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“For what?” I taunt, taking another step back. “What are you going to do, Baron? You can’t rape me unless you catch me, and you can’t do that with your leg all fucked up, now can you? About all you can do is crawl on your knees and beg for mercy.”
I remember with a delicious surge of malice how much I wanted that, how I said I’d sell my soul for a chance to see it. I never thought I’d get the chance.
“I’ll die first,” he growls, pushing himself back up to sitting.
“Where are you going?” I demand, my limbs turning liquid with fear. I didn’t know he could stand, that he was still a threat. But of course he is. He’s always a threat.
“Away from here,” he grits out. “Why is it suddenly your business?”
“Where?” I ask, shouldering the rifle again. I don’t tell him that I need to know if I ever want to stop being prey. I’ll never stop jumping at a noise, never stop looking over my shoulder, if I know he’s out there but I don’t know where.
“If I tell you, will you get my bag and let me go?” he asks after thinking it over a minute.
“Yes,” I say, relief pouring through me. I don’t need to see him crawl. I need to see him gone.
“I tried to kill Harper,” he says. “I’m sure she’s in there sucking Royal’s dick until he can’t think for himself anymore. I don’t need him coming after me for a stupid reason like that.”
“Where?”
He shrugs. “I figure I’ll go find Mabel. She’s been gone long enough. I’ll bring her back for Duke.”
“Or you’ll stay there,” I say flatly.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t, I’ll tell Royal what you did.”
He snorts. “I’m sure Harper’s already told him.”
“Then you don’t know Harper,” I say. “She wouldn’t want Royal to kill you. She wouldn’t want him to live with that on his conscience. Too bad I don’t give a single fuck about his conscience. I may not be a killer, but I’m merciful, Baron. You’re an animal that needs to be put down, and I’m not above finding a way to make that happen, even if I can’t do it myself.”
Baron pauses, his eyes narrowed as he considers. He’s cocky, but he knows his limitations. He knows that he doesn’t understand human emotion as well as most people, the way they color and overpower rational reasoning. At last, he shakes his head, and I know I’ve got him. He can’t refute my claim with enough certainty to satisfy his logical brain.
“You’re psychotic,” he mutters.
“I learned from the best.”
I turn and enter the darkened restaurant, scanning the booths along the wall until I see a dark shape under one of them. I reach under, and my fingers close around a smooth leather handle. I pull it out and return to the hall, halfway expecting Baron to be gone.
He’s standing there, his weight on his uninjured leg. I can’t read his expression in the dark, can only see the black pits of his eyes, the shape of his strong nose and chiseled jaw, the faint darkness of a bruise blooming up his cheek.
“This must be worth a lot,” I say, standing at the restaurant door with his bag in one hand and the rifle in another.
“It is,” he says simply.
“So it’s almost as if you owe me for getting it for you.”
“What do you want?” he asks drily. “An apology?”
I laugh at that. Baron doesn’t apologize, and as much fun as it would be to try to make him, I’m sure he’d take a bullet before he’d say he was sorry for all he’s done to me. And even if I somehow forced him say it, it would be meaningless. Baron Dolce doesn’t do remorse. He’s incapable of a sincere apology.
“I want you to leave,” I say. “Take whatever valuable shit you have in here, and go away, and never come back.”
He scoffs. “My family is here.”
“Sucks for you.”
“You don’t own this town, Glory Hole,” he says. “In fact, you don’t even own a chair at in the café at school.”
