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"Perfectly fucked up," I corrected, topping off our glasses once more. "Just how we like it."
"God, yes, let's do it!" she exclaimed, gripping my hands with a force that told me she was already halfway out the door, ready to drown her sorrows in tequila shots and thumping bass lines.
"Good," I said with a smirk, feeling a twist of something like pride—or maybe just relief that I'd managed to yank her out of the quicksand of self-pity, even if it was just for a night. "I swear, if I had to watch you mope for one more second, I might've started painting clowns instead of murders."
"Shut up, you love my tragic face," Aria retorted, but her laugh was light, airy, like bubbles in champagne. "Alright, screw tragic," she said, brushing away the last of her tears as if they were nothing more than annoying raindrops. "Let's get scandalous. Let's make all those bitches at Inferno wish they were us."
"Scandalous" was Aria's middle name when she got like this—all fired up and fearless. And I couldn't help but get swept up in her energy, even though I knew we were probably going to regret our life choices come morning.
"Saturday then?" I asked, already mentally rifling through my closet for something suitably sinful. "We'll go all out—wings sharp enough to kill a man, heels high enough to break an ankle."
"Fuck yeah," she agreed, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet. "And... um, can I crash here? I don't want to go back to that empty apartment tonight—or any night, really."
"Of course, you can stay." How could I say no? That apartment was a minefield of memories for her, each one primed to explode with the slightest touch. "We'll make it a sleepover like old times—minus the braiding hair and talking about boys."
"Or we could talk about girls," Aria winked, her tone teasing.
"Girls, boys, whatever," I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "As long as they're hot and not likely to kick your heart in the ass, I'm game to gab."
"Deal." And just like that, a plan was born. We'd hit Inferno, set the dance floor on fire, and then stagger back to my place, where the only thing we'd need to worry about was whether we'd have enough wine to see us through the night.
As the night wore on, the shadows in my apartment grew longer, and the wine bottle emptied, but I pushed aside my own swirling storm of fears and anxieties. Tonight, I wasn't the wounded artist with trust issues and a thing for dark erotica. Tonight, I was just Celeste, Aria's rock in the raging sea of post-breakup despair.
And fuck if I didn't take that job seriously.
Chapter 15
Nash
Istood before my corkboard shrine, the map peppered with red push pins like bloody breadcrumbs leading me to a killer who fancied himself an artist. Each pin marked where a life had been snuffed out, another member of the LGBTQ community targeted by this psychopathic Michelangelo.
"Fuck," I muttered, my fingertips grazing over one of the pins, feeling its cold bite. It was the most recent—a vibrant soul extinguished in the night. The information from that bastard I'd tortured screamed in my head—the killer's strokes were deliberate, his brush dipped in gore and prejudice. He painted death.
I slammed another pin into the map, at the location of the latest atrocity. My hand was steady despite the rage boiling in my blood. Patterns. There had to be a pattern. This killer wasn't some random nutjob; he was methodical, a hunter laying out his gallery for all to see. And I would be damned if I didn't tear through his canvas and drag him into the light.
I took a step back, eyes scanning the constellation of crimson marks. There was something there, a clue whispering just beyond the cusp of my awareness. I narrowed my gaze, my eyes slicing through the dimness of the room.
The city's pulse mocked me, throbbing with life when so many had been robbed of theirs. I was no hero—just a predator with a conscience, a vampire playing at being a vigilante. But someone had to give a damn, and it seemed fate had a fucked-up sense of humor making it me.
"Come on," I urged myself, leaning closer to the map. "Show me your hand, you sick fuck."
My brother's memory loomed over me, a silent witness at my shoulder. He'd been one of us, part of the community this faceless demon was now terrorizing. I owed it to him, to all of them, to end this madness. For justice. For vengeance. For the thin thread of humanity I clung to by bloodstained fingertips.
The door to my office creaked open, slicing through the silence and my concentration like a blade. Sofia, every inch the femme fatale with her raven hair and ruby lips, sauntered in with a grace that only the undead possess. Her heels clicked a morbid rhythm on the floor, echoing against the walls cluttered with the horrors of humanity I was trying so desperately to unravel.
"Jesus, Nash, you look like shit," she purred, concern lacing her words with an undercurrent of desire. "When's the last time you fed? Or slept?"
I scoffed at her feigned mother-hen routine. She hadn't given a damn about my wellbeing since she'd fucked me over, literally and figuratively.
"Sleep's for the living, Sofia," I shot back, not bothering to mask my bitterness. Her betrayal still stung, like a wound that refused to heal, no matter how much time had passed.
Sofia prowled closer, her scent—a mix of jasmine and something darker, bloodier—filled my nostrils. She always knew how to push my buttons, how to slide under my skin and make herself at home there. But those days were gone. I had Celeste now, even if she didn't know the depths of my obsession. Just the thought of her, with her haunted eyes and hair that flamed like the setting sun, was enough to straighten my spine.
"Come on, Nash," Sofia whispered, her cool fingers tracing the line of my jaw, igniting a fire that I'd sworn to douse. "Let's relive the good old days."
"Fuck off," I growled, catching her wrist before it could venture any further. Her touch was ice and fire, a reminder of a past soaked in sin. But Celeste... she was warmth and light, a promise of redemption I wasn't sure I deserved.
"Look, I don't do repeats, especially not with traitors." I released Sofia's wrist like it burned me, stepping back to put distance between temptation and the vow I'd silently made to another.
