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Two run-ins with the law and I’d remained a free man.
I took that as a sign that I was doing the right thing.
That I was allowed to kill this bastard.
That I was supposed to do this for Neri.
Dragging Ethan to the Jeep, I opened the back door and shoved him face first inside.
He tried to sit up, glaring at me. “What the fuck? I don’t know you. What the hell is going—”
I punched him square in the jaw all while my eyes shot to the cop to make sure he hadn’t seen. No one looked my way. No one cared I kidnapped a rapist right beneath their lawful noses.
Ethan’s eyes rolled back.
He collapsed against the seats.
I slammed the door, climbed into the driver’s side, smiled at the cop who waved farewell, then drove away to kill him.
Chapter Forty-Two
*
Aslan
*
(Moon in Romanian: Luna)
WAVES SLAPPED AGAINST THE HULL AS I pushed The Fluke to its limits.
Ethan lay slumped at the front of the boat, his arms and legs bound with plastic ties from the tackle box, his head nodding on his chest as we rode the ocean.
He hadn’t woken up.
I’d hoisted him and the speargun over my shoulder from the back of the Jeep, hauling him down the pier like a sack of fish guts. I hoped to hell no cameras had recorded me carrying him aboard and no automatic logs knew we’d untethered from the mooring and cast off into the dark.
Neri.
My heart clenched as my eyes found her through the salt-streaked window. She stood at the side of the boat, her hair snapping in the wind, my favourite dress in her hands, destroyed by the knife that she used, ribbons of it flying behind us as we sailed.
I’d found her cutting up her dress when I’d tossed Ethan on board.
She’d changed into a red bikini and one of Jack’s hoodies from the box of spare clothes below. Her hands white in the night as she hacked away at the pretty dress with single-minded determination.
I hadn’t stopped her.
I’d barely talked to her.
I understood that her pain would manifest in different ways and make her do whatever she needed to cope.
She’d padded after me as I secured Ethan and propped him against the front of the boat, glowered at him with memories I wished she didn’t have, then drifted back to her spot to continue shredding her dress.
I’d disappeared into the captain’s cabin, unable to be near her without breaking apart.
I didn’t trust myself not to burst into tears for what she’d endured or tear into Ethan like a beast. Using my teeth and fingernails, ripping him apart until nothing was left.
I wanted to be far out to sea before that happened.
The Fluke had bleach for washing away his blood. I could toss his remains overboard. His body would be eaten, just like my family had been.
No one would know.
Neri’s nightmares would be over.
And there would be one less monster in the world.
I added more speed.
The boat complained.
Dropping my stare from the black horizon, I fiddled with the controls, raising the engine a little to skim faster over the water.
“What the fuck is going on?”
My head ripped up as Ethan exploded into awareness, fighting his binds, glowering at Neri who stood over him. In her hand rested the knife she’d been using to cut her dress, the tip glinting red.
Shit.
Cutting the engine, I didn’t bother dropping anchor. Darting through the door, I skidded on the deck and grabbed the speargun I’d placed by the railing.
Breathing hard, I stopped beside Neri.
She glanced at me, her ice-blue eyes churning with torment.
“Iyi misin?”
She nodded with a wince, knowing that phrase. “I’m okay.”
The ocean rocked beneath our feet as The Fluke bobbed untethered. In the dark, I had no idea if we were close to an island or about to scrape over a reef. But we were far enough away...
“Ona ne yapmami istiyorsun? Söyle bana, yapacagim.” My native tongue came freely, almost as if by embracing the darkness inside me, I became the man I’d been running from all this time. Cursing myself a little, I repeated, “What do you want me to do to him, askim? Name it and I’ll do it.”
“What? What the fuck?” Ethan spat. A streak of blood where Neri had cut his cheek with the knife glistened in the solar light from the cabin. Starlight and moonlight fought with the yellow glow, casting everything monochrome and merciless.
Ethan glared at both of us. “Where the hell am I? Where the fuck is Cooper?” He squirmed in his plastic tie-binds. “Why the fuck am I tied up?”
Something switched inside me.
The control I’d clung to over my temper.
The smothering of my rumbling rage.
It all snapped.
Red mist.
Vicious hate.
Without a thought, I brought the speargun up, aimed, and pressed the trigger.
Ethan howled as the harpoon shot through the meaty part of his calf. The string from the harpoon and the gun dangled between us, swaying in the night.
