Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 248926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1245(@200wpm)___ 996(@250wpm)___ 830(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 248926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1245(@200wpm)___ 996(@250wpm)___ 830(@300wpm)
I scrunched my face up. “You’ve clearly lost too much blood.”
“I want to be able to smell your pussy across the room.”
“I’m not walking around the hotel with stank ass pussy, leaving a trail of odor around me.”
He looked at me. “You just think I won’t lick your pussy if it’s dirty. I definitely will.”
Shaking my head, I laughed and looked out the window. “Nasty ass lion.”
“And you’re stuck with me.” Bold laughter left him.
Chapter 1
The Dark Side
Kazimir
It was time to truly understand Emily’s dark side. No matter how complicated and painful. It was time to face it. To peer into her mind and unravel the painful, mangled threads of her abusive past.
What was healing, but restoring and relieving, repairing and recovering?
I yearned to heal my mouse. To peel away the bandages. To examine those childhood wounds and figure out what I could soothe.
How powerful was our love? Could it regenerate the parts of her that had been broken and bruised?
I knew our love did damage. So far it had put a hole in Paris and shaken the criminal world. Every gangster with a brain was on alert and watching the Lion and Mouse and the chaos that we would leave behind.
But could our love take Emily’s pain away? Could it heal her to the core?
I remembered Maxwell’s apartment in Harlem, and when he took me into his father’s bedroom. He knew that space was the only place Emily would never go snooping.
There, Maxwell kept a Tinder Killer shrine. Eight photos of men had decorated the back wall. News clippings were thumbtacked under the images. A map covered the other wall with multicolored thumbtacks for spots in Harlem that the men had been discovered. Their criminal records lay in a pile on the desk.
I thought back to the conversation I had with Maxwell.
I flipped through the criminal records. “They were all suspected of rape. Did she know this before finding and killing them?”
“I don’t think so,” Maxwell had said. “She never remembers, and we’ve never talked about this.”
That information had boggled my mind.
Maxwell continued, “I found her in her bedroom one night covered in blood. She was just sleeping there with a knife in her hand. I called Xavier.”
“The man that lives in the abandoned bus?”
“Yes.” Maxwell nodded.
“He’s like her uncle?”
“Yes. Xavier called Darryl. We all decided not to tell her. We washed and dressed her. Cleaned her bedroom—”
“But you had no idea what she’d done?”
“No. Xavier only found that she’d messaged some guy on Tinder to hook up. We had the meet up address.”
“Where was it?”
“A hotel. We had his picture from his Tinder account—D.t.f.BeastBoy.”
I quirked my eyebrows.
Maxwell finished, “I was going to check on Mr. Beast Boy the next day. But that morning, the hotel’s maid found him. His face was all over the news. We matched it to his tinder account from her messaging.”
That knowledge had seized my chest.
Maxwell touched his neck. “She’d sliced dude deep, right here and then a long side swipe.”
Then, Maxwell carved a large cross on his chest with an imaginary knife. “Then she did a holy cross, crucifying him as Xavier would say. He’s religious when it comes to death.”
Next, Maxwell stabbed his groin with the invisible knife. “And finally, she cut his dick off over and over.”
In this world, there hadn’t been much that blew me away anymore, but that did.
This precious, impossibly smart woman lathered in curves was also a serial killer.
Her brother Daryl, Maxwell, and even her Uncle Xavier had cleaned up after Emily, not telling her about the horror that she’d committed, nervous that her cracked mind would completely shatter.
But, I knew monsters very well. I had spent my entire life among them, so much that I became one myself.
Meanwhile, a monster was simply a hurt and broken person. One that wore a mask of brutal violence for so long that he forgot it was even a mask.
Since falling in love with Emily, she’d been yanking my damned mask off over and over, forcing me to deal with things I’d chosen not too.
And now I would help my mouse take off her mask.
I leaned against the wall and watched Emily.
Twenty feet away, she stood in front of Salvatore, twisting a knife in her hand. She hadn’t cut him yet, but I knew the time would come soon.
Tonight, she still wore my favorite color. The dress was a seductive ensemble of red that clung to her body. A zig zag pattern trimmed the top and drew my eyes to her cleavage like an arrow to the bulls eye.
I’m going to tear that off when she’s done cutting.
Slowly, Emily walked around Salvatore. Her six-inch red heels clicked on the polished tile.
He tried to talk to her, but the gag blocked his words.
There’s no saving you tonight, old friend. You chose the wrong side.