Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Standing, I clasped my hands in front of myself. “Do you mind if I stayed? I don’t think I can leave without Henri.”
His nostrils flared. “I’m sorry, but no. You can’t stay here. You need to go home. Go back to your life. I’ll keep you informed. But for now…he’s gone, and you need to move on.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
………………………….
Henri
I HAD TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE credit was due.
I was no longer the naïve idiot who’d done his best to hide all his life. A man who’d shackled and blinded himself to what he was and how many men like him existed.
Victor had taught me well.
I now knew how to recognise beasts in human clothing. I could smell them. See through their bullshit. I no longer feared them or myself.
I just…acted.
Victor had a technology-dampening web over his island, ensuring he remained safe for two decades. I got rid of Q’s phone the moment I figured he’d track me with it.
I copied the list to another phone that I stole off my fifth victim.
I staked out the old two-bedroom cottage where I’d nursed my dying mother and waited until the witching hour to sneak through the cobbled laneway and break into my own home.
There, I packed a bag.
I grabbed my old license to be able to fly if need be, and added it to all the cash and weapons I’d stolen from the men I’d slaughtered.
Slipping back into the night, I checked the next name on my list.
A name I knew well.
Patrick.
The Scottish motherfucker who’d challenged me on my first day at Victor’s.
Apparently, he hadn’t been on the island when it blew up.
I figured I’d be generous and bring the party to him.
It didn’t take me long to drive to his house.
I smashed his back window and crawled into an immaculate kitchen. Pink school bags hung on a hook in the corridor. A pair of women’s high heels rested by a dog bowl.
My hands curled around the gun I’d stolen a few hours ago, testing to make sure the silencer was on tight.
I didn’t want to kill a husband and father.
But I would happily kill a rapist.
I found their bedroom on the second floor.
I treaded with silence as I found him asleep beside a pretty red-headed wife.
She slept facing away from him, her fiery hair a curly mess on her pillow.
I didn’t stop to worry how she’d feel waking up beside a dead man. I merely grabbed a throw cushion from the floor, pressed it against the man’s skull, and fired.
The softest pop.
A single feather erupted.
The wife never stirred.
A notebook and pen rested on Patrick’s nightstand.
Without thinking, I grabbed them and wrote:
I personally watched Patrick rape women and men. He was a member of a trafficking ring called The Jewelry Box. He deserved this fate, but he definitely didn’t deserve you. I’m sorry.
And then, I left.
I headed to the docks, where a private yacht owned by my next victim bobbed in the moonlight.
I climbed onboard.
I found him in the primary suite with someone very unwilling. The girl’s eyes widened as I entered the bedroom. The rapist kneeled with his back to me, his hands spreading her legs while she fought.
Porthole windows lined the bed, twinkling with lights from the harbour. Decadent furnishings made the yacht rich and homey, the colour scheme of nautical blues and whites ready to be bled over.
Holding the blonde girl’s frantic stare, I slinked behind the bastard. Grabbing his hair, I stabbed him from behind. I gutted him over and over, spraying the poor girl with red, all while she squirmed away, her hands bound and mouth gagged.
She watched me slaughter him.
She didn’t flinch as I untied her and helped her into the shower.
She grabbed my hand as I called a taxi for her and whispered under her breath, “I don’t know who you are but…thank you.”
My dead heart tried to react.
To find satisfaction in my extermination.
But I couldn’t.
That part of me had died the moment Ily had taken her last breath.
I had no heart. All I had was a lump of coal.
And I hadn’t done this for her.
I’d done this because I couldn’t live in a world where men like him existed.
And I couldn’t die without taking them, kicking and screaming, to hell with me.
Guiding her to the dock, I stayed in the shadows as the taxi arrived to drive her home.
The captain of the boat woke up as the headlights skimmed the helm.
I smiled and held him at gunpoint.
He wisely skippered me to Europe.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
………………………….
Ily
I COULDN’T SLEEP.
For two weeks, I couldn’t sleep.
In my old childhood bedroom, in my happy family home, I couldn’t sleep longer than an hour before the nightmares started.
The nightmares of serving so many Masters instead of only one. Nightmares where Roland and Ferdinand, Travis and Ian all took their turns because Henri wasn’t there to claim me.