Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 48018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
“Let’s get out of here,” he says. “Back exit, freight elevator, straight to the car, no fucking around.”
We manage to leave the building without further incident, a small but appreciated blessing. If we were to run into anything resembling law enforcement now, we would be walking crime scenes. Forensics would ensure that we are sent away for decades. There is a part of me truly horrified at all we have done, but there is a greater part that thrills to it.
“Angelo won’t be happy,” Bobby says on the drive home. “The cleaners will tell him about the mess. And he’ll see us walk in. Just sayin’, you might want to kiss your ass goodbye, you know?”
Silence draws out between us before I gather the nerve to ask the next question.
“How mad is he going to be?”
“It’s not Angelo’s anger you need to be afraid of. It’s his silence. You’ll never see him coming. But it doesn’t matter anyway. Odds are, he already knows what we did. And if he doesn’t already know, he’ll know the second he sees us. It’s written all over our faces and smeared all over our clothes, and under our fingernails and…”
I shift uncomfortably in my seat. I’m starting to feel sticky and itchy in all the wrong ways. What is wrong with me? What am I turning into? What kind of animal fucks amidst the bodies of its prey?
No animal behaves like that. But demons might.
I feel Angelo’s shadow inside me, almost as though he looks through my eyes. I am become his puppet, his infernal hands in the world. I feel his strings on me, though I dance both to his tune and my own devil nature.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Bobby purrs the question seductively in my ear.
“What?”
“To be dangerous. To take lives. To be as bad as you can possibly be, and to know that the master is coming with his collar, leash, and whip, and he will put you back in your cage.” Bobby smiles that reckless smile. “You can’t be free without bars somewhere.”
That’s a philosophy I will have to give more thought to. For now, I sit in the passenger seat of Angelo’s car, absolutely soaked to the skin in blood.
In the depths of my mind, what is left of my conscience is warring with the monster that now occupies the center of my being. I am not innocent anymore. I am unleashed. And that means I am potentially capable of anything.
I glance over at Bobby. He’s so handsome. Reckless. Wild. Eternally young in some essential way. Bobby will die before he ever has the chance to grow old. And now, probably, so will I. People like us make themselves disposable. We’re just a couple of kill targets.
“So what do we do now?”
“Take our punishment,” he says, speaking with a near feral grin that speaks to anticipation. “Don’t worry, you’ll survive.”
That’s not as much comfort as Bobby thinks, though I don’t think he really means to be comforting at all. Fear is part of the fun for him. I wonder if I can make it fun for me too. It’s going to be the only way to survive what happens next.
“In my office, the pair of you.”
Angelo’s order when we get home is as curt as I expected, coming from the depths of our new safe house.
We move every other week now, going from place to place, discarding clothes and possessions every time we move. With Angelo, I own nothing, but I have everything.
I follow Bobby in, using him as something of a human shield, hoping he takes the brunt of our master’s displeasure. Angelo’s eyes range over the pair of us, lit with dark fire.
“I sent you two out to get the mail and somehow you both managed to savage the mailman.”
Angelo’s tone is sardonic but stern.
It occurs to me as I react to him not with fear but with pulses of excitement, that I am still in a post-coital haze, satiated by both sex and blood.
“Fucking in the midst of a massacre? That’s a new low even for you, Bobby.”
Bobby smirks. “New low, Angelo? Like you give a fuck.”
“I have always known you are a beast,” Angelo replies. “But you usually manage to restrain your carnal instincts until we are safely out of the realm of danger. What you and Riley did, you did in full potential view of enemies and law enforcement alike.”
“I know,” Bobby grins. “That’s what made it so hot.”
Angelo’s brows rise.
“And you, Riley? What do you have to say for yourself?”
I glance at Bobby, then reply in the same way I’d reply to a superior at the agency. “I can confirm that it was hot, sir.”
Bobby cackles with laughter, and I allow myself a little smirk. Bobby’s right. We’re in trouble. We may as well enjoy it.