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“I’m not going anywhere with you unless it means your unidentifiable body will show up at a morgue.”
He flashed me the kind of smile a shark gave whatever poor creature it was going to devour.
His face lowered until our lips were practically touching. “You can come willingly, or I will drag you out of here barely lucid. Those are your only options.” He spoke in a calm and level tone that had his underlying threat coming across ten times louder. I had flashbacks of when he’d sedated me before.
“This can’t be real. You don’t get to waltz back into my life and demand I bend to your will. What fucking world do you live in?”
“I live in a world where the people who make me repeat myself get a bullet to the head. Consider yourself blessed I want you to live.”
“That’s not a blessing, it’s a fucking curse.”
“Are you choosing the hard way?”
“You aren’t drugging me!”
He grabbed hold of my chin and applied enough pressure to cause a slight amount of pain. “You have five minutes left. If you need to cry your heart out over this piece of shit I suggest you do it while you pack because this will be the first and last time you shed tears over another man.”
I stared into his eyes, forcing myself not to look away. I’d mentally prepared for this moment so many times, or so I thought. Nothing could prepare me for Judas but Judas himself. It felt as if he were taking a sledgehammer to the walls, I’d plucked from the wreckage of our past to protect what remained of my soul.
He released me and walked out of the room, tossing “Five minutes,” over his shoulder before disappearing down the hall.
I rubbed where his gloved hand had just gripped, fighting the urge to go after him and scream and rage like a lunatic. I looked at Diego’s covered body with a frown.
Judas hadn’t shown an ounce of sympathy for killing him in cold blood.
I waited for a feeling of grief to overwhelm me before accepting that I wasn’t going to cry over him either. For what? Diego was hardly the love of my life. I liked his pretty face more than I did who he was as a person.
I barely knew anything about the guy beyond the surface level. That’s not to say I would ever agree with what Judas had done to him. He didn’t deserve to die like this, but we all had to go one way or another.
Right now, there were much more pressing matters at hand, like his dead body in my bed and the ghost of my past waiting to drag me away. Dealing with Judas was a must. Since fighting him physically wasn’t exactly feasible, I had to use my head. I had to be smart. A million thoughts were already swirling through my mind.
My biggest issue was allowing emotion to rule my decisions. That wouldn’t get me anywhere right now. I couldn’t expect him to be reasonable either. None of this would be happening if he were. He wasn’t going to sit down with me on the sofa and have a nice chit-chat where he answered all my questions before allowing me to slice his fucking throat.
There was only one choice I could make right now, and it made me feel as if I were right back in high school trying to navigate his choppy waters.
Sink or swim.
I would pull a Rose from Titanic before I let myself be dragged down.
Releasing a pent-up breath of too many years of frustration, I reached across the bed and grabbed the duffel bag.
CHAPTER FOUR
She’d bitten me like a pissed-off little gerbil. The side of my palm was still throbbing, but the sound of drawers opening and closing brought a fleeting smile to my face. Rhiannon had always been infuriatingly reckless, but she was just as quick to react when deciding to do something. I was glad to see that hadn’t changed.
There weren’t any sniffles or sobs floating out into the living room where I was leaning against the wall. I suppose she could’ve been crying quietly but more than likely she wasn’t shedding any tears over Diego at all.
That made me proud.
Her allowing some weak piece of shit that didn’t deserve to breathe the same air into her home, however, made me want to walk back into her room and add a few more bullets to his head.
I couldn’t dwell on the fact someone else had their goddamn hands on what was mine. It was in her best interest not to waste energy mourning for him.
I felt Audrey’s glare and turned my head to look at her. Whatever she saw had her expression instantly morphing from anger to resignation. It was mildly amusing. I didn’t harbor any kind of special resentment or dislike for her. She wasn’t all that interesting at all, truth to be told.
