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“I think you’ll need more than housekeepers to fix all this.”
Stone grins that megawatt grin at me, making my heart pound erratically. “It’s not those types of cleaners. They wipe away crime.”
“So you do this often?”
“Not as often as you think. Normally it’s clean and planned out.”
“So you kill, just not as viciously?”
“People rarely set me off. Business is business. It’s clean. I can keep my shit together. It’s only when it’s personal that I go to a pretty fuckin’ dark place.”
The way he speaks so casually about murder is frightening. Stone always had a cloud of darkness around him, but it seems like that cloud is now a full-on hurricane that’s consumed him.
I need to think, something that seems impossible with him this close to me. “Can you get off me?”
“No.”
“Get the fuck off me, Stone.”
“No,” Stone growls. His eyes appear wild—uncontrolled and uninhibited. A chill runs through my body as I recognize the crazed look behind the blue pools of his irises. The last time I’d seen this same look was the night that the violent winds of life changed my faith in unimaginable ways. “I’m not fuckin’ getting off you. Ten fuckin’ years, Em. I’m never getting off you again.”
His angry tone vibrates in the air, crackling and buzzing between us. I don’t understand why he’s so worked up about what happened because I tried to see him. He was the one who rejected me, refused to talk to me. I’m just about to ask him what he’s talking about when the bar door crashes open and footsteps flood into the bar.
“Wow. It’s like I stepped onto the set of a Saw movie. Which sequel is this? Like…ten?”
Stone’s breath tickles my ear as he whispers, “I gotta deal with this, but once I’m done, I’m taking you home.”
Stone winks at me, his lips forming a cheeky grin before he turns to a big blond guy who is smiling like a kid in a candy store. “He pissed me off.”
As if pissing someone off warrants them getting bludgeoned with a hammer.
The thing that shocks me about all this is that I’m not running. Which probably makes me as certifiable as he is. I just watched Stone brutally murder someone in cold blood, and I don’t seem to care. Ten years ago, I cared, even though the man he killed was a monster. Stone didn’t know the truth about my father and everything he had done to me, had been doing to me for years. Then again, neither did I until I started seeing a therapist three years ago to understand why I kept making horrible decisions that constantly put my life in turmoil. Apparently, the therapy didn’t work that well because I’m strangely calm after what I’ve just witnessed. I’m not sure who’s the sick one here, him or me.
I stand behind the bar, wrapping my arms around my chest as I watch Stone talking to the big blond guy. He’s flashing what looks like vampire's teeth while Stone playfully shakes his head at the gore in front of them. It’s like a day out at a pub with the fellas, another day like any other. I’m not sure what Stone is into, but it’s certainly not benevolent.
Bile rises in the back of my throat when the blond guy laughs while dipping his finger in brain matter and blood like it’s some sort of finger paint. “What did the guy do? Tell you your dick is too small or something? Like shit, I say that stuff to you all the time. You must really love me since you haven’t taken a hammer to my head.”
Stone barks out a laugh before hitting the blond guy on the back. “Yet. You haven’t gotten a hammer to the head yet. Push your luck, and things might change.”
It’s a strange sensation watching Stone joke so casually with this guy. When we were kids, there was always something strained in his communication with others, but he seems so inhibited now in some strange way as if he’s finally at peace.
Another guy walks in. He looks a bit like the blond, but his hair is dark and his face much more sombre. He hands a single purple rose to Stone as if he’s attending some sort of dance recital. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
“Thanks, man. I almost forgot it’s Valentine’s Day.”
“Tomorrow,” I chime in.
Stone turns to me and winks. “It’s midnight, Butterfly.”
I didn’t realise how much I missed that name until he said it. I touch my neck, turning the pendant he gave me on my sixteenth birthday.
Looks like you’re no longer a caterpillar but my perfect butterfly.
Stone grins, pointing to my neck. “Still wearing it, I see.”
“Never take it off.”
“Let’s go.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you, Stone.”
“You’re wearing my collar, Butterfly. That means I own you. Let’s go.”
