppling on my ass, but it didn't matter. I didn't feel the pain shooting up my spine, or recoil in horror as I put my hand down in a puddle of cooling blood. My only concern was the girl. She was alive, and I was determined to make sure she stayed that way until help arrived.

"Call an ambulance," I hollered. Gingerly, I slid my hand underneath the woman's body, applying as little pressure as I could, turning her. Aside from the worrying amount of blood that had marked her buttocks, there hadn't been any visible sign of injury when she'd been lying face down. It was another story now, though: five deep, vicious looking stab wounds, all to the stomach, had rented the material of the woman's shirt open, and blood was flowing freely from the yawning mouths in her skin where the knife had obviously gone in.

"Fuck." I held the back of my hand to my mouth, swallowing, trying to think. Pressure. I need to apply pressure, to stem the bleeding.

"Please...help me. I don't..."

Shock seized me once more. I'd purposefully avoided looking at the woman's face, hadn't thought I'd be able to handle it yet, but when she spoke to me, I had no choice but to look her in the eye. She was very young—barely more than a child. If she actually was twenty-two, I'd have been surprised. Her tawny brown eyes were locked onto me, burning with a fever so intense that it brought tears to my own eyes.

"I don't...want...to die. Not yet," she wheezed. Her breathing sounded wet, rattling, like there was fluid in her lungs.

I grabbed her skirts and yanked them down, covering her body, then I scooped her up in my arms, drawing her to me. Moving her was probably a bad idea—I'd seen enough movies to know you were never supposed to move the injured person—but honestly? She looked like she was running out of time. And no one, absolutely no one, deserved to die alone and scared. Despite how futile it seemed, I pressed my hands over the woman's stomach, maintaining pressure. She blinked up at me, splotches of blood all over her face, covering her skin like red freckles.

"The EMTs are on their way," Yvonne said. She was clutching her cell phone in her hands so hard that her knuckles had gone white. "I—I think I'm going to throw up." She groaned, folding at the waist, then bracing herself against the windowsill.

"Go outside," I commanded, "Wait for the ambulance. When the paramedics arrive, bring them straight here."

Relief flashed over Yvonne's face; she didn't really want to stick around and witness this. I got that, understood how rattled she probably was, but it also made me hate her a little bit. Where was her fucking compassion?

In my arms, the woman stirred, her head angled back, lips a deathly shade of purple. From the look of my living quarters, she'd lost a lot of blood. She moaned, her brow furrowing as she clearly tried to focus her eyes. "I was meant to make...a good impression," she whispered. "How's this for a first day?"

I forged a dead smile; it was all I could manage. "I certainly won't be forgetting it any time soon. Who did this to you?"

Her eyelids fluttered. "A man. A man with a scarred...face," she panted. "He had paint all over his hands. He was...he was so...angry."

"Did he want money?"

"N—No."

"Then what?"

Shame colored her cheeks, despite the fact that most of the blood had left her body. She closed her eyes, her throat bobbing, and I suddenly realized what she was having such a hard time saying to me. Why her buttocks were covered in blood.

Oh, no. God, no. Please.

"Shhh. Shhh, it's okay," I said softly, rocking her in my arms.

"They told me you were handsome," she wheezed. "All the...girls were...gossiping about you. They were...so...jealous...when I got...sent here."

"Shhh, it's okay, Sister. You don't need to speak. Help will be here soon. Just relax, okay?"

She reached up with a shaking hand, and her weak fingers curled around my wrist. A shuddering sigh escaped her. "Please...call me by my name. If I'm going to die...then I want to feel like at least one person...knew who I...was here."

My eyes were filling with tears, but I was damned if I was going to cry in front of her. I needed to stay strong. I needed her to stay strong, just long enough for the ambulance to arrive. "Sure. My name is Felix," I told her, hugging her to me.

She gave me an uneven smile, her breath growing shallower by the second. "Great...Felix. My name is...Monica. It's very...nice to meet you."
THIRTEEN

ARIANNA

SERA

After my slip-up in the car, I told myself there'd be no way I'd pass out in the bed. I needed to keep my guard up, needed to make sure Fix didn't try and smother me with a pillow while I was unconscious. But when he laid down on the blanket and cushion set-up he'd arranged for himself, promptly passing the fuck out like he'd been hit upside the head with a hammer, I couldn't help it. My eyelids were like lead weights. It occurred to me, as I found myself relinquishing control over my body, that now was a prime opportunity to escape Fix once and for all. It would have been as simple as getting up, tiptoeing silently across the room, opening the door, hurtling down the hallway as fast as I could, and then demanding the concierge call the police.

If the cops turned up, sirens wailing, tires spinning, on Amy's wedding day, though...she'd never forgive me. She'd be horrified that I'd been through such a traumatic experience, sure. She'd probably hug me as if my life depended on it, crying and thanking god that I was okay. But inside, she'd be seething. I knew her. She'd spent close to a year designing the floral arrangements for this event. If her magnificently coiffured hair, the delectable vol-au-vents, and her perfect princess dress weren't the first things people thought of when they remembered the wedding of Amy Lafferty and Ben Stewart, then she would carry this secret kernel of hatred toward me around with her for the rest of her days. She was horrible at hiding things like that.

It was the dumbest thing I'd ever done, but I didn't creep out of the room and high tail it down to the lobby. I turned on my side, gripping the hotel pen tightly in my hand, ballpoint end facing down, just in case I needed to stab Fix in the neck with it, and I succumbed to an exhausted sleep.

******

"I think if you curl it the other...yeah, that's it. I know, it's weird, right? But...I guess someone told me that if you hold the wand upside and kept it really loose in your hand it would seal the cuticle, and make your hair really shiny."

"Wow! You're right! That's a great tip!"

I recognized the sound of Arianna's voice with a sense of dread and irritation. Only daring to open one eye, I scanned the unfamiliar room, processing and remembering everything with a sense of disbelief. That's right: I'd seen a man murdered, I'd been kidnapped by a guy I'd had the most incredible sex of my life with, and now he was in our hotel room, giving hair styling advice to my sister's prissy best friend. In his underwear.

I sat up. I stood up. I straightened my shirt, flattening down my mussed hair with one hand.

Hmm. Well wasn't this an interesting development.

I quickly decided not to warn Arianna to get away from Fix; she looked like she was about to drop to her knees and start licking his abs, but the red-haired witch had fucked Gareth the moment she'd found out we were no longer together, and as a result I was feeling a little disinclined to look out for welfare. If she wanted to giggle and flirt with a guy who could exsanguinate someone without even a flicker of remorse, then she could go to town.

"Arianna. What a surprise. I didn't think I'd see you until we were called down to get dressed." I shouldn't have been so happy about the fact that she'd put on a little weight, but let's be honest. I was smirking beneath the cordial, friendly mask I'd just donned.

Arianna blinked, as if she'd forgotten altogether that she'd come into my hotel room with my supposed boyfriend while I was still sleeping in the bed. "Oh, hey, Sera! It's so nice to see you!" She put down my curling iron and hurried across the room, throwing her arms around my neck. I didn't want to hug her. I didn't want to be near her. I didn't want anything to do with the girl. Her perfume was utterly overpowering—whatever she was wearing, it was too sharp, too chemically, and she'd bathed herself in it without any idea that it made her smell like she cleaned toilets for a living. "I'm sorry, the stylist's curling iron keeps blowing the fuse in the makeup studio downstairs. Amy sent me to come and borrow yours. When Felix opened the door, here, I thought I'd come to the wrong place." The way she tittered nervously, her cheeks rosy and pink, practically glowing, told me enough: Arianna had a crush on yet another of my boyfriends. Didn't matter that Fix was a fake boyfriend. Didn't matter that I had absolutely no claim over him whatsoever. It was just fucking typical that this little viper would be trying to snake her way into Fix's Georgio Armani shorts right underneath my nose.

"Of course. Take the curling iron," I said, pressing my lips together into a thin smile. "What time is it?"

"Eleven thirty," Arianna told me. "We're going to be dressing in an hour. Your hair and makeup are at one. You're last. Amy knew you'd be tired. You could probably rest for another hour or so, if you wanted. You have the most terrible circles under your eyes." She feigned concern, pouting and frowning as she ran the pad of her index finger under my left eye, as if she could brush away said circles with the slightest touch of her hand. I considered grabbing her by the wrist, wrenching her arm behind her back, immobilizing her, and then breaking every single one of her fingers, but I refrained. It was a goddamn Christmas miracle.

"I know. This one's been keeping me up all night," I told her, jerking my head in Fix's direction. I smiled conspiratorially, as if sharing a secret with a girlfriend. "He's very skilled with his hands. And his tongue. No concept of time, though."

Fix leaned back against the armoire, folding his arms across his chest, a crooked smile on his face. His arms were ridiculous. So was his stomach. He must have spent years in the gym perfecting a body like that. I'd already seen him naked before, so I'd had a chance to come to terms with just how fucking sexy he was. Arianna, on the other hand...

Her cheeks were flushed, her general demeanor that of a dazed high school student meeting their boy band crush in real life. She couldn't seem to focus on anything but Fix's abs. It was getting a little embarrassing. Guiding her to the door, I shoved my curling iron at her and smiled through gritted teeth. "I'll be on time for my turn with the stylist. I doubt he's going to let me go back to sleep now, but I'll try and do something about the bags under my eyes."

I swung the door closed, pushing it with the very tips of my fingers until it clicked. I'd wanted to slam the door so hard it made the very foundations of the hotel shake, but instead I went the other way, being incredibly gentle as I shut her out of the room.

"Good with my tongue, huh?"

My body locked up as I felt hands on me—Fix's hands, skating over my hips, sliding over the massive t-shirt I'd worn to bed last night. The back of my neck prickled in response to his warm breath caressing my skin.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

His chest pressed up against my back, and...something else...brushing up against my ass. God, he had an erection. He was hard as hell, and he wasn't making any efforts to hide the fact as he lowered his mouth into the crook of my neck, brushing my skin with his lips.

I froze.

Jesus...

How were good girls supposed to stay good when bad boys like Fix made it so ease to sin? How the fuck were smart girls supposed to retain their sanity, not to mention their heads, when they had Felix Marcosa's hands roaming all over their body? It just...it wasn't fucking possible. It wasn't fucking fair. Fix's voice sent a chill charging through my veins, rocking me to my core.

"I thought you said you didn't like playing games," he whispered.

"I don't."

"Then why did you just play that girl so hard, she didn't know what fucking day of the week it was?"

With every word, his lips grazed my neck, and a volley of anticipation, mixed with fear burned over my skin. "She's not as oblivious as she makes out to be. She plays the simpering idiot, but she knows exactly what she's doing. There's no such thing as innocent flirtation with Arianna Foster. So what if I fucked with her a little?"

"Mmmm..." Fix's hands moved up my body, stroking over my stomach and then back down my thighs again. A heady wave of pleasure flowed through me, and my eyes rolled back in my head. Thank god he couldn't see. If he knew the effect he was having on me...

"I know I'm good with my tongue, by the way. I know I'm good with my hands. It's nice to hear you admit it out loud, though, Angel. I could always treat you to round two, if you'd like? I could lick and suck and tease your clit. I could lave at it until you came, and then I could lick you some more. I could slide my fingers inside your pussy and tease that little spot you like. The one that has you bucking against me, screaming my fucking name. And when you're done coming, when you're boneless and half blind from the orgasms I've given you, I could lick you clean."

Oh... Shit...

"As for the way you handled the redhead. I enjoyed the show, Sera," he murmured. "You're full of piss and vinegar when you're defending what's yours."

That was it. That was enough to snap me out of my moment of stupidity. I stepped out of his arms, shaking off the desire that had, for a second, made me forget who Fix Marcosa really was. My face was trained into a deadpan, flat void when I spun around and locked eyes with him. "You're not mine, Fix. We're not...this isn't a thing. You're a bad person. You do know that, don't you?"

The charming, devil-may-care grin that was plastered all over Fix's face didn't slip, but there was a flash of something akin to pain that shone out of his strange, pale blue eyes. It was only there for a split second, but I saw it. I saw how badly I'd hurt him.

"Yep. You have me dead to rights, Lafferty." Inhaling, he looked around the room, stretching that breathtaking body of his like a cat lounging out in the sun. "Since you're awake now and there are no more bridesmaids to coo over me, I guess I'd better go and find myself a suit."

Urgh. Of course he didn't have a suit. "How the hell are you going to find a suit in a hotel in the middle of nowhere?"

My stomach did something strange as Fix slid his arms into a t-shirt and threw the thin black material over his head. He looked so good in a tee. Shit, the man looked good in absolutely anything he put on his body. He'd be able to make a trash bag look amazing, for fuck's sake. I turned away, refusing to allow myself to watch him as he kicked his feet into a pair of dark grey jeans, torn and ripped at the knees.

"I'll find a way, Lafferty," he said, his voice thick with amusement. "I always do. I'm a very resourceful guy."
FOURTEEN

BAD PERSON

FIX

My dick was as hard as a concrete post, and there was nothing I could fucking do about it. I could have slipped into a bathroom and jerked off, but where was the fun in that? It would get the job done, relieving some of the pressure that had been building up in my pants, but fuck...

I didn't want my own hands on my cock. I didn't even want that redhead's hands on my cock, even though she had been fairly pretty and her mouth looked like it was used to being wrapped about a boner. I wanted Sera's hands on me, and if I couldn't have her, then I didn't want anyone else.

How the fuck had this happened? How had I decided somewhere along the way that I wanted her? Like, really wanted her? Not just for a night, but for longer. She was literally the worst person to pursue, and I knew myself. That was probably the exact reason why I'd formed such an obsessive attraction to her over the past few days. It was as if my dick enjoyed setting me up for failure and catastrophe. I had to keep reminding it that we were on the same team, but it didn't appear to be listening. Bastard.

Okay. A suit. I needed to find a suit.

The concierge would probably have one. People left clothes in hotels all the time. They hung them up in the closet and forget all about them. I didn't want someone's misplaced second hand shit, though. Just because I was crashing this wedding didn't mean I couldn't look sharp.

There were people wandering around in the lobby, drinking mimosas, wearing robes or their pajamas, chatting politely with one another. Obviously they weren't dressed or ready for the ceremony yet, but the lure of alcohol in the lobby had been too much for them. Drinkers. My favorite. A million years ago, a different lifetime ago, in fact, I used to warn people of the dangers of imbibing too much alcohol from a pulpit. Then, after everyone had left, their faith and their good intentions reinvigorated after my stirring speech, I'd get so fucked up that I couldn't walk straight.

People probably assumed I drank the communion wine. Fuck that, though. Communion wine was nothing better than watered down piss. Gentleman Jack had been my tipple of choice. It still was, when I didn't need a clear head to get shit done. I felt Jack calling to me as I scanned the crowd meandering around the lobby—it would be easy enough to order a drink from the small bar that had been set up in the corner of the hotel's plush entryway—but now wasn't the time. I needed to be bright eyed and bushy tailed, just in case Sera decided to do something stupid. Also, if I was being honest, I wanted to make a good impression today. I wasn't blind to the trauma Sera had been dealing with. I knew she was more shaken than she was letting on.

You're a bad person. You know that, right?

She'd lashed out with her words without even thinking, which made her statement even more caustic. She'd meant it. She'd really meant it, and I'd seen as much on her face. I was a killer. I ended people's lives for money. I got that. But in some warped, fucked up corner of my head, I still thought of myself as a good guy. Hilarious. It had been years since I'd done anything truly good. Carrying Monica out of that church, stowing her in the back of the ambulance, sitting with her for days, listening to her confession over and over again, reading her last rites on more than one terrifying, hair-raising occasion...

That was the last good thing I did.

Seeing her like that had done something to me. I'd lost all hope. I'd lost what little faith I had. And I'd lost any desire to continue on acting out the charade that I'd only undertaken in the first place to keep my parents happy. They were dead, and it didn't matter anymore. There were people out there with the blackest hearts, capable of raping and torturing and maiming people more vulnerable and fragile than they were. They didn't believe in any god. There was no moral compass guiding them, leading them away from the darkness. So I put away God, and I put away my compass, and I walked into the dark with a single, defining purpose: to find and punish the man who hurt Monica. To hurt him, the way he hurt her.

I didn't know if there would be any justice in the afterlife for men like the guy who'd attacked Monica, and I couldn't fucking bear it. Couldn't let it fucking stand. If there was accountability after death, then great. He would pay eternally for the pain and suffering he'd caused. But, just in case there was no accountability, I was going to make him, and other men like him, fucking bleed in this life too.

"Can I help you, sir?"

A short, middle-aged man in a suit stood beside me, holding out a polished silver tray loaded up with cucumber sandwiches. The crusts had been cut off, and I grimaced down at the food. "Are there any guys my size staying in the hotel?" I asked.

He looked confused, but, ever the consummate professional, didn't question me. Eying me up and down, he arched an eyebrow. "Oh, I shouldn't think so, sir. You're quite tall, and very broad. The only guest who might be close to you in stature would be Master Gareth, there. Might I ask why, sir?"

I glanced in the direction he pointed, taking in the guy standing on the opposite side of the lobby—slicked back blond hair, sparkling blue eyes. Unlike everyone else sipping from their flutes of champagne and nibbling delicately on the de-crusted sandwiches, he'd made the effort to get dressed before coming downstairs. His beige chinos had been pressed so violently that there was a knife-edge crease down the front of them, and his dusky pink button down shirt looked like it had come straight out of the packaging. He was wearing a fucking Aran-knit sweater over his shoulders, the arms of which were tied loosely around his neck. I immediately hated the prick. He was a mirror of so many guys I'd gone to college with; he came from money, that was clear enough. And from the way he tipped his head back and laughed loudly, seeking attention, he was used to people fawning over him in public.

"Never mind," I said, still staring at the stranger. "You're right. I don't think he's broad enough. Not by a long chalk." My parents had had money. Plenty of it. They'd packed me off to receive the best education money could buy, and when I'd agreed to undertake my seminary training, they'd insisted on putting me up in an exorbitantly expensive hotel instead of allowing me to room with another student at the church facility. Their wealth had set me apart from the crowd. I wasn't like this Gareth asshole, though. I'd never flaunted the healthy state of my bank account by wearing expensive clothes or sporting three hundred dollar hair cuts. I'd worn the cheapest shit I could find, stocking my wardrobe by shopping at thrift stores. And when the time had come, when both my parents died, I'd tied up every single penny they'd left to me in trusts and bonds, making sure I couldn't even see the disgusting amount of cash that had fallen into my lap anymore.

Next to Gareth, a flash of red caught my attention, and I realized the person Gareth was laughing so boisterously with was Arianna, the woman who'd been flirting with me back in the room only fifteen minutes ago. Her hand was resting lightly, possessively, on Gareth's arm—a clear sign to the other tittering women hovering around him that he was already taken. So...Arianna was the jealous type. But also the type to flutter her eyelashes at other men whenever the fuck she felt like it. Sounded about right.

I was about to slip down the remaining stairs and sidle my way out of the lobby, when Arianna looked up, her gaze settling on me. Gareth looked up at the same time, frowned, then whispered something into Arianna's ear. Her cheeks were stained with color as she replied to him, nodded, then waved me over.

Under no circumstances did I want to go and join them. I'd suffered through root canal surgery before without anesthetic, and even that sounded more pleasant that being introduced to this fucking jack-hole. Still...this was Sera's sister's wedding. I had to keep reminding myself of that. Sera thought I was the shittiest human being to ever draw breath, but I could at least prove her wrong in this. I could at least make sure today was nothing but smooth sailing.

"There we are, darling," Arianna said breezily, as I arrived at their group. "I told you he was part of the wedding party. Felix Marcosa, meet my boyfriend, Gareth Douvillier. Gareth was just saying that you looked like you were about to perform at a rock concert, not attend a wedding."

"Actually, I didn't," Gareth said tightly. His eyes were bland and uninteresting. Untrustworthy. "I said he looked like an underpaid roadie, who should be lugging DJ equipment through the service entrance at the rear of the hotel, not lurking in the lobby during a wine mixer."

Well, well, well. Gareth had a sharp tongue in his head. He wanted to look down at me, I could tell. Trouble was, I was about six inches taller than him, and I wasn't wearing lifts in my shoes like he was. Arianna laughed, high pitched and nervous, playfully slapping Gareth's arm. "I'm sorry, Felix. Gareth's always a little testy at these things. People ask him so many questions, y'know? He's very successful at what he does, and everyone wants to know his secrets."

"Oh. That's great. I'm pretty fucking successful at what I do, too."

Arianna's mouth gaped open the moment I swore. Gareth didn't seem to care, though. "Oh? And what might that be?" he drawled.

"Who knows?" I slapped him on the shoulder. Hard. "Maybe one day you'll find out first hand."

He bared his teeth at me. It was supposed to be a smile, but good ol' Gareth was transparent as fuck. He didn't like me, and he wasn't doing a very good job of concealing his emotions. "Whatever she's told you, it's not true, you know," he said. "None of it. She's a fucking liar."

"I'm sorry? I don't follow."

"Sera. I never cheated on her with Arianna. We'd already broken up when I got with her."

I stifled a laugh. "Sera? Sera was with you?"

Gareth was indignation personified. "Don't give me that shit. There's no way she didn't tell you about me. She lost her freaking mind when we split."

God. So I wasn't just crashing a wedding. I was neck deep in ex-drama, too. That was just fucking perfect. I folded my arms across my chest, making sure to flex my muscles a little. "I don't know what to tell you, man. She's never mentioned your name before. She can't have been that distraught. Good on you, though. Sera's a catch. You're a lucky man to have spent any time with her at all." Gone was my smile. And gone was the arrogant glint in Gareth's eye.

"She's a head case, man. You've got your hands full with all the luggage that bitch carries around with her. I mean, why the fuck would you want to involve yourself with damaged goods like that? Her own father fucked around with her."

I'd been planning on walking away from this conversation without being a cunt. There were times when it was appropriate to smash your fist into someone's jaw in the middle of a crowded room, and there were times when it was smarter to send a parting shot across the bow and walk the fuck away. Gareth was a needy piece of shit who didn't like the idea that there were people out there in the world who'd witnessed his ugly side. I'd handled scores of guys just like him, and I'd learned how to cut them down and move on without breaking a sweat. But to call her a bitch? To speak openly to someone you don't know about her being sexually assaulted? I'd have to unpack that one and deal with it later, but for now...

Nope. No fucking way.

I was itching to lay the bastard out. Fair enough, I knew very little about Sera, had no right to feel protective over her, but none of that mattered. Slating your ex to the man who was now dating her (as far as he knew) was a classless act, but resorting to name calling was just fucking horseshit. I played out what it would feel like to knock the motherfucker out right here and now. The bright snap of pain as my knuckles connected with his jaw. The vivid, bright red of the blood he would shed. The satisfying thud his skull would make as it bounced off the floor. It was all going so well in my head, until I imagined the look of horror on everyone else's faces, and the shit Sera would have to field as a result of my rash actions.

Fuck.

The sense of gratification that had been welling up inside of me vanished. I couldn't do it to her. "You don't need to worry about me," I said. The vein in my temple was pounding like a demented drum. "Sera's baggage is nothing compared to mine. And besides. I work out. I'm perfectly capable of carrying whatever pain and heartbreak she's been through for her. Not that I need to, of course. Sera's a wildfire. A lot of guys aren't capable of caring for a woman who's been brave enough to fight her way through dark times. Don't worry. I get it. Their strength can be intimidating."

Gareth's mouth was yawning open, moments away from spewing out even more bullshit. A right hook would have been impeccably timed right now, but instead I turned around and walked away. I knew exactly what I was doing; men like Gareth were used to being listened to. They believed everything they said and did was of great import to others. For someone to belittle them, cut them off, turn their back on them and walk away? That was fucking crushing to a puffed up, egotistical degenerate like him.

As I casually strolled out of the lobby, I grabbed a bellboy by the arm, jerking my head back over my shoulder in Gareth's direction. "Hey, that blond guy over there with the redhead? What's he driving? Tell me and this is yours." I showed him the hundred-dollar bill I'd taken out of my pocket.

The bellboy squinted at Gareth, then back at the hundred-dollar bill again. "The red Lamborghini out back. The brand new one with the black leather interior."

"I'll give you another hundred if you loan me the keys for ten minutes."

"Why? You're not going to do anything bad to it, are you?"

"Oh, god, no. I'd never do damage to someone's ride. I just have a gift for him is all."

By the time I was done pissing in the front seat of Gareth's stupidly ostentatious vehicle, the pounding in my temples had eased. I wasn't done with that motherfucker, though. Not even close to done. My boots bit into the gravel on the way back across the parking lot. Fuck it. I wasn't going to bother finding a suit for this ludicrous event. I'd skip the ceremony, and then hang out at the reception once the photos were out of the way. And once night fell and ever—

"Father? Father Marcosa?"

My boots stopped. My heart stopped. The world stopped.

Who?

Who would know to call me that out here, in the middle of nowhere? The chances were non-existent. My mind went blank as I turned around...and looked into the face of a man I never thought I would see again.
FIFTEEN

INTERFERENCE

SERA

Amy was crying, make up streaming down her face when I entered the beautifully lit, luxurious reception room where I was supposed to be having my makeup and hair done. She looked up, blinking like crazy through her tears, and let out a loud, heartbroken sob when she recognized me.

"Sera, oh god..."

"What is it? What's wrong?" I was used to Amy's fits of hysterics, but her temper tantrums were typically accompanied by screaming and breakable objects being thrown. Today, she was curled in on herself, shoulders rounded, the strap of the nude slip she was wearing falling off her right shoulder. She looked like a broken little girl, like she was physically hurt in some way, and my heart rose up into my throat. She hiccupped as she buried her face in her hands, hiding herself away.

"God, I didn't know, I swear," she moaned.

I crouched down in front of her, trying to gently prize her hands away from her face. "Didn't know what?"

"This—this is such—a mess," she whispered. "I don't want to do this now. I just want to go home."

"You don't want to get married?" If she really didn't want to tie the knot today, I'd help her plot a plan of escape out of the hotel without a second thought, but Jesus... After everything I'd been through in order to get here, I had to fight down the urge to slap her.

"No, of course I want to get married. I love Ben. But..."

"But?"

I managed to peel back one of her hands. She allowed the other to fall, revealing bloodshot eyes and smudged lipstick. She was a mess, but I did everything I could to keep my dismay from showing. That wouldn't help at all. Pulling in a deep breath, she picked at a hanging thread on the hem of her slip, her fingers tugging at it nervously.

"They thought they were doing the right thing, Sera. I swear. They would never have invited him if they knew..."

"Amy, take a deep breath. I can barely understand a word you're saying. Start from the beginning. Who thought they were doing the right thing? Who did they invite?"

The second Amy exhaled, shivering from cold, and then looked up at me, a sinking, dreadful weight pulled at my insides. No... no, god, no one would have invited him here. They wouldn't be that cruel. Amy wasn't shaking from the cold; she was shaking from fear. My hands dropped to my sides. Strangely, I couldn't feel my body anymore. I was numb from the hairline down. The only way I knew my heart was racing out of control was because of the dizziness that had washed over me.

"Who invited him?" I asked breathlessly.

Amy hiccupped again, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. "Ben's parents. I told them he used to be abusive. I told them about the alcohol and the drugs. I explained how we hadn't been in contact for many years. I just...couldn't...tell them about..."

She trailed off as a fresh wave of tears took her over. I kept my face trained into a blank, expressionless mask. If I allowed myself to react, I was going to fall apart. There was no way I'd be able to hold myself together, and, just like always, Amy needed me to be strong for her. So I did my best.

"You don't understand people like Ben's parents," Amy said, sniffing. "Family is so important to them. They couldn't bear the thought of me getting married without my father present, so they reached out to him. They...god, they went to see him, Sera. They said he'd turned himself around, was doing really well for himself, and that he'd...he'd cried when they told him about me getting married to Ben. They asked him to come. It was meant to be a surprise, but Ben let it slip this morning. Said he didn't want me to be blindsided when I saw him sitting there on the front row."

Blindsided. That was such an appropriate term. Who the fuck went and invited someone's father to their wedding without their consent? Amy had planned this whole thing down to the last letter. Her attention to detail was meticulous. Her failure to invite Sixsmith to her wedding hadn't been an oversight. There was a damn good reason why she'd left him off the guest list, so why in the name of fuck would Ben's parents have pried and interfered so badly?

I wasn't surprised Sixsmith had convinced them he was a reformed character. When most people thought of an alcoholic, they imagined a person living in squalor, dirty and unkempt, broke and unemployed. Our father's addiction wasn't an obvious thing. He was obsessively clean, managed to get himself to and from work every day, dressed himself nicely for the most part, and always made sure he had a few dollars in his pocket.

When he wasn't drinking, he was the epitome of charming. The one and only time I ever breathed a word of what was happening at home to an adult, I'd shown my sixth grade teacher the bruises that covered my upper arms, thighs, stomach and buttocks, and she'd stormed over to my house to confront Sixsmith. By the time she left an hour later, Sixsmith had managed to convince her that I'd lied, that I'd been acting out of late, vying for attention because Amy had been sick and taking up everybody's time, and that he was so, so sorry for the time my teacher had wasted. I'd listened to their conversation from the top step of the stairs, hugging my knees to my chest, eyes screwed tightly shut, and I remembered being so sure that Miss Harriet was going to see straight through Sixsmith's ruse. It was so clear to me. So easy to detect the subtle edge to his tone that revealed how angry he was that he'd been found out. But it was as though Sixsmith was a blind spot for most people. They'd try and fail to see an entire picture of him. Miss Harriet had believed him, and when I returned to school the next Monday, after a weekend of severe beatings, being locked in Sixsmith's bedroom and forced to sleep naked under his bed, she'd told me to cover up my bruises, and that if I showed anyone else I would be sent to the principal's office.

"Please, Sera. Don't...don't cause a scene. I just...I don't know what to do." Amy was rocking back and forth; she grabbed my hands in her own, alternating between squeezing way too hard and shaking like a leaf. "I didn't even tell Ben," she said sorrowfully. "The man I love. The man I'm meant to be marrying in less than three hours. I couldn't bring myself to face the truth, and telling Ben about Sixsmith just...just made it all seem so real. If I hadn't been such a coward, he would have known that bringing him here was a terrible idea. He could have stopped his parents from ever going to see him."

"Has he arrived yet?" I asked stiffly.

Amy shook her head, fresh waves tumbling into her face. "I don't know. I don't think so."

"All right. It's okay. I'll deal with it."

Amy stopped shaking. A moment later, she stopped crying. "How?"

"I'll find him. I'll make sure he doesn't stay. Don't worry. Just get into your dress and have them fix your makeup. Everything will be fine. I promise."

******

Everything was not fine. I didn't think I was going to make it to the bathroom before I threw up, but I proved myself wrong. I slung the door closed, dropped to my knees and leaned forward just in time to get most of my vomit in the toilet bowl.

My mind was spinning as I sagged back against the door, legs tangled up beneath me, my throat burning. Ben's parents were meddling assholes. When I figured out what they looked like and tracked them down, they were going to wish they'd never stuck their noses into Lafferty business.

My father.

My father, here, in the same place as Amy and me.

After eight years...

I bowed over the toilet and puked again, so hard and so violently that it felt like I was tearing muscle. I'd suffered through all those nightmares, year after year. I'd told myself they were nothing, just bad dreams, and I could handle them, because I'd never have to see Sixsmith again in the flesh. The version of him that lived inside my subconscious could taunt and harass me until the end of time, because I'd never have to stand in front of him and allow him to harm me in real life ever again. Except now here we were...

I could do it. When Amy and I had finally escaped Montmorenci, I'd told Sixsmith I'd gut him like a fish if I ever saw or heard from him again. For my troubles, he'd punched me so hard I thought my eye socket had caved in, but we'd still gotten up and walked out of that place. If I'd been able to do that back then, I could tell the piece of shit to get the fuck out of our lives a second time around. He couldn't be allowed to ruin this for Amy. Ben was about as engaging as a wet paper bag, and as far as his physique went, he had just about as much chance of fighting his way out of one, but he made my sister smile. He made her forget her past, and that was the most important thing in the world. I wasn't going to let that sick fuck stroll back into her life and screw everything up for her. It just wasn't going to happen. I'd do anything in my power to prevent that. It didn't matter that seeing Sixsmith would be traumatic for me. I could reinforce the Band-Aids that were currently holding me together later, when all was said and done. But, in between now and then, I had to face the man the demon who stalked my sleep, and I had to be fucking brave.

******

I found Fix, still in his t-shirt and ripped jeans, talking to an old man outside a door labeled, 'Reading Room.' On either side of the old man's head, perched just above his ears, were two tufts of thin white hair, like little puffy clouds of smoke. His face was a riot of wrinkles, a roadmap of years that seemed to have taken a harsh toll on him. His eyes were alert, sharp and bright, though. When he spotted me over Fix's shoulder, he broke into a smile.

"Well, there's no mistaking you, then," he said. "You're Sera, Amy's sister. I'd recognize that chin anywhere."

"Haha, yeah. The old Lafferty chin. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." I had no idea who I was meeting, since the old guy failed to supply me with his name. Fix rocked uncomfortably on his heels, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Even with everything that was going on, my insides reeled whenever I looked at him. He was so...Fix. A creature made out of shadows and light. A dream, and a nightmare rolled into one. He was both sides of a coin toss, consequence and reward. I wanted to kiss him so badly right then that my lips ached. I wanted to run away from him, screaming, just as badly. It was my duty to warn everyone that a wolf had snuck in amongst the flock of sheep, and was likely to start feeding any second, but I found myself standing there, pretending like nothing was wrong.

"I was wondering if I could talk to you for a second?" I said. Then to the old man, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt your conversation. This will only take a second."

"Oh, that's quite all right. Felix and I were just reminiscing about the good old days when I taught him at seminary. We can pick up where we left off later. That is, if I haven't dropped down dead by then, naturally. When you get to my age, every passing minute is somewhat a surprise, to be honest." His laugh was raucous; he might well have been in his late eighties, but his constitution seemed strong. I wasn't paying too much attention to the old guy's mirth, though. I'd caught and stuck on a word he'd just said: seminary.

Seminary?

It wasn't a word you heard often these days, but I knew what it was. Fix had been in seminary? That image just would not compute. I frowned at him as he placed his hand into the small of my back and guided me away from the old man.

"Who was that?" I hissed.

"Father Gregory Richards. He's officiating your sister's wedding."

"And you know him?"

"Barely." Fix shrugged, navigating his way out the front of the building, pushing me in front of him. As soon as we were outside, I dug my heels into the gravel, refusing to take another step.

"You went to seminary, Fix? What the fuck were you doing in seminary school?"

"Learning, mostly. Getting an education."

"A Catholic education? In order to become a priest?"

"I thought you knew," he said quietly. "You heard the conversation I had with Franz in the auto shop before..."

"Before you killed him? Yeah, I heard what you both said. I thought it was code or something. I didn't think he meant...I didn't think you meant...Oh, fuck. So... Great. You're a kidnapper. You're a murderer. And now you're a fucking priest."

"I'm not a priest anymore." Usually pale as ice, his eyes had darkened and taken on a stormy, malevolent edge.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask."

"Fix!"

"I'm sorry. It just didn't seem like pertinent information."

"I don't—" I shook my head. "God, I just don't understand you!"

"Are you supposed to? Is understanding me gonna make any of this easier?"

He was so fucking infuriating. He had a point, though. Knowing a detailed history of his life wasn't going to change anything. It was just...really? He went to seminary school? "How long were you a priest? Did you have a parish? Were you always this..."

"Fucked up?" The sun lanced down through the trees, hitting him from behind, and there was a moment when his dark hair turned to burnished copper. His broad shoulders were tensed; his whole body seemed to be tensed, actually, though I couldn't figure out why.

"Yeah," I snapped. "Have you always been this fucked up? How did you end up transitioning from weekly bake offs and charity drives to killing people, for fuck's sake? I mean, it doesn't make any sense. You're a walking dichotomy."

"I was never a very good priest," he said softly. "I wanted to be good at it for a while there. Helping people gave me a purpose and a direction I hadn't experienced before. But in the end, that collar I wore around my neck every day ended up strangling the life out of me. Something happened, and I left. In the end, it wouldn't have mattered, though. I would have gone eventually. It just wasn't who I was."

It was so strange to hear him speak this way. I'd gotten used to the idea that he was an evil, mindless psychopath, but the mental image of him that had just conjured itself inside my head conflicted with all of that.

"Don't," Fix growled under his breath. "Your thoughts are written all over your face. You're wondering if this is all a phase. If I'm going to wake up one day and want to be holy, righteous, pious Father Marcosa again. I know you're wondering that. Don't waste your time. I'm never going back, Sera. This is who I am now. Who I'm always going to be. I won't change for you. I won't be redeemed. Nothing on this earth would make me tuck my tail between my legs and run back to be forgiven. I don't want it. And let's face it. At the end of the day, I don't deserve it."

I stared at him, trying to read him. It was impossible. He was an expert at shielding his emotions, secreting them away, hiding them from the outside world. I knew so little about him, really, but I knew this for sure: it would take a crowbar and a lifetime of effort to get this man to open up. Things had gotten so confusing. I still didn't know if I should have been afraid for my life or not, and there I was, trying to decide if I wanted to own up to the perplexing feelings I was rapidly developing for this man.

"I don't care if you change your mind about your path or if you don't, Fix. I just need to know one thing." I held my breath, waiting for him to answer.

Fix took a step forward, bowing his head so that he didn't tower over me quite so badly. "Like I said. Ask away."

Here went nothing.

"Where do you keep your guns?"
SIXTEEN

CRACK PIPE

FIX

I hadn't heard her right. I couldn't have. She wasn't asking to borrow a gun, because that would have been absolute insanity. Sera stood her ground, gaze steady, fixed on me, unwavering. For someone who was fucking around, she sure was starting to look pretty damn serious.

"It doesn't have to be loaded," she explained. "I just need it to scare someone."

"You know pointing a gun at someone is still a criminal offence, even if it isn't loaded?"

"Like you care about the law!" She laughed, hard laughter, full of anxiety and worry, devoid of any humor. "Just give me a gun, Fix. I'll give it back to you in a couple of hours, I swear."

"I don't want a weapon handed back to me after it's been used to commit a felony. I'd rather you threw it into a lake or a quarry, like every other half-witted would-be murderer in this country."

"Whatever! I won't give it back, then. I'll get rid of it. Just...give me the damn gun, Fix!"

"Do you even know how to hold a gun?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's got a handle and a trigger. I think I'll figure it out."

"Why don't you tell me what's going on instead? Maybe I can help."

"If, by help, you mean put a bullet in the back of someone's head for me, then yeah. Maybe you can help." She said this flippantly—an off-the-cuff remark that didn't mean anything to her. She wasn't serious in the slightest. If only she knew...

Sera's eyes unfocused, her body stiffening as she looked out of the window over my shoulder. I followed her gaze; an old red Chevy was pulling up the driveway, rust pockmarking the paintwork, and a considerable dent in the driver's side door panel. The car had seen better days, and so had its driver. A guy in his mid-fifties sat behind the wheel, his dark hair slicked back, thinning on top badly enough that the top of his shiny head was easily visible. When he got out of the car, handing his keys off to the valet slash bellboy with a flourish, as if his ride was a brand new Tesla, I made a quick assessment of him. Scuffed brown leather shoes. Yellowing shirt underneath a faded blue suit that looked like it last saw the light of day in the seventies. The man, of course, was Sixsmith Lafferty, Sera's father. I knew as much, but I kept my mouth shut.

Sera had turned a deathly pale white, her face bleached of all color. "Shit." She took a step back away from the window and nearly knocked over a small walnut side table that was laden with flowers and a large bowl, containing chocolates wrapped in gold foil. I grabbed hold of her by the arm, steadying her.

"Time to tell me what the fuck's going on," I said. "Does that man mean something to you? Is he the reason you want a gun?"

Sera looked like she'd shrunk to about half her regular size. There was so much fight and fire in her when she was confronting me, but right now, she looked like she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. Gareth had said Sera's father had touched her. The slice on her jaw wasn't confirmation of that, but it was almost certainly confirmation that he'd been violent with her. I had to turn myself to stone as Sera let out a ragged breath, scanning the hallway from left to right; it looked like she was searching for an escape route.

"That's Sixsmith," she said, her voice three octaves higher than normal. "He's my father. We don't...we don't see eye-to-eye."

From what I knew of Sixsmith Lafferty, he didn't see eye to eye with many people. He was the lowest of the low. Scum of the earth. A worthless, violent, disgusting piece of trash that needed putting down. "You're sweating, Sera." I reached out and touched her forehead, contemplating the wet pads of my fingers before I carefully slid them into my mouth.

"God, now really isn't the time, Fix," Sera panted.

I angled my head to one side, studying her. "I've tasted your ecstasy. I've tasted your anger. I wanted to know what your fear tasted like."

"I'm not afraid."

"Then why are you shaking?"

Sera opened her mouth. She had something to say, but...nothing came out. I wanted to scoop her into my arms and press her into me. I wanted to hold her so her tight, she didn't need to breathe anymore. I wanted to protect her, even when protecting her would only cause more hurt and anguish. "If you really want a gun, I'll give you one," I whispered. "But you threatening him...do you really think you could do it?"

Sera's expression hardened, turning to molten steel. "You don't know what I'm capable of."

"I can guess. But, when you take on that kind of violence... it taints you. It transforms you. You think you'll just point a gun at him and he'll go away? That's not how men like him work. They love confrontation. They love seeing the terror in their victim's eyes. They're excited by it. Violence begets violence, Sera. If you're not willing to actually follow through and pull that trigger, to make him go away for real, he'll know. He'll see it in your eyes."

"Then...urgh! WhatamIsupposedtodo?" Her words ran into each other, frustration and panic rearing their ugly heads. Her chest was rising and falling too rapidly; she was on the brink of an anxiety attack, and it was within my power to stop it. I didn't need to hand her a weapon and allow her to face Sixsmith alone. I could take care of him for her easily enough, but then there'd be no closure for Sera. The whole thing was complicated, and growing more and more complicated by the day. If I were smart, I would take the bastard out to the small copse of trees at the rear of the hotel, and I'd dig my thumbs into his eye sockets until he was dead. No noisy gunshots to alert the hotel patrons of something untoward. No real mess. There'd be a bit of blood, but not as much as there had been with Franz back in Liberty Fields. Killing Sixsmith with my bare hands would feel like justice. It would be a brutal death, and yet it would still be far kinder than that sick, depraved motherfucker deserved.

"Just...let me take care of him, Sera. You don't want him here? Fine. I'll make him leave. You should go and get ready. The ceremony's going to start soon, right?"

Sera inhaled sharply, her eyebrows rising up her forehead. She hadn't expected me to make an offer like that. Making a joke out of me killing her dad was one thing, but apparently the concept that I might handle the situation in another way hadn't occurred to her.

"You can't," she whispered. "I couldn't ask you to do that."

"Why not?" I smirked. "Haven't I made your life miserable since we met? Don't I owe you a favor or two?"

Suspicion flared in Sera's eyes, but the tension that had been radiating off her dissipated a little. "You think telling my father to leave a party will absolve you of your guilt, then fine...go ahead. Make him leave. But..."

"But I'm still an evil piece of shit, and you're never going to trust or forgive me. Don't worry. I got it."

Her smile was wobbly as I left her standing there by the window. Lafferty had probably entered the building by now. The valet had immediately moved his car from outside the hotel, probably so no one would see the broken down beater, so he'd been free to enter and make himself comfortable. Only, when I lapped the lobby, squeezing through the crowd, handing out tight-lipped smiles to everyone who tried to say hello or stop me, I couldn't find Sera's father anywhere.

I slipped out the front, searching for him, but he was nowhere to be see—

Wait.

There.

To my right, camouflaged in the bushes at the side of the sweeping driveway leading up to the hotel, I spotted Lafferty's busted up brown leather shoes. The guy nearly shit himself as I yanked back a thick branch of foliage, exposing him. "What the fuck man! Can't a guy take a leak in peace around here?"

There was nothing of Sera in him. Rather, there was nothing of him in Sera. She must have had her mother's eyes, and her mother's chin, and her mother's cheekbones. Sixsmith Lafferty's face was little more than paper-thin skin wrapped around a gaunt skull. His eyes were brown, dull and cruel. The deep wrinkles that bracketed his mouth had nothing to do with laughter. They were the result of a permanent sneer the man seemed to have perfected and was sending in my direction this very second.

"Funny. I didn't know you could piss and hit a crack pipe at the same time. You're very multitalented," I shot back.

Sixsmith had dropped his hands down when I'd pulled back the branch, but not quick enough. I'd seen the glass pipe held up at his lips, and the curl of acrid smoke escaping down his nostrils right now was pretty damning.

Sixsmith's sneer deepened. "You a cop?"

"No."

"Then it's none of your fucking business, is it?" He turned his back on me, which was his first mistake. There was a vast anger inside me. A lake of it. No, more than a lake. There was a sea of anger inside me, and the only thing holding it back was the high dam wall I'd constructed in my mind. The dam was high, and it was thick, and it had held back my anger for years. The dam was weakening with every second I spent in Sixsmith Lafferty's presence, though. Cracks were forming, deep and jagged, and I had no idea how long the wall was going to stand. Sixsmith put the glass pipe to his mouth, holding a lighter to the bulb at its end, then drew in a stream of pure white smoke.

He didn't hear me approaching. And he didn't make a peep when I drew back my fist and slammed it into the base of his skull as hard as I fucking could. Sixsmith's neck made a sickening crunching sound, and the guy crumpled into the leaf litter like his legs had just been taken out from underneath him. That's right, asshole. Knocked the fuck out.

He wasn't dead. I could easily have killed him with a punch like that if I'd really wanted to. All it would have taken was a little more strength and a little determination. I didn't want Sixsmith dead, though. Not yet, anyway. He wouldn't even be paralyzed when he woke up from his momentary nap. He'd have a raging headache, but aside from that he'd be fine.

I didn't have much time. There were people at all the windows, now dressed for the wedding in their finest suits and dresses. I'd be noticed if I dragged Sixsmith's lifeless body across the gravel turning circle that fanned out in front of the hotel entrance. I was going to have to drag him through the trees, around the side of the building, and then around the multitude of cars that had been parked as close as possible to the building. From there, I should be safe to sit down with Sixsmith and have a little, friendly chat with him. It wouldn't take long.

Dragging Sixsmith's limp, unresponsive body to his car, parked in the furthest spot possible from the hotel, was no fun whatsoever. Sixsmith looked like he weighed a buck sixty, but his bones must have been made out of surgical steel or something. He was a dead weight. I wasn't exactly careful with him as I lugged him toward my destination; he'd be black and blue in a couple of days, and it'd take a solid week for his headache to disappear.

Sixsmith didn't wake up when I dumped him next to his Chevy. He didn't wake up when I kicked him with the toe of my boot, either. It took a firm backhander across the face to rouse him, and when he did wake up, he peered up at me, brows banked together, confusion swamping him.

"What the...fuck? You fucking hit me?"

"Yeah, I fucking hit you. And if you don't keep your tongue in your head, I'll do it again, bitch."

Sixsmith slowly closed his eyes, manic laughter bubbling out of him, growing louder and louder. "You're a fucking dead man," he wheezed. "I'm gonna fucking kill you. This is my daughter's wedding. I was invited here, you little shit."

"Amy didn't invite you. Amy doesn't want you here. Neither does Sera."

Sixsmith stopped laughing at the mention of Sera's name. He adopted a blank, void stare, laced with...desire? A chill ran down my spine. It was desire. Not a sexual kind of attraction, but one of dominance. "Sera's here, too?" he rasped out.

"You're not going to see either of them. You're going to get in your car and drive away. Right now."

"Like hell I am. I drove five hours to be here for this thing. I have every fucking right to see my kids. Who are you to tell me to fuck off, huh?"

"I'm Sera's guest."

"Ha. Her guest? Not her usual type, I gotta say. She normally likes her guys a little...older."

I dropped into a crouch in front of him, resting my elbows on my knees, lacing my fingers together. "Can I ask you something?" I said softly. Sixsmith just frowned. He must have been thrown by the change in my tone of voice. "Do you want to die? Because I'm getting the feeling that you don't care about your life very much."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Sixsmith snapped.

"If you did value your life," I continued, "then you'd take one look at my face and know better than to utter Sera's name ever again. You wouldn't even think about her. You sure as fuck wouldn't make another derogatory remark about her choice in sexual partners, because I can guarantee you that will lead you to a very bad place. Do you understand me, asshole?"

God, how much would I have loved to smash his face into the concrete, until there was nothing left but mangled meat and shards of bone? The dam inside my head had crumbled a little further, and my wrath was spilling forth. There was nothing I could do about it now. It was too late to try and ignore it. I had to be strong, though. I had no other choice. If I lost myself and killed Sixsmith here, there would be no escaping the consequences. My name was on the hotel's guest register. I'd given them a copy of my driver's license for their records. The place was steeped in Southern charm, and bygone hospitality was still a very real concern here, but they weren't operating in the dark ages. I'd noticed at least three cameras in the lobby, not to mention the two I'd spied in the hallway this morning on our way up to the room.

So they had my ID. They had me on camera. They knew what I looked like, and they had plenty of footage to evidence that I was here today. Therefore, today could not be the last day anyone saw Sixsmith Lafferty.

"Tell them to come out here and make me leave," Sixsmith said breathlessly. "Tell them...if they come out here and tell me they don't want me here, I'll go."

"This isn't a negotiation. We're not having a conversation here. I'm telling you that you need to leave. You're going to hear me and oblige me, or you're going to end up in a shitload of pain. Your call."

Sixsmith's lips peeled back. His teeth were a fucking mess. He spat on the ground next to him, wincing as he slowly turned and got onto his knees, then stood up. "What's your name?" he asked quietly, shooting daggers at me out of the corner of his eye. "If you're such a bad ass, you won't mind telling me."

Shit. I knew why he wanted the information. "My name's Fix. But you won't find any information on me when you go snooping around in my shit, old man."

Narrowed eyes. Humiliation and fury boiling in his veins. "And why's that, Fix?"

"Because I'm smart. I don't leave cookie crumbs lying around for idiots like you to follow. And let's face it. You're fucking dumb. Forget the needle. You couldn't find a piece of hay in a haystack." Sixsmith growled under his breath. He pushed back his worn blue suit jacket and made a point of showing me the wicked-looking knife he had clipped to his belt. I just shrugged. "Go ahead. Pull it on me. See what happens."

He didn't pull it. He tilted his head back, setting his jaw, posturing, as he walked to his Chevy and got in. I stood back and watched him with my arms folded across my chest. Sixsmith was in the car and the engine was running when I remembered something I was supposed to do. Shit. I grappled with my cell phone, tugging it out of my pocket, flicking up the bottom tool bar and hitting the camera icon.

"Hey, Sixsmith. Say 'America's Most Wanted.'"

Sixsmith turned on me, nostrils flared, cheeks stained red, his brow marked with sweat. I took his picture, and I watched as a stone cold, deadly, flat kind of calm overtook him. "Next time I see you, I'll return the favor," he said. "I'll be the one with the camera in my hand. And you'll be the one lying on the floor, dead, with your own severed pecker shoved down your throat."

"Ouch. Quite the visual. I doubt I could take my own dick in my mouth, though. I'm a big boy." I doubled over, bracing, hands resting on my knees, at eye level with him now. "Maybe you could give me some pointers. I bet you got good at swallowing cock when you were locked up in that control unit down in Eddyville."

"Sera told you I was locked up in Kentucky?" he asked, ignoring my barb.

I just smiled at him. We both knew Sera couldn't have told me her father had just been released after completing a four-year sentence in Eddyville. They hadn't communicated in the past nine and a half years, so how could she possibly have known that? I slapped my palm against the roof of his shitty car, then gave him a passive aggressive wave. "Safe journey back to hell, Sixsmith. I'll be coming to pay you a visit shortly."
SEVENTEEN

TOXIC

SERA

The ceremony was kind of fucked up. Amy walked down the aisle to a David Bowie song—Starman—that had absolutely nothing to do with love, commitment or the beauty of everlasting companionship. Must have been some sort of private joke between her and Ben, who was struck with nervous laughter just as Father Richards began the service. One of the flower girls threw up as the bride and groom were taking their vows, and Ben's grandfather, Jerry, who'd apparently escaped the Nazis in a muck cart in occupied France right at the end of the Second World War, had an angina attack, and everybody thought he was about to die. I wasn't counting the growing list of individual disasters that were tarnishing Amy's day, however, because none of it mattered. Sixsmith wasn't here. And if Sixsmith wasn't here, then everything else was going to be perfect no matter what.

As maid of honor, I stood up at the front in the hideous peach dress Amy had picked out for me, and I held Amy's bouquet for her when Ben slid the wedding ring onto her finger. Father Richards droned on and on about the sanctity of marriage, loyalty and obedience for a little too long, during which time I scanned the people parked in the pews, searching for Fix. He wasn't there.

A range of emotions took their turn at confusing the fuck out of me as Father Richards told Ben he could now kiss the bride. Worry came first. Had everything gone smoothly with Sixsmith? Had my father attacked Fix or something? Sixsmith was unpredictable and insane, totally capable of launching himself at a guy twice the height and size of him if he felt like it.

Annoyance came next. Fix insisted on coming with me to Fairhope. He'd sworn up and down he wasn't going to let me out of his sight, and then...what? He'd just fucking vanished? Great.

The last emotion to hit me, as I finally spotted the man in question out of a window to my right, was desire—the most confusing emotion of all. Fix was outside, leaning against the wall of what looked like a small guest cottage, one leg bent, the sole of his boot resting against the wall, and there was a cigarette in his hand. Tendrils of smoke snaked their way from his nostrils, rising around his face, and my stomach turned over on itself.

The man in black. I'd only ever seen him wear black. Did that have something to do with his days spent as a priest, drowning in his cossack, or was it just a reflection of who he was, devoid of light? I didn't want to wonder about him. It was foolish to allow my mind to wander onto such treacherous ground, but...I couldn't help it. Fix had done something I couldn't understand or move past. But then again, he'd kept his word, and he hadn't harmed me. Quite the opposite, really. He'd prevented Sixsmith from destroying what was supposed to be the happiest day of my sister's life.

Some of the people in the chapel had noticed Fix waiting outside, too. They muttered under their breath, whispering behind their hands to one another, sending scathing glances in his direction. What did they see when they looked at him? A guy smoking a cigarette, dressed in black, wearing torn jeans. It was obvious; they saw someone who wasn't a part of their crowd. He wasn't a banker, or a lawyer, or a doctor. His face wasn't clean-shaven, and his hair was a little too long to satisfy their tastes.

I wasn't a member of their little clique either, though. I'd come from a base stock, working class family, and so had Amy. They'd overlooked our weak breeding because we were young, and we were pretty enough, and we'd done our best to lift ourselves out from underneath the poverty we were born into. It had never sat right with me, how Ben had tried to change Amy. Had thrown out her old wardrobe and told her how pretty she was in the clothes he had bought for her. I'd never have imagined Amy wearing a string of pearls when we fled Montmorenci and moved to Seattle. She'd liked to listen to the Ramones and dye her hair black. She'd liked to walk a fine line between madness and sanity—after escaping Sixsmith, I think we'd both felt that way—but these days all she cared about was improving her credit rating and making sure she got to bed by eight thirty.

These people were toxic.

When I looked at Fix out through those windows, I didn't know what I saw. He was an enigma. When I'd hidden in that auto shop and seen what he'd done, I'd been scared. I'd wanted to run from him and never look back. But...things weren't so clear anymore. I was never going to be able to say I agreed with what he did for a living, but the photos he'd shown me of the poor girl Franz had tortured and abused...

I still saw those images every time I closed my eyes. They were going to be seared into my retinas for the rest of my life. And...and how many times, when I was younger, had I wished for someone like Fix to come along and put an end to Sixsmith once and for good? If I'd had the money back then, wouldn't I have hired someone just like Fix to protect me?

Fix flicked his cigarette, and the butt flew in an arc before hitting the ground, sending up sparks from the cherry. I hadn't noticed that Amy and Ben had already walked down the aisle, and were almost outside. Everyone was on their feet, backs to me, shoving out of the pews, trying to get by one another in their efforts to hurry outside first. Father Richards cleared his throat, nodding out of the window. "Felix's father was a priest, too, you know?" he said.

"Really? I didn't think priests were allowed to get married and have families?" Which Fix's father obviously must have done.

Father Richards sighed. "Well. Things are a little laxer now. But back then, in the late seventies, when Felix's father decided to follow his calling, he was already married to Louisa, and Felix was...hmm. Two years old, I believe? If you were already married and you wanted to become a priest, exceptions were often made. If you were single before you were ordained, however, then you could expect to be celibate for the rest of your life."

"Sounds miserable."

"Actually, I'd say I've enjoyed my bachelor status. It's been rather...peaceful." Father Richards smiled sadly, his eyes taking on a distant stare. "I heard about what happened at Felix's church," he said quietly. "It was a horrific thing. When such terrible atrocities are committed in our communities, we feel responsible. We are protectors and shepherds, and when one of our flock is hurt, we feel the pain deeply.

"I didn't think Felix would leave us forever, though. He always was a wild child, but...I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm being selfish. The church is full of dusty, crabby old men, so blinded by years of routine and regulation that they can't find their own joy anymore. I suppose I just hoped Felix would come back to us, because....well, he was what we needed. More rebels to shake our foundations."

Father Richards left me standing there, staring out of the window, wondering what the hell he was talking about. Fix stared back at me, hands in his pockets, his face awash with pain, as if he knew what Father Richards had just said to me, and he really was still crippled by some unknown grief. I couldn't look away. Fix was broken and undone. He was light and he was darkness. And despite every warning bell in my mind that said otherwise, I couldn't shake the feeling that, while I knew he was danger personified...he might, just might, also be my safety, too.
EIGHTEEN

SCANDAL

SERA

"You look like..." Fix stepped back, scanning me from head to toe. He grimaced. "I don't like the color. I don't like the dress. Fuck. I don't like any of it. Only thing I like about it is the fact that it's so sheer."

"Why's that appealing? You can't see through it." Still, I curved my shoulders, rounding them in, just in case I was wrong and my boobs were currently on show for everyone to see.

"I like the fact that it's so thin, because I know you're not wearing any underwear. There'd be...lines or something. I'd be able to see your panties, and I don't see panties. Which means your pussy's completely naked under that thing right now and it's making me fucking hard."

Jesus wept. At least he was consistent. He hadn't let up since we'd met, using every opportunity he could to slide in an innuendo or a sexual pun into our conversations. But this...this was a little more direct. "My pussy's none of your business, Fix. Don't talk about it. Don't even think about it."

He'd found me back in our hotel room, where I'd briefly returned to plug in my cell phone. Fix was a leaner. Guaranteed, anything he could use to prop himself up with was going to be leaned against. Right now, he was leaning against the TV cabinet, hands in his pockets, watching me as I rifled through my bag, looking for a charger.

"Aren't you going to ask me?" he said.

"Ask you what?"

"How it went with your father."

My hands stilled inside my purse. I'd known what he was referring to, but even mentioning that man's existence caused palpitations in my chest. "Did he leave?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Did he hurt you?"

Fix snorted. "Please."

"Did you hurt him?"

"Uhhhh..."

"That's all I need to know." I pulled the cable out of my bag and plugged it into the wall. "We should go downstairs. Amy wants me in the photos."

"I'll get changed. I have a shirt I can wear—"

"Don't. You don't need to get changed."

A small, entertained smile. "You really don't want me in these photos, huh?"

"You're going to be gone from my life in a couple of days, Fix. Why would I want you in my sister's wedding photos? They're gonna be hanging over her gaudy ass fireplace for the rest of time. That's not the reason why I don't want you to change, though. I don't want you to change, because these people are all assholes, and I don't give a fuck what any of them think. Amy won't care what you're wearing. It's only Ben and his stuck up relatives, who can frankly go fuck themselves. Screw it." I'd been boiling over since the chapel, getting madder and madder about Ben's parents interfering, nearly ruining Amy's day by inviting Sixsmith here. They were snooty, miserable, belittling motherfuckers, and I wasn't going to bow and scrape in order to make a good impression with them. I loved Amy with all my heart, but I wouldn't change myself for her, or for anyone else.

Fix was right. The dress I was wearing was fucking hideous; I looked like a goddamn macaroon. Snatching some clean clothes, I headed for the bathroom.

"Don't lock yourself away in there on my account," Fix called after me. "I swear I won't peek."

"Yeah. Right. There's no way in hell I'm getting changed in front of you," I retorted. "I'm not wearing any underwear, after all." I really wasn't. He'd been perfectly right in his assumption, and the knowledge he was turned on by the idea of me in nothing but this monstrosity of a dress had affected me more than I thought it would. I slammed the bathroom door, tearing the dress over my head, and tried not to gasp in horror when I realized just how wet I was between my legs. Goddamnit. I wasn't ready to find myself embroiled in an attraction with another human being. A normal human being, who had a steady job, hobbies, was good to his family and friends. How the fuck had I found myself in this situation, becoming more and more attracted a guy who was never going to spell anything but trouble for me? Fix might not have been a priest anymore, but he was still in possession of the holy trinity: a killer smile; an ass you could bounce a quarter off; and a set of abs so perfectly defined that gazing upon them made you want to weep.

He wasn't just a man. He wasn't even of this planet, as far as I was concerned. He was either an alien, crash landed here from some distant galaxy, where everyone was unbelievably attractive, or he really was an angel, who, having fallen from grace and tumbled from heaven, was now living amongst us mere mortals, confusing us all with his surreal, otherworldly hyper-masculine beauty, and generally causing chaos and disruption wherever the fuck he went.

If I valued my sanity, I would get through this next few days, and I'd walk away from him. There was no future for us. I had to go back to work in Seattle, and Fix was constantly on the road, taking jobs, doing things that made my hair stand on end. I'd realized something, as Father Richards had been talking to me just now. I wasn't horrified by what I'd seen in that auto shop anymore. Yeah, I could have done without the imagery inside my head, but... Franz hadn't been sick. He hadn't acted out of some mental health issue that drove him to behave in depraved, cruel ways. He was just a fucked up, evil piece of shit that had liked hurting people. That was the end of it. Franz would never have stopped. He wouldn't have reformed, or suddenly not wanted to rape and torture young girls. I was never going to agree with what Fix had done, but...

He was right.

I wasn't afraid of him.

Not anymore.

I pulled on my own ripped jeans, shoved my feet inside my tan ankle boots, slid the black, silk cami over my head, and ruffled my hair out, ridding myself of all the pins and clips that the stylist had shoved in there. Looking in the mirror, I felt much better. I was me again. Weirdly, I realized I'd actually learned something from Fix. He was far from perfect—like a galaxy away from perfect—but he owned himself. He owned his actions. He didn't hide himself away. I'd been hiding myself away for so long now, trying to be something I wasn't, that I barely even recognized myself anymore.

How long had it been since I was happy? How long had it been since I'd felt comfortable in my own skin?

I blinked at the woman staring back at me in the bathroom mirror, and felt kind of sorry for her. She'd been lied to. She'd been promised that making a lot of money, and winning high profile clients would enrich her life. She'd been sold an idea—the idea of happiness—and that idea wasn't something that could be bought, or faked until it came to pass.

Happiness was a byproduct of embracing your own flaws, your insecurities, and your desires. I wasn't sure how to accomplish that, but it seemed, against all the odds, that Fix had.

******

Amy didn't say a word about my change of clothes. She was probably so relieved that I'd taken care of the Sixsmith business that I could have come to the wedding reception wearing a hessian sack and she wouldn't have given a shit. The other members of the wedding party traded some pointed looks and raised eyebrows, though. I was uncomfortable for all of three seconds, thinking about rushing upstairs and getting changed back into the dress, but then I watched Fix grab a glass of champagne from a passing waitress and down the bubbling golden liquid, and I shed my nerves. It didn't matter what anyone else thought of me. It sure as fuck didn't matter what anyone else thought of Fix. I snagged my own glass of champagne, downed it, and shot Fix a grin.

"If we have to do this, we might as well get fucked up, right?"

He didn't give me his usual, wolfish smile, but I could see the wicked delight lurking behinds those silvery blue eyes of his. "I knew you were hot as fuck. I didn't know you were fun, Sera."

"Don't get carried away." I took another glass from a short, balding waiter, who grunted at me disapprovingly when I thanked him. "I just use alcohol as a crutch when I'm stressed or nervous."

"Can I get a Jack on the rocks please? A double?" Fix didn't even look at the waiter. He remained focused on me, the tip of his tongue running along his top row of teeth—the actions of a hungry man. Fuck, he looked like he was starving, and I knew he wasn't interested in the hors d'oeuvres that were floating around on trays. He was hungry for me.

"Why are you bothering with this?" I murmured.

"What do you mean?"

"Why are you bothering with any of this. You believed me when I said I'd keep my mouth shut about Franz. You did. So why bother driving me all the way out here? And why...why bother with the constant flirting? You're attractive, and you know it. You could have any woman who catches your eye. So why keep trying to wear me down?"

"You don't think you're worth my attention?" A muscle jumped in his jaw, and I couldn't stop staring at it. I'd tried to avoid looking at him for too long up until recently. If I did, I found myself transfixed on some small detail of him—the three, faint freckles under his jaw; the large, worn-smooth callouses on his palms, at the base of each of his fingers; the dark, short hair that twisted into a tiny whorl at the base of his neck—and I couldn't look away.

"This isn't about what I think. It's about what you're thinking, Fix. What's motivating you at this point? Because I've tried, and I can't figure you out. Not even a little."

Fix accepted the glass that was proffered to him by the waiter, drank some of the burnt amber liquid in the bottom of the highball, took a step toward me and lowered his head. "You're right. I know how I look. I've used my appearance to take whatever I've wanted, whenever I've wanted, for a long time now. But you're selling yourself short, Angel. You're fucking beautiful. Your body is so fucking distracting, I can't look at you without forcing myself not to stare at your tits. They're fucking perfection. Your nipples are..." His eyes rolled back into his head. "God, they're fucking amazing. I can't stop thinking about licking them. Teasing them between my teeth. Your ass is a goddamn gift from heaven. Doesn't matter what you're wearing. Jeans, a skirt, sweats...whatever. I'm constantly imagining that I'm behind you, in between your legs, holding you by the hips while I rail you from behind. Watching your ass bounce while I was fucking you like that was one of the most amazing, erotic, sexiest things I've ever fucking seen.

"Your eyes are full of fire," he continued. "They're clear and commanding. Every time you turn those things in my direction, it feels like I'm being speared to the floor. Normal people look at me. They see the surface of me, the appealing outer shell. They never delve any deeper. But you...your eyes probe and they search. It feels fucking real when you look at me. After thirty-seven years of being admired and coveted because of the way my genetics predetermined what my features would look like, it's refreshing to be fucking seen, Sera.

"I'm not stupid. I know you. You're not shallow enough to be won over by a good-looking guy with freaky eyes. I'm drawn to you, because you're brave. Your courage and spirit burn through you, even when you're scared. You don't back down. You were terrified of seeing your father today, but you didn't respond by running and hiding. You asked me for a gun, so you could threaten that motherfucker. That's not how normal people react. You want to know why I keep hitting on you, even though I know you're too smart to fall for my shit? It's because I think you're courageous, and unique in all the world. That's worth more than anything to me. I think you're remarkable, Sera."

My body had turned against me, and my palms had started to sweat. I'd expected him to...shit, I didn't know what I'd expected him to say. Maybe spin me some self-deprecating line about how he wasn't that good looking, or that he'd never do something so morally corrupt as use his looks to his own advantage. But he hadn't done that. Not even close. He'd told the truth, and then he'd said a number of things about my anatomy that made my cheeks burn with embarrassment. Could he really be so enthralled by my sheer stubbornness, and my refusal to let my fears overtake me, though? Could I really wrap my head around that?

Fix took another step toward me, stooping low over me, bending so that he didn't tower over me quite so badly. "There's something else..." he whispered. "One more reason why I'm so addicted to you, Sera Lafferty."

He could have used those eyes of his to hypnotize people. "What?" I said breathlessly.

"Your cunt, Sera. Your cunt is fucking magnificent."

Three feet away, an old woman dropped the side plate she'd been holding to the floor, sending a helping of shrimp cocktail flying in all directions. She gasped, hand pressed to her chest in horror, her mouth hanging open so wide that her jaw was almost resting on her voluptuous chest. She'd heard what Fix had said. Of course she had, because he hadn't lowered his voice in any way when he told me how great he thought my vagina was. He'd raised his voice, in fact, to the point where anyone within a ten feet radius of us heard his words with perfect clarity.

He was positively beaming with glee as he continued. "Your cunt is the prettiest thing I've ever seen. I love how you taste when you're wet. I love burying my face in between your legs and fucking devouring you. I love how pink and fucking delicious you are. I can't wait to slide my tongue inside you later. I'm going to fuck you with my tongue until I break you. You're going to be begging for my cock by the time I'm done with you."

Everyone had stopped talking. Everyone. Silence reigned supreme as I stood stock still, stunned, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Was he...? Did he really just...? Oh...my...god.

"I have never heard anything so disgraceful in all my life," the woman who'd dropped her plate muttered. She did exactly as Fix had, raising her voice, making sure she could be heard.

My immediate response was to bow my head and hide my shame. That's what I would have done a month ago. Fuck, it was what I would have done a week ago. But when I saw the challenge in Fix's eyes, I knew all too well that he was playing games with me. Issuing me with a challenge. Daring me to be as brave as he believed I was.

No one had moved. Everyone was still staring. Still horrified. I'd hoped at least one person would have started laughing, brushing it off as a joke, but it appeared I was out of luck. The judgmental bastards were all sneering down their noses at us, disapproving and disgusted.

Fuck 'em.

I tossed back the remainder of my champagne, and then I set the glass down on the table next to me. "Thank you, Felix. That's incredibly sweet. I'm one lucky, lucky girl. The way you eat my pussy makes me lose my freaking mind. It's a miracle I'm even capable of speech. But, honestly, all I want to do is tie you to the bed and fuck you with my tits. I love oiling them up and sliding your cock between them until you come. It's so fucking hot."

A waitress entered the room, carrying yet another tray filled with food. She stumbled to a halt when she saw the stunned looks on everyone's faces. I reached out and picked up a mini kabob, taking a bite out of it. I chewed a couple of times and swallowed. "You have no idea how insane it drives me, using both my hands on your huge cock, Felix. You get so fucking hard. And when I dip down and tease the tip with my tongue..."

I held out the kabob to Felix, flashing him a triumphant smile. I'd won. I'd accepted his challenge, and I'd beaten him. "Want some?" I asked.

He slowly shook his head, a dark, highly sexual energy vibrating from his body. He didn't need to speak; I knew I'd pleased him by playing along with his game. "No thank you, Sera," he said calmly. "The only finger food I want to eat tonight will be sucked clean from these,"—he held up his right hand, wiggling his fingers—"after I've made you come with them."

"Goodness! What on earth do you two think you're doing?" A tall man with tiny, round spectacles perched on the end of his nose shoved through the crowd, throwing down his napkin onto the drink's cart. He reminded me, weirdly, of Larry David. "Are you both sick or something? This is a Catholic wedding, not a...a...debauched night of sin at some sort of a...a...sex club!"

I burst out laughing. He'd put such a weird inflection on the words 'sex club.' His face had turned purple, and his cheeks were shaking with every word he spat out. I'd remembered who he was—Ben's old college professor—and the ridiculousness of the entire situation suddenly seemed hysterical to me. A number of scandalized hisses traveled through the reception party, but I didn't bother to seek out their outraged expressions. I was trapped, laughing so hard my stomach was hurting, and there was nothing I could do to stop myself. I was never going to stop laughing.

At least, I thought that was the case until...

"WHO THE FUCK PISSED IN MY LAMBOGHINI?!"

I stopped laughing, swiveling my head toward the entrance of the reception ballroom, and there, hands balled into fists at his side, cardigan half slipping off his shoulders, hair in disarray and sticking up in five different directions, stood Gareth Douvillier. I hadn't looked for him during the ceremony. I hadn't even thought about him. I'd been dreading seeing him here for weeks and weeks, and then, ironically, I'd forgotten all about him. He was fuming, his whole body visibly shaking, the tips of his ears bright crimson. Arianna tottered over to him in six-inch heels, cooing and murmuring, trying to soothe him, but Gareth pushed her away, grinding his teeth together. "I know it was you, you fucking prick. Marcosa! Where the fuck are you?!"

Marcosa? Gareth was accusing Fix of pissing in his car? Gareth had met Fix? I had no idea when that had taken place—Fix hadn't breathed a word about it—but clearly he'd made a lasting impression.

"Did you piss in Gareth's car?" I whispered, looking at Fix out of the corner of my eye.

"Yeah," he whispered back. "I kinda did. Maybe we should get out of here."
NINETEEN

TEASE

FIX

My phone was ringing. I was running, though, so I didn't have time to answer it. I held onto Sera's hand as we tore through the garden behind the hotel, breathing hard between bouts of laughter and trying to scream at one another. "You're fucking insane!" Sera yelled. "Why did you do that? Gareth's richer than god. He's going to press charges if you don't apologize."

"I'm not fucking apologizing to that prick. He deserved far worse, believe me."

"Why? What did he do?"

Ah, shit. I'd decided I wasn't going to tell her what Gareth had said this morning. I was going to keep the whole thing to myself. "He wasn't very nice. That's all."

"Fix." Sera stopped running and pulled her hand out of mine. "What did he say?"

"He said something about not cheating on you with Arianna. And that you had a lot of baggage."

"And what else? I know him. He wouldn't have stopped there."

"He said your father interfered with you when you were a kid."

"Wow." Sera's brows shot up in unison. "Don't sugar coat it, will you?"

"How else am I meant to say that?" I shrugged. "Would you prefer it if I hugged you? Stroked your hair and danced around it, cooing in your ear until I finally spat it out? Sera, I'm so sorry... He said you and your father... Well...and I don't want to offend you, but... Everything's okay, I promise... This is a safe space, but... Gareth said your father might have..." I took out my pack of smokes and lit one. "Which version's better?" I asked, gripping the cigarette between my teeth as I slid the pack into my back pocket.

Sera held out her hand. "Give me one of those."

"Why? You smoke all of a sudden?"

"Just give me one, asshole."

I gave her the cigarette I'd already lit. There was something so fucking sexy about watching her put her lips around the filter. Highly sexual. Sera exhaled a cloud of smoke, scowling at me. "Fair enough. You're right. I'd fucking hate it if you tried to baby me. I guess I'm just not used to people spitting it out like that."

I didn't ask her the question that was burning in the back of my mind: did her father actually do it? If she wanted to tell me, she'd tell me in her own time. Sera hadn't really offered up much about herself to me at all, and I wasn't one to wheedle information out of people unless they were willing to give it. I could blame hours spent sitting in a confessional booth for that. "Shoot from the hip, remember," I said, extending my fingers, gesturing that I wanted the smoke back. She returned it.

"Yeah. I should never be surprised by anything that comes out of your mouth, should I? Nothing's off limits. Nothing is sacred."

"That's not true. Plenty of things are sacred."

"Like my cunt?" She arched an eyebrow, and I couldn't stop myself; I laughed, blowing smoke down my nose.

"Yes. Your cunt is very sacred to me. If you'd only let me worship it some more, you'd make me a very happy man."

"Bullshit. You said all of that for show back there."

I grabbed her hand and walked her through a gap in a fence that looked like it marked the perimeter of the hotel gardens. The sun was still hanging above the horizon, about half an hour from setting, and it cast long fingers of burning golden light over the tall grasses that spread out like a thick carpet before us. A huge live oak to our right was the only tree for about a mile; in the distance, the forest that surrounded the hotel thrust up toward the sky—a loom of a thousand different greens, ranging from verdant and bright spring jade, to rich flashes of deep, Irish emerald. It was the first time I'd caught myself stopping to admire the beauty of nature in a very, very long time. The kind of people I dealt with on the regular made the world seem like a dark, corrupt, shitty place. I hadn't wanted to believe in beauty, hadn't wanted to see it, for the longest time, because it made all of the vile, awful things that happened out there behind closed doors, down badly lit side streets, and under railway passes all the more ugly. But with Sera standing next to me, in that moment, I couldn't deny how breathtaking the view was.

"I didn't say anything for show," I told her quietly. "It was all true. Now I'm going to take you over to that tree, Sera, and I'm going to make you ride my face until you come in my mouth. Any objections?"

"Jesus." She flicked the cigarette, dropping it to the ground, grinding the butt beneath her heel. "You're never going to stop, are you?"

"No. Never. You were right. I did believe you when you said you'd keep my secrets. I knew it was doomed, that there was no chance we were going to go anywhere, but I was curious about you, Sera Lafferty. I wanted more time with you. It was fucked up and selfish, I know that. But I'm a fucked up, selfish guy. You've probably already figured that out. So, I won't keep you hostage anymore. You can let me drive you back to Seattle, and you can let all of this sink in a little. Or you can tell me to go fuck myself and I'll leave right now. Tonight. You won't ever see me again. It's all up to you, Sera. I'll abide by your wishes. But..." I turned, cupping her chin in my hand, lifting her head so that she was looking up at me. Her gaze was intense, stripping me bare. "I still want you to ride my fucking face," I growled. "I need to make you come one more time. I know you want me just as much as I want you. It's eating you alive inside. It's consuming you piece by piece. I'm your addiction, just as much as you're mine. I'm toxic for you. I know that. If I were a better man, I'd let you go. But I'm not. I'm fallen, lost, driven by revenge and hatred. I'll do whatever I can to keep you with me, and that includes fucking the sense right out of you until you can't think straight."

I waited for her to answer. If she looked away from me, I would know. The moment she sighed, or folded her arms across her body, or took a step away from me, she would have already told me what she wanted. But she didn't do any of those things. Her eyes were bright and conflicted. If she were anyone else, I'd take her, lift her into my arms, and I'd carry her over to that tree and fuck the shit out of her. She wasn't someone else, though. She was the woman with the defensive wounds on her hands. The jagged, deep line of purple scar tissue along her jaw. She was the warrior woman with the dents in her armor, her battles still raging, pain in her eyes, and I wouldn't make assumptions with her. I would wait. I would kneel at her goddamn feet until she told me she wanted me, and I wouldn't move an inch until then, regardless of how badly I wanted to claim her.

"You just told me you'd never baby me," she said softly. "I can see what you're thinking. I'm not broken. I'm not a bird with an injured wing. I have a past, and it's tricky, and it often visits me in my dreams, but I'm still kicking ass, Fix. So...if you want me, try and take me. I'll kick your ass if I don't want your hands on me."

"It'd be much easier if you just said yes," I rumbled.

She cocked her head to one side, her full lips bowing into a broad smile. "Would finding out for yourself not be worth a potential kick to the balls?" She was so damn sweet when she said it, but I could see it in her eyes—she'd knee me in the balls for sure, and wouldn't think twice about it.

My answer to her question was to bring my mouth crashing down on hers. I couldn't bear it anymore. Whatever happened, I needed to taste her. I needed to feel her tits crushed up against my chest. I needed her tongue in my mouth, and I needed her to make those panting, desperate little whimpering sounds when I slide my hand down inside her jeans and I rubbed my fingers over her clit in tight little circles.

Gathering her loose, wavy hair in my hands, I dug my fingers into the thickness of it, groaning. Sera froze for a moment. Time stretched out, driving me to madness as I waited to see what she would do. The moment she tried to shove me away, I would remove myself from her. I'd bind my own hands behind my back with sheer force of will alone, and I wouldn't touch her anymore. I was ready, willing and prepared to do that. Dipping my tongue into her mouth, Sera's lips parted a little wider, and then...

Fuck...

And then she was winding her arms around me, her hands sliding up my back, fingernails digging into my shoulder blades through my t-shirt. She kissed me back, her mouth pressing against mine, the sweet taste of her filling my senses, and a fire erupted inside me, raging through my veins. I'd done some stupid, messed up things as a teenager. I'd done equally stupid, reckless things after I'd thrown down my collar and walked right out of St. Luke's, but nothing in my life had ever gotten me as high as Sera Lafferty. She was the light that flowed in my veins. She was the oxygen in my lungs. She was the fuel that fired my heart.

I'd only been in her presence for forty-eight hours, but I'd known, the very first time I'd seen her...

Fuck.

It was too early to tell her how alive she made me feel, so I nursed the words I might have said to her in my chest, harboring them there, keeping them safe. There would come a time when I could part with them, but for now I was going to take her out of herself. I'd use every part of me to make her come alive, and when she was done screaming my fucking name, I'd thrust my cock into her and make her do it all over again. I wasn't going to hold back now. I wasn't going to handle her with kid gloves.

It was harder than it should have been to rip my mouth from hers and hurry her over to the oak. The tree's trunk was broad and thick, too wide for three people to link hands and wrap their arms around in a circle. I guided Sera so that her back was up against the tree, and then I slid down her body. She didn't move as I unfastened her jeans and tore them down her legs.

"God, Fix! Someone's going to see us!"

I looked up her body, a deep, animal need searing at me from the inside. "Do you really care?" I asked. "If those stuffy bastards catch sight of us, it'll probably be the most exciting thing that's happened to any of them in decades."

"Amy's going to kill me," she groaned, allowing her head to roll back to rest against the tree, too. I tugged her boots off her feet and threw them over my shoulders into the grass, one at a time, then removed her jeans entirely. Her panties were black silk, classy yet sexy. At either side, by her hips, I hooked my fingers beneath the sheer, sleek material, and I slowly shimmied them down her long, toned, beautiful legs.

"Fuck. Sera...if I'd met you five years ago...shit."

"You were...still a priest then," she panted.

"I was. And I would have broken every vow I'd made for you. I would have cast every belief I had aside. I would have abandoned my calling and run with you as far as I fucking could, and I never would have looked back. Not once. You're the ultimate game changer."

Sera parted her legs. She wasn't a shy little kitten anymore. She'd grown brave; she was a lioness now, giving demands, and I fucking loved it. Her pussy was smooth bar a thin strip of hair. I loved that, too. A shaved pussy was one of my biggest turn-ons, but not completely hair-free. That felt wrong, like I was sleeping with a prepubescent kid, and I was going to get sprung for statutory rape. Sera was all woman, though. She wasn't perfect. Her skin bore scars. Lots of them. Some were deep, and some shallow—mere hints at a history that intrigued and saddened me. In her flawed state, she was perfection, though. I didn't want a bubblegum princess who spent two hours every day curling her hair and was afraid of getting some fucking dirt under her nails. I wanted a woman who wasn't afraid to fight for what she wanted. I wanted a rough and tumble woman who wouldn't freeze if she felt threatened. I wanted strength, and I wanted fire, and I wanted passion, and Sera possessed all three in spades.

Dipping my head, I stroked my tongue over her bare pussy, and Sera shuddered. Her breathing was quickening by the second. She was sweet, and slick, and the moment I tasted her, I wanted to unbutton my own fly and start palming my cock, but my pants remained buttoned up. Didn't stop my dick from straining against the denim, demanding a way out. It wanted to be squeezed and sucked. It wanted to be pushed down Sera's throat, and holding back was going to cost me. Holy fuck, down boy. I bit back a frustrated groan, working my magic on Sera's clit, relishing how fucking wet she was, and how she shuddered every time I flicked her with the end of my tongue.

Her breathing was fast and uneven. Music to my fucking ears. Meant I was doing my job right, and she was starting to loosen up. Her hips rocked forward, legs parting even wider, giving me greater access to her, and I lost my shit.

Wrapping my arms around her, I grabbed her ass from behind and pulled her to me. Her pussy was mine. Every inch of her was mine. I wanted to inhale and consume every part of her, until she had no comprehension of what was real and what wasn't anymore.

Sera panted, winding her fingers into my hair.

Yes.

Fucking yes.

So. Fucking. Hot.

When she started pulling and tugging on my hair, I nearly swept her off her feet and slammed her into the grass there and then, so I could thrust myself inside her.

Innocent girls were all well and good. Sometimes, dominating a woman in bed felt great, and was the only way I could fucking come, but not with Sera. I didn't want to dominate her. I wanted to be her equal. I wanted her to let me know what she wanted. When she tightened her grip on my hair, rocking her hips against my mouth, I took the hint: she wanted more.

So I fucking gave her more.

I gave her my tongue inside her pussy. I licked and laved at her expertly, and I didn't stop when she began to shiver with the beginnings of an orgasm. I gave her my fingers, pumping them inside her, teasing her g-spot as I sucked gently at her clit, and when her knees buckled out from underneath her and she couldn't stand upright anymore, I gave her three seconds to recover herself before I laid her down and started all over again.

"Jesus, Fix! Oh my god!' Her eyelids fluttered like crazy as she rocked herself against my face. "You're...you're going to make me come," she gasped.

Was I ready for her to come? Nope. No fucking way. Just as she was about to tumble over the edge, her fingers clawing at my back, scratching the material of my t-shirt, I stopped.

"Oh my god," Sera hissed. Her back was arched, head tilted back, her tits straining against the ACDC shirt she was wearing—easily the most arousing thing I'd ever seen. I prowled up the length of her body slowly, enjoying the view as she writhed and twisted beneath me. My dick was throbbing in my pants, almost painful now. I was so fucking hard. Sera wasn't going to know what the fuck had hit her when I finally unleashed myself on her.

"Open your eyes," I commanded. Using my right hand, I held her lightly at the base of her throat—I wasn't going to cut off her air supply. That would be fucking stupid, considering she was a likely victim of abuse, so I just held my hand there, waiting for her to respond. She obeyed my command, her eyelids flickering open to reveal those, warm, deep eyes that I'd become so besotted with.

"Tease," she whispered. Her lips were plump and swollen, a darker, more sensual red than normal. I took her bottom lip between my teeth and I tugged, pulling at it, just enough that the pressure would sting a little.

"I haven't even shown you the meaning of the word. I will, though, Sera. You don't need to worry about that. I'm going to drive you to insanity. First, I need you naked. I need your skin on my skin, and I need it fucking now." I grabbed the hem of her shirt, pulling it up over her head. Her bra—pretty, lacey, also black—went next.

The moment her bare tits were exposed, bouncing as I tore away her clothes, all common sense vanished. My ears started buzzing, high-pitched like tinnitus. "Jesus...fucking...wept, Sera."

Even lying on her back, her breasts were perky and full, her skin pale and creamy, like fine porcelain. My hands literally hurt—the prospect of not touching them was so traumatic that my skin buzzed with anticipation. Cupping her in both hands, I had to breathe deeply for a second. Control. I needed control. Fuck, no amount of will power in the world was going to hold me back now.

"I'm gonna get naked now, Sera," I gritted out through my teeth. "I'm gonna do all the things I've been fantasizing about doing to you, and I swear to everything holy that you're gonna fucking like it. You're gonna come all over my cock. You're gonna shake and moan, and your head's gonna fucking spin, and I'm going to fucking adore it. Are you ready?"

She trembled, like her whole world was already shaking, being turned upside down, but her eyes were clear when she met my gaze and said, "Yes, Fix. I'm ready for you."

******

SERA

I'd never been so wet in my entire life. Everywhere Fix touched me, his fingers and his mouth left a trail of fire in their wake. I'd given up reminding myself how stupid this was, and I'd succumbed to inevitability. That's what this had been, from the beginning: inevitable. The draw between Fix and I was wild and confusing. I was never going to understand why I couldn't seem to shake myself of this need for him, so... what was the point in even trying? I'd known for a while I was going to end up back here with him, entwined with him, losing myself in him again, and it felt divine. I'd surrendered myself to him, and the relief I experienced when I had done so was monumental.

"Yes, Fix. I'm ready for you." I breathed the words out, and I realized that I didn't just mean right now, here, naked in this field. I meant that I was ready for him. All of him. His wicked tongue. His quicksilver eyes. His dark past. He was Pandora's box, and I knew opening him was a bad idea. I wanted to know his secrets, though. I wanted to learn everything about him. I was willing to accept the risk that getting to know him properly would inexorably pose.

What kind of person took stock of a person like Fix and decided they wanted them in their lives? Who was I becoming? I didn't know anymore, and that scared the shit out of me. All I knew was that Fix stirred such powerful, demanding desires within me, and I was helpless to fight them. We were a catastrophe waiting to happen, and I was walking into it with my eyes open. To hell with the consequences.

Fix had been hovering over me, picking me apart with forensic intensity. The muscles in his shoulders and his arms strained as he rocked himself backward, sitting on his heels first, and then rising to his feet. "Look at me," he commanded. "Look at my body. Look how much I fucking want you, Sera." His t-shirt came off first, swiftly followed by his shoes, socks and jeans. He didn't have to remove his boxers, because he wasn't wearing any. His cock sprang free, and I did as I was told—I witnessed just how badly Fix wanted to be inside me. He was rock solid and swollen. Fucking magnificent. Shit.

Shit, shit, shit!

I really must have drunk a lot the other night in the motel; the tequila sloshing around my system must have dulled my reaction when I'd seen Fix's cock for the first time, but now I was clear-headed, and my immediate response was to close my legs. He was fucking huge. Not just in length, but in girth, too. Penises weren't attractive to me in an aesthetic way, but Fix was kind of astonishing. If he put that thing inside me...

If he was rough with me, he was going to split me in two.

"Don't look so frightened," Fix murmured. He took his dick in his hand, squeezing the end, but he didn't move his fist up and down his length. "I know what I'm doing. I made you feel fucking amazing last time, didn't I?"

Swallowing, I nodded. "Yeah. But...fuck, Fix..."

A ruinous, wretched smile transformed his face. God, he was so sexy when he was so obviously thinking sordid thoughts. "Fuck is right," he said. "Don't move. Don't breathe. Just get on your knees and open your goddamn mouth."

My pussy tightened, an unbelievable wave of pleasure, feather-light, skating its way up my spine. I didn't even know my body could react like that to mere words. It seemed Fix's dirty mouth had a way of coaxing the darkness out in me. I got up onto my knees, my heart skipping all over the place like a needle jumping over a broken record. His cock was going in my mouth. He'd driven me to the edge of distraction with his tongue, and now it was my turn to return the favor. More than anything, I wanted to make him feel good. I wanted to make him quake and shiver, and to bring him to his fucking knees.

I'd do it. I'd make him fucking sweat.

I opened my mouth and Fix gathered my hair, sweeping it back over one shoulder. He cupped my face in his hand, stroking the pad of his thumb over the line of my cheekbone. "You're fucking mine," he groaned. "You don't need to worry anymore. You're safe. I won't let anyone hurt you. I'll fucking flay the skin off anyone who tries to lay a finger on you."

It made no sense, but his words made me feel secure. Protected. Relieved. Fuck, how long had I felt like I was still running from something? I'd left Sixsmith in my rear-view nearly a decade ago, but there had always been an ominous dark cloud hanging over me. Fix blew that cloud right out of the sky.

He squeezed his dick, his hand slipping around to the base of my neck, guiding my head forward. I closed my mouth around the end of his cock, blowing a deep breath down my nose, and then slid him inside...

"Holy fucking shit!"

Looking up, I saw Fix's head fall back, every single muscle in his chest, his stomach, his arms and his neck straining. He was indescribable. I just...I couldn't even find the words to do him justice. His body was packed muscle, not a scrap of fat on him. I couldn't take my eyes off him.

I teased my tongue around the head of his cock, sucking, sliding him further and further into my mouth, and Fix let out a deep, agonized, rumble. "Sera... Sera, shit! Your mouth... Fuck!"

I'd done my fair share of writhing and cursing under Fix's ministrations, so to hear him do the same was rewarding. He reached down, palming one of my breasts, rolling my nipple, pinching it hard enough to make me whimper, and my reaction seemed to send him barreling toward the gates of madness.

"Fuck! Open your mouth, Sera. Take all of it. Take me deep. I want to feel the back of your throat while I fuck your mouth."

I could barely breathe as he slid himself further past my lips. His hands were in my hair, tugging, not hard enough to cause pain, but hard enough to let me know he was in charge right now. I closed my eyes, wrapping my hand around his shaft, applying pressure to the base of his cock, too, and Fix roared. The sound echoed across the field, startling birds from their trees in the distant forest.

"Get on your back," Fix ordered. "Open your legs for me. Show me your pussy. Show me your ass. I want to see it all." He withdrew his cock from my mouth, and when I looked up, I saw the molten mercury of his eyes had hardened to sharp-edged steel. He was already imagining what it was going to feel like to fuck me. There was no doubting him, or how badly he needed me, but when I sank back into the grass, spreading my legs for him just as he'd told me to, he didn't fall on top of me and take me right away. He sat back, hands by his sides, chest heaving, his cock still wet and glistening from my mouth, staring down at me with a level of appreciation that made me want to run and hide.

"You're not real," he whispered. "You can't be."

"I'm as real as you," I answered breathlessly.

Fix swallowed. Carefully, he reached out, stroking his fingers over my pussy, sliding his index and his middle finger inside me. "If that's the case, then fine. Neither one of us is real. Let's be fucking make-believe together."

He pumped his fingers inside me, slowly at first, as he positioned himself over me, supporting himself on just one hand. His mouth was on mine, his dark hair falling into my face as he kissed me, claiming me with his tongue, probing and exploring. He quickened his pace, then, working his fingers faster, grunting as I bucked and arched against him.

"You gonna come all over my fingers, Sera?" he growled into my ears.

"Ahh! Shit! Yes! Yes, I'm going to come!"

My vision turned white. Completely and utterly white, which was strange since I had my eyes closed. The muscles in my calves cramped like crazy as my climax tore through me like an unstoppable freight train.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's it." Fix held onto me, kissing my neck, my collarbone, my shoulder... He kissed me everywhere as I came, still thrusting his fingers inside me, until eventually I fell slack on the ground.

I was boneless and limp as Fix sat up, running a finger down my body, between my breasts, between my legs, making my skin break out into the goose bumps.

"I meant it, Angel," he said slowly, his voice thick with lust. "The only finger food I wanted today..." Oh, god. I'd offered him a bite of that stupid kabob back in the ballroom, and he'd made a comment about licking his fingers clean after I'd come all over them. I couldn't find my voice quick enough to object as Fix slid his fingers into his mouth, sucking on them.

Oh...my...god...

He was so fucking hot, I just couldn't handle it anymore. "Please... Fix, please. I need you to fuck me. I want to feel you inside me. I want your cock." I'd never pleaded with anyone before. I sure as shit hadn't begged anyone for their dick, but Fix had a weird, profound, irrefutable effect on me; I did it without thinking.

A merciless, knowing laugh teased at my ear; Fix shoved my legs apart again, sinking between them. "Hold onto me, then," he whispered. "Don't let go. I'm about to give you what you need."

And he did. I gasped as he drove himself into me, digging my fingers into his back. I couldn't cry out. I couldn't even breathe. For a second, all I could do was lie absolutely still as Felix Marcosa thrust his cock inside me. I was so full. His body, so much bigger than mine, enveloped me, and I was lost. With his arms around me, his mouth pressing down on mine, my breath mixing with his, hot and insistent, I ceased to exist. I broke apart, down to what felt like a molecular level, ready to drift away on the slight breeze that caressed our naked bodies.

This was so different to the motel room back in Liberty Fields. It was so much more. There was still so much for us to learn from one another, but this felt honest. Raw. Perfect. I clung to Fix as he fucked me, and I melted into him. His cock grew harder and harder every time he rocked his hips, driving himself deep inside me, and soon I was drowning in him, my senses overloaded, my heart racing away from me, my head spinning on its axis.

"Fix, I'm...I'm going to come. Oh, god..."

"Do it," he snarled. "I want to feel it coursing through your body. I want to feel your pussy tighten around my cock when it takes you. Come for me, Sera. Come right now."

I didn't need a second invitation. The orgasm was an explosion; it went off inside my head and between my legs at the same time. I clawed at Fix's shoulders, desperate to get closer to him as an incomprehensible surge of pure ecstasy swept through every cell in my body. "Fuck! Oh, fuck!"

Fix buried his face into the crook of my neck, groaning deeply, fighting with his breath as he slammed himself into me, over and over again. He came just as hard as me.

And when he came, the sound of his savage cry echoed so loudly that even the stars, tiny pinpricks of flickering light, just beginning to appear in the darkening sky overhead, seemed to tremble and shake.
TWENTY

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF IN THE THIRD DEGREE

SERA

It was inexplicable, really. I'd been dreading this wedding for months, and yet, through a series of weird, fucked up, very disturbing events, I'd ended up actually enjoying some of it.

Gareth was still prowling around the lobby, searching for Fix, when we snuck back into the hotel. We slipped in through an open side door, hoping to avoid the reception, which was still in full swing, if you could call dull conversation over quiet classical music full swing. Gareth spied us, bee-lining straight for us, his index finger already extended in a very accusatory manner, mouth pulled down at the corners in a furious grimace.

We fast-walked in the direction of the stairs, but he intercepted us, cutting us off at the pass. "Do you have any idea what kind of penalty willful destruction of property carries in this state, asshole?" he snapped at Fix.

Fix grinned at him. "Nope. Don't care."

"It's classified as criminal mischief in the third degree, you fucker."

"Sounds scary."

"You're going to jail for six months at least!" Gareth spat the words, a giant vein throbbing in his neck, his face a frightening shade of crimson, and I couldn't leash the surge of laughter that burst out of my mouth.

"Do you have any proof that Fix pissed in your car, Gareth?"

"I don't need proof. The bastard hasn't denied it!"

I turned to Fix. "Felix, did you urinate in this fine gentleman's vehicle?"

"Me? Lord, no. I'd never do such a thing."

Somehow, both of us had adopted British accents, which made absolutely no sense, and only made it harder to keep a straight face.

"You think this is funny? You're going to regret fucking with me, Marcosa. I promise you that. And you!" Gareth stabbed his index finger into my shoulder. "You're fucking insane. I shouldn't be surprised that you'd bring a guy like this to Amy's wedding. You're damaged goods. I dodged a fucking bullet when I—" He was moving to jab me with his finger again, but Fix moved like lightning, snatching hold of his index, stepping between us.

"Should I let him apologize?" Fix ground out. His voice was layered with anger, so deep it made my heart stutter.

"Gareth never was very good at apologies," I said softly. It was the truth. Even after I'd walked in on him fucking that blond in his office, he hadn't once said he was sorry. He'd blamed me for not holding his attention. He'd said it was my fault for not making an effort to be more interesting.

"Got it." Fix's hand snapped back in a flash, and something else snapped right along with it...

Gareth's finger.

His howl tore through the hotel lobby, yet no one came running to find out what was wrong. Not even Arianna. "You ever touch her again, I won't just break your remaining fingers. I'll break your fucking dick in two, and I'll feed it to the dogs. Now disappear. Right fucking now."

Gareth's anger shone out of his eyes like twin beams of pure hatred. "You're gonna—"

Fix took another step forward, and Gareth shut the hell up. He held his hand to his chest, clutching at it, backing away. He turned and stormed back into the wedding reception, hollering for Arianna at the top of his lungs, and I watched him go without the slightest flicker of remorse. Fix wouldn't have done a thing if I'd asked him to stand down, but the humiliation and the embarrassment Gareth had put me through last year, not to mention the heartache...

I'd thought I loved him. I'd thought he and I were going to be together forever. I shivered out of that thought, thanking my lucky stars. Whatever Gareth said, it was me who'd actually dodged the bullet. "We'd better get the hell out of here," I said. "Amy's probably drunk by now. I don't want her to try and murder me the next time I see her, though."

"I haven't even met her yet," Fix mused.

"You can come to her second wedding in a couple of years," I told him. "This one's bound to fail." I attempted to head up the stairs, but Fix took hold of me by the wrist. He pressed something into my hand: a crumpled yellow valet ticket.

"Why don't you give this to the bellman and have him get the truck? I can grab our bags and be down here in a couple of minutes."

"Sure." I'd already tidied my stuff away into my rolling suitcase this morning, so there was nothing laying out that he'd have to tidy away for me. Fix took the stairs three at a time, disappearing around the sweeping staircase. Moments later, I was sitting in the passenger seat of Fix's truck, battling with my conscience. I couldn't just leave without saying anything to Amy. She'd be hurt. Worse, she'd be angry, which was understandable given that Fix and I had distressed a number of her wedding guests with our profane conversation, Fix had potentially ruined some leather car interior, we'd vanished to fuck in a field, and then Fix had broken someone's finger.

When I thought about it, Amy was going to be furious no matter what. But if I didn't even leave her a note or something before bailing? God, she'd skin me alive. I needed a pen and paper. I could go back into the lobby, but then I risked seeing Gareth again, and that wasn't something I could deal with. Fix probably had something I could write on. There was bound to be some paper in here somewhere. I tried the glove box, expecting it to be locked, but the drawer dropped down, and I was rewarded with a multitude of papers and receipts stuffed inside. Perfect. Better to use an empty envelope. Those things always ended up floating around people's cars for ages before they got thrown out. Grabbing the first envelope I laid my hand on, I went about searching for a pen, but couldn't—

Wait.

I cocked my head, looking down at the brown envelope that was now resting in my lap. It had been folded in two to fit inside the glove box, but it had opened out once I'd removed it. There, on the front of the envelope, written in thick, black sharpie, was a name.

My name.

Sera Lafferty.

Why was my name written on the envelope? What...what possible reason could Fix have for keeping an envelope with my name on it in his glove box? A thousand frantic thoughts collided in my head at once.

Oh...

Oh, shit.

These were the contingency plans he'd made after I'd watched him kill Franz? It was the only thing that made sense. He'd created a dossier on me in case he thought I'd changed my mind and I was going to go to the police. My blood was like ice, pumping slowly through my heart, gradually freezing me bit by bit. With shaking, unsteady hands, I untucked the envelope's flap and I took out the papers inside.

My brain ceased to function.

What was I looking at? It made no sense. These weren't contingency plans at all. At least not contingency plans made because of what I'd seen go down in that auto shop. There were photos of me, at least eight of them, none of them really recent. Candid stills of me getting into my car, leaving the office. Me, out running through the park three blocks from my apartment. Me, out to lunch with my Sadie. More and more of them, all taken without my knowledge. What did this mean? Why the hell would Fix have shots of me like this lying around in his car? My panic levels rose dramatically as I put the photos aside and picked up a sheaf of paper. On it, a complete breakdown of my daily routine back in Seattle. The following sheet was a copy of the detailed itinerary I'd created for my road trip to the wedding—the one I'd emailed to Amy, letting her know exactly how long I'd be on the road, where I'd be stopping, and for how long.

The very last sheet of paper was a photocopy of a yellowed document marked with a coffee ring. My birth certificate, bearing my full name: Seraphim Alicia Rose Lafferty. A shockwave detonated in my head as I scanned the document; ever since I'd run into Fix, he'd used a pet name with me. He'd called me Angel, over and over again, and it had seemed like a coincidence. Such a weird, fluke of a thing. My mother hadn't been religious, but she'd liked the idea of guardian angels, watching over us, keeping us all safe. She'd called me Seraphim because she'd thought it sounded pretty, but I'd hated it. I'd shortened it as soon as I could legally fill out the paperwork, and all of my ID, my credit cards, everything...it had all been changed to Sera.

It was all so clear now. His nickname for me hadn't been a coincidence at all. This was why Fix had started calling me Angel. Because he'd done his research on me, just like he'd done his research on Franz Halford. The photos Fix had shown me of Franz's victim had come straight out of a brown envelope, identical to the one I was holding in my hands.

God.

Oh...oh my god.

My pulse was a raging, demented, thundering drumbeat. My vision had tilted, and I could no longer see straight. I knew what this meant now. I knew, and I was too surprised to run. I was too surprised to do anything but sit there with the evidence all over my lap as I tried not to pass out. I knew the driver's side door opened, and I knew Fix climbed into the car, but I was too numb to process the information. I just...what? What the fuck had just happened?

I turned, swiveling the entire top half of my body so that I was facing Fix. I held up one of the photos—a particularly nice shot of me laughing, walking with Sadie down a busy street—and the smile slipped from Fix's face. His whole demeanor changed in the blink of an eye.

"Who?" I demanded. "You owe me that much at least." My voice was rough, broken, shattered... and my entire world right along with it.

I could tell by the expression on his face.

It was real.

It was true.

It was more than I could bear.

"Who the fuck hired you to kill me, Fix?!"

Who hired Fix to murder Sera? Will he complete his job, or will his feelings for the girl he's kidnapped interfere with business? If you need to know what happens to Sera and Fix, you can read the next installment in the Dirty Nasty Freaks series right now!

TAKE ME TO NASTY!

You can also read the prologue to the next book by turning the page!
PROLOGUE

SERA

"I'm not interested in excuses. I'm not interested in playing games. I'm only interested in your pussy. Now pull down your panties for me, Angel. I'm gonna make you fucking come."

I gasped as Fix slipped his hand up my skirt and took hold of my underwear, tugging on them insistently. He didn't give me the opportunity to obey him. The sound of ripping lace filled the car, alongside Fix's ragged, lust-filled breathing.

His hands were all over me. Pulled over at the side of the road, the truck was alone in the darkness. We'd been driving for hours, the journey made that much longer by the fact that we'd been stopping every hundred miles or so to claim each other, our mouths hot and demanding on each other's skin, our nails digging into each other's skin, our bodies permanently soaked in a thin layer of sweat and sex.

"I'm going to stick my cock inside this tight little pussy, Sera." Fix groaned into my mouth, and I saw stars. Fuck. It was never meant to be like this. Sex was designed for enjoyment, the ultimate, most intimate pleasure that could be shared between two people. But this was more than sex. This was an unfathomable need that broke boundaries and smashed through walls, and I was incapable of walking away from it. I kept drinking Fix in, drinking long and drinking deep, but I could never slake my body's constant thirst for him. And from the way he couldn't bear to remove his hands from my skin, always stroking and caressing, touching and teasing, it was clear he felt the same way about me.

The cab of the truck was spacious—enough room for me to angle my body toward Fix. He grabbed me by the hips, hands working quickly, and he lifted me up from the seat, then he was shoving my skirt up over my hips and tearing at the sheer, ruined fabric of my panties. He held the scrap of lace up to his nose and breathed in deep. "Fuck, you smell so good," he groaned. "I want to eat your cunt. I want to lick you every goddamn hour of the day. I want to live off your come and your sweat, Sera. Give it to me. I want to coat my tongue with you."

It was a miracle I was even able to sweat at all at this point. We'd stopped for food and huge bottles of water, trying to fuel ourselves and rehydrate, but an hour later, panting and breathless, we were both exhausted, ravenous and thirsty again. I bit down on my bottom lip, my hands working at the buttons on my shirt.

"You're taking way too long." Fix took hold of the shirt and ripped it open, sending buttons flying.

"Hey!"

"You really give a shit about your shirt right now?" he snarled. "I won't wait. I'm going to have you. Right fucking now. And if I destroy every single item of clothing you own before we arrive in Virginia, then I won't be sorry. I'll be fucking glad. I'm going to keep you naked for the rest of fucking time," he said, his voice colored with impatience. He tore the shirt from me, and then he yanked down the cups of my bra, exposing my breasts. "My dick just went from wood to fucking steel, Sera. Your nipples are mind-blowing." He dipped down, planting a hand on the seat beside me to support himself. With his other hand, he cupped and kneaded at my bare breast, digging his fingers into my flesh. "You want me to suck them?" he whispered. It wasn't a real question. He knew I wanted his mouth on my breasts. He knew how the searing, wet heat of his tongue circling and flicking at the tightened, swollen bud of my nipples sent me certifiably insane. He wanted me to pant for him, though. He wanted my pussy wet. He wanted me clawing at the upholstery inside the truck, begging him to satisfy me.

"Yes." My voice cracked as I made my confession. "I want it. I want you to bite them. Please." I gasped, crying out as he fell upon me, his teeth grazing the soft, sensitive fullness of my breasts. He was so good at that—a master manipulator with his tongue. He had me quaking and shaking instantaneously, my whole body coming apart beneath his highly talented mouth.

He was so much to handle. So much to take in. Pure fucking sex. His dark hair was ruffled, standing up at all angles as I grabbed hold of it, winding my fingers through it, and I held him against me, whispering into the crown of his head. "Harder. Bite harder."

He gave me what I wanted. He gave me what my body was crying out for, and I couldn't fucking take it. The pain when he bit down on my nipple was heady and blinding. Heat blossomed between my legs, slow burning and penetrating, and I could feel the slickness there, pooling between my thighs. I wasn't just wet; I was soaking. Fix moved to the other breast, lavishing the same attention on my other nipple, and I all but screamed as another frisson of sharp pain fired in a relay around my body.

"Please! Please! Fix. Oh my god."

"Please what, Angel?" he asked. "Please rub your clit with my fingers? Please make you come? Make you squirt? Make you feel like you're about to explode?"

"Yes! Yes! Fuck."

Fix's mouth tilted up at one side—a trademark dash of arrogance that I was growing more and more accustomed to. Every time his lips curved up like that, the deep dimple forming in his cheek, my body responded in kind, as if I'd been conditioned to crumble and surrender myself to him whenever I saw the expression. My eyes rolled back into my head as he stooped down and he kissed my neck. His dark, rough stubble scraped lightly at my skin, and I couldn't suppress the breathless moan that escaped my lips.

"Or please take your clothes off, Fix?" he purred. "Please let me see you? Please let me take you in my mouth? Please make my cunt ache with need as you fill me with your cock?"

With each dirty, nasty word that came out of his mouth, I felt myself succumbing to him. I'd tried to resist. I'd done everything I could to hold myself back, to be as cautious as possible. But it would only be so long, before I was irrevocably, undeniably his.

I couldn't even form the shape of words in my mouth.

"Don't hold it in," Fix growled, as he pushed his fingers inside me. "I want to hear you, Angel. I want to hear every last little whimper and moan as you tighten around me." He pumped his fingers, stroking them inside me, hitting my pleasure center with ease. No guy had ever hit my g-spot before. Gareth had firmly argued that the female g-spot didn't even exist. But Fix knew exactly where mine was, and he was determined to put it to good use.

"That's it. That's it, beautiful girl." He held me tightly in place with his free arm as he used his other hand to coax me into madness. "Come for me. That's it. Good girl. Good girl."

When I came, unspeakable ecstasy rushing in at me from all sides, claiming the attention of every nerve ending in my body, I didn't hold back the cry that built up at the back of my throat. I released it, and my climax soared, lifting me, lifting me out of my body, higher, higher, higher...

Fix unbuckled his belt with one hand, and then unfastened his jeans. His jaw was set, his eyes flashing like molten steel as he continued to work his fingers slowly, deliciously inside me. "I'm going to take you. You're mine. You're fucking mine, do you hear me?"

"Yes. I'm yours. I am. I—"

My eyes snapped open, and the sudden, unexpected motion of the truck made me grab hold of the seat beneath me. My heart was racing. My brow was damp. The shirt that Fix had just ripped off me was back on my body, right along with my skirt and my panties. And Fix wasn't kneeling over me, massaging me as I rode out the final waves of my orgasm. He was in the driver's seat, his hands firmly grasped on the steering wheel. He hadn't noticed me waking. Or if he had, he was pretending that he hadn't.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I closed my eyes, slowing my breathing, my fingers digging into the leather seat underneath me. What the fuck was that?

The hottest dream I'd ever had? The most confusing, hurtful dream? The past few days came rushing back at me with the most frightening urgency, and a kernel of fear sprouted in the pit of my stomach. I'd just had a sex dream. About the man sitting beside me. The man who'd been paid to kill me, and who might be driving me to my death even now.

I shouldn't have been surprised. I knew I was kind of fucked up. This wasn't the first time I'd found myself trouble. There had been plenty of other terrible, dangerous situations—situations most normal people would never understand, because they'd never had to go through it. I'd been beaten and abused, and I'd been robbed of all that was good in me. And here I was, yet again, neck deep in the shit, but this time it didn't seem as though there would be a way out.

I hated myself for the images that had just bullied their way into my subconscious. But a part of me—the largest, smartest part—knew the truth. Those images hadn't forced their way into my subconscious. They'd forced their way out. Fix was ingrained inside me, down to the very roots, and it didn't matter that he had been given money to take my life from me. It didn't matter that he was a murderer and had the blood of countless people on his hands.

I'd wanted him.

I still wanted him.

I was the most foolish girl in the world.

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