Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 160041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
“Then you won’t get your way, regardless,” he quips.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Orion says.
“If you kill me, you will pull the entire police corps after you.” I don’t like the fucking smirk that’s slowly forming on his face. “So go ahead and try. See where it leads.”
My eye begins to twitch. “Listen here, motherfucker, you know damn well she doesn’t deserve what you did to her.”
“She did that to herself,” he retorts. “Killers don’t get a pass.”
“Then maybe you should’ve taken them down and arrested them, Mr. Justice,” Orion says.
“Trust me, I’m working on it,” he says. “If I’m not being threatened with murder.” He eyes us up and down. “Is she really worth throwing away your life for?”
Blood rolls down his neck as I growl, “I would fucking die for her if she wanted me to.”
“Noble, but foolish,” he replies with a kind of darkness in his voice I haven’t heard before. “Especially considering you were already a hair’s breadth away from being locked up yourself.”
My eyes widen. “What?”
PING.
The doors to the elevator open. Luckily, no one steps out, or I would’ve had to kill them too for witnessing a crime.
Atreus smiles. “Oh … she didn’t tell you? She traded herself for your safety.”
The knife clatters to the floor as my entire body begins to shiver.
“She did what?” Orion mutters.
“She was adamant about protecting you two from the consequences of your very poor choices.” His eyes glimmer. “Seeing as I know you two are involved in all of the murders.”
When I take a step back, Orion grabs his throat and forces him back against the elevator.
“She is a goddess, and we should be thankful she graces us with her presence. And you? You … you take her existence for granted.”
Orion squeezes his veins so tightly that Atreus begins to struggle, and he attempts to fight him off, to no avail. Orion is much stronger than he looks, especially when he hasn’t been drunk in a while.
“You took her from us,” he hisses. “You need to pay for that.”
“You. Won’t. Kill. Me,” he grits.
Orion squeezes even harder as Atreus slowly loses his strength. “You think I can’t do it? You underestimate my need to get back to her.”
“She. Wants. Me. Too.”
As he nearly loses consciousness, Orion releases him from his grip.
“What are you doing? We need to kill him,” I say, picking up my knife.
Atreus coughs and heaves, rubbing his throat. “Because he knows that if he kills me, she’ll never forgive him.”
“She will once she realizes it’ll bring her the freedom she craves,” I say.
“You’ve fallen in love with her,” he says, tilting his head. “You think you’re the only one she’s wrapped around her finger?”
Orion frowns. “You’re saying you love her?”
“I’m saying she managed to crawl under our skin. For better or worse.”
Holy shit. She really has made him fall.
How could a cop like him ever be good enough for a killer woman like her?
He ruined her, destroyed every good thing we had.
“You’re the worst thing that ever happened to her,” I grit.
“Then why did she leave all those lipstick stains on the bodies, hmm?” he says, going up against me.
I meet his gaze with an equally deadly one. “Because she wants people to know her revenge is executed.”
“Because she wanted me to find her.”
Orion and I glance at each other.
“No, that wouldn’t make any sense,” Orion mutters. “Why you?”
“His connections,” I mutter. “All of the evidence in his office. She needed it to find those guys.”
It’s all beginning to click.
The bodies she left lingering around. Her anger at me trying to help her dispose of them. The lipstick. Stalking a cop.
Fuck. He’s right.
“You realize it now, don’t you? She used you two like she used me,” he says. “We are nothing but toys to be discarded once she’s done.”
“No,” Orion says, shaking his head. “I refuse to believe that.”
“Truth is hard to accept when it’s right in front of you, isn’t it?” he says. “But she fooled us all.”
“You’re in love with her too,” I mutter.
This is insane.
A cop.
Fallen for the killer he was supposed to find.
He looks me up and down with disdain.
And he has the audacity to judge us?
I grimace. “You’re no better than us.”
“I’m trying to do the right thing,” he replies.
I grab him by the shirt and lift him up. “Listen to me, you asshole, if you love her as much as we do, you’d free her from jail. Now.”
“Can’t do that, and you know it.”
Grinding my teeth, I say, “Give me one good reason.”
“You think the people of Crescent Vale will accept that?” he rebukes. “There’s been a murder spree across the city, people are scared and they need someone to blame.”
Orion pulls a face like he smells shit, and I don’t blame him. “That’s your reason?”
“She’s a murderer.”
“And? Those fuckers she’s hunting are murderers too. Arrest them.”