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“I like her!” Brianna exclaimed. Her gaze trained on the space Rhiannon and Audrey had just vanished from.
“You know how I feel,” Owen chimed in, crossing his arms.
I did. He’d been my eyes and ears for some time now. From a distance. If I hadn’t staked a claim on little Rhia two years ago, he would have done so himself.
“I always knew it would be this way.” Gavin shrugged nonchalantly.
“You think she’s gonna let Dax go?” Brianna asked, turning to face the rest of us.
Gavin released a sound between a laugh and a scoff, palming a few strands of blonde hair.
“That girl doesn’t like him like that,” Owen replied.
Brianna didn’t look convinced. She was somewhere between a realist and a hopeless romantic. If she’d been witness to the inner workings of their relationship as we were, then she’d be on the realistic side.
It did make me contemplative as to whether Rhia believed the lies she told. We both knew Dax was nothing more than a way to pass time, a security blanket to seem normal, to hide away all the dirty things about herself she wanted to keep secret.
If only she knew there was nothing wrong with being a little monstrous. Every single one of us had a darkness within ourselves. Most feared it, some fought it with light, others ignored it, and people like me? We fucking thrived off it.
If you’re wondering what made me this way, thinking I’m some poor juvenile delinquent with a shitty backstory or that I’ve suffered a terrible tragedy, you’d be wrong.
I had two very capable parents who told me they loved me way too fucking much, cheered for my accomplishments and mourned my losses. I’d had a diamond encrusted spoon wedged up my ass since before I could comprehend what the fuck being wealthy was. More importantly, I’d been blessed with like-minded friends.
My famiglia never suppressed the real me. In our society, I was fucking perfect. I was taught to blend in and behave like any normal kid in my shoes would, and I did that well. Mostly. My best friends and I had been brought up together, all eventually expected to join rank in the adult world and continue building an empire of money, sex, and power. What people died, killed, lied, and stole for every single day. The three things that made the world go around.
We were a sick, savage youth. The offspring of modernized and clandestine ‘crime’ families. Paragon assets, so to speak.
But for all the modernizations following the newer generations, some things remained the same—marriage and family values among them. Most of our parents, grandparents, and so on had everything aligned by the time they were my age. Twenty at the oldest. For me that was just two years away.
I knew my parents were on board with my decision, ecstatic even now that they knew who I’d been watching. And they had every reason to be. There was sordid history between my family and Rhia’s. History my gorgeous girl knew nothing about.
I’d have to wreck her world to bring her into mine. Fortunately, I was a selfish fuck who was ready to do just that.
She’d love me anyway, and always. But that would come much later. Right now, I had something else to focus on. I was more interested in the acquisition, the game of predator and prey both of us craved to play.
We were a New Age Romeo and Juliet, but for one of us our curtain call would come with a much more satisfying ending, and a sinister twist.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rhiannon
One week ago, Judas put his number in my phone.
I had yet to use it.
Eight days ago, my ex-boyfriend sent me a one-worded text in a reply to my hundreds.
I’d cursed him to the moon and back at this point.
Ten days ago, I attended a party and still wasn’t entirely sure what the hell had happened. But that was the catalyst for all this strangeness. And to think, my summer had been going so well just the week before that. On the plus side, it was almost over.
Taking Mom’s advice, I was trying to move past all the happenings and focus on the upcoming year. My mother, on the other hand, wasn’t following what she preached…
“I don’t get it.” She shook her head, sprinkling some pepper onto her greens.
“You loved him. He was your—” She cut herself off and shot Dad a look.
Thank god. I was seconds away from ripping my ears off. I took back the thing about her having a sixth sense. She was insane. I loved Dax like a brother, and despite what she obviously believed, he was not my first.
A guy in a wolf mask was. In a shed behind a brownstone that had since been foreclosed. I often went back with the crazy notion he’d be there somehow, waiting for me. I could say none of this out loud; both were varying degrees of disturbing.
