My blood was pumping with a jealous, furious rage at the thought of her seducing that prick, letting him touch her, kiss her, and who knew what else before she got around to killing him.
No. Fuck no.
I wasn’t going to allow it.
But that meant I had a mansion to scour and next to no time to do it in.
My heart began to race with a panic that was all too familiar, putting me back ten years to that godawful moment when I realised they’d taken Ava and I had no idea where to even begin looking for her, knowing that every second I delayed was only further adding to her peril.
My ears began to ring as I thought of all the ways that this could go wrong, of what a man like that might do to my little psycho if he got the upper hand, of how I’d been the one to fucking bring her here and now it could all be happening again, just like before. But worse. So much fucking worse, because as much as I knew it made me a cunt to even think it, I knew I couldn’t survive losing Brooklyn the way I’d managed to survive the loss of Ava.
My guilt over Ava’s death had been all consuming, but the life I’d lost with her had been a pretty lie which some part of me had always known would end eventually. But there were no lies with Brooklyn. Only a truth too big to tell and a bond I’d never even dared to wish for before this moment.
I wouldn’t let that motherfucker lay his unworthy hands on her flesh. I couldn’t. The rage and jealousy inside me from the mere thought of it would be enough to bring this entire building down on the heads of anyone fool enough to get in my way.
So with that fear and anger driving me on, I took off into the house to begin my hunt, determined to find her before it was too fucking late again.
T he judge clung to my arm as he led me to his bedroom upstairs through what felt like miles of corridors, grinning down at me. He didn’t recognise me, and maybe that was to do with the drugs he was on, because his pupils were like two huge, dark seas that wanted to drag me down to Davy Jones’ locker. Or maybe I was just nothing to him. The life he’d ruined by believing a lie. I’d mattered so little to him that he hadn’t even given my face enough attention to remember it, even after it had been plastered all over the news again following my second escape from Eden Heights. I wasn’t sure which it was. But he was going to be getting a reminder soon enough.
Rage was coiled tight in my chest like a cobra ready to spring forth, and it was the most venomous creature in existence since Niall had abandoned me. It wasn’t like I didn’t get it. I was yesterday’s breakfast, munched up beyond repair. Even if you wanted to pick at the juicy looking pieces of tomato left behind on the plate, they’d gone cold and mushy. One little lick and you’d know that. Niall had taken that lick, kissed me until I’d nearly burst into flames all those weeks ago. So now he knew that there was nothing to nibble on left in me, but Anastasia…she had nibbly bits everywhere. She was freshly cooked eggs and the crunchiest hash brown perched on a perfectly fried mushroom. I couldn’t compete with her mushroom. Who could?
Cedric drew me through a door and I found myself in a huge bedroom with dark blue walls and the biggest bed I’d ever seen at the back of it. My lips parted, the urge to run over there and jump up and down on it filling me to the brim. But I had to act normal for once in my life, play pretend so I didn’t fuck up my one chance at sweet, sweet vengeance.
The seduction classes Mel had given me made me the best at this ever. I was a wily temptress and my prey wasn’t going to escape me tonight.
Cedric let go of my hand, unhooking the buttons at the top of his shirt as his gaze ran down me. “You’re young,” he commented like he liked that.
“And you’re old,” I replied, though he couldn’t be more than forty.
He scowled like I’d lit a match beneath his chin and set his face alight. Oopsie. “Old enough to teach me a lesson or two,” I added in a purr, remembering the way Mel had taught me to turn everything into a compliment, and his face softened as he smiled widely. “I like that.”
I stroked his muscly arm in the way Mel had told me to and Cedric’s anger ebbed away fully as he chuckled. Visually, he wasn’t awful to look at, but emotionally, he was painful to exist beside. His face was enough to make me bloodthirsty and it took every ounce of control I had not to try and tear his eyebrows off and rip his throat out with my teeth. But I was a professional killer now, an assassin trained by the best hitman in the state. And though that hitman may have been off galivanting with his fiancée who made me want to scream until the ceiling fell down on her head, I wasn’t going to miss my chance for revenge because of her.
I walked away, heading to the bed as my fingers winced from touching the man who’d sent me to Eden Heights, the man who’d stolen away any chance of redemption I’d ever had. Even the press had believed my story more than he had. They’d termed me the Bully Butcher, even though pretty faced Cedric had denied I was bullied at all. I guessed it had just been a catchy little headliner for the newspapers, something for the public to lap up and spit out. Murder was just another form of entertainment in this world. Everyone leaned in a little closer, gathering the juicy details, then discarding them when they were no longer of interest. Cedric would be the latest gossip now, and I’d make sure there were plenty of details to splash through the news.
I ached for the blade hidden in my hair, to feel it kiss my skin and whisper promises of death against my flesh. I was going to stab and gut and twist and rip. A storm was brewing in here and the weather forecast was red rain.
I kicked my shoes off and jumped up onto the bed, having a little bounce because I couldn’t resist then turning to Cedric as he approached me, moistening his lips as he got closer. He looked like a Chapstick kinda guy, spreading balms and oils on his face to try and keep it youthful for as long as he could. It had clearly worked, but the funny thing was, I was about to steal away all the years he’d shaved off his face and then some.
“I like you,” he said, squeezing the bulge in his pants. “You got me really worked up out on that dance floor. What’s your name?”
My heart drummed as I moved to the end of the bed, looking down at him and remembering him on that stand in court, casting me away like I was nothing but a brat looking for attention. Like what had happened to me in those woods hadn’t mattered to anyone. Not him, not the whole wide world. And maybe he’d been right, maybe girls like me were trash in society, the kind no one wanted to deal with, the toxic type which had to be put in special garbage disposals that no one ever wanted to touch. Had he taken pleasure in it? Seeing a girl who’d been assaulted and stamping his big man boot down to make sure his gender remained firmly on top in this world.
“Brooklyn,” I told him the truth, wondering if there might be a flash of recognition in his eyes, a glimmer of a memory, a touch of regret perhaps.
But there was nothing.
I’d always been a nothing to him. But I’d be a something now. The only something that mattered in the end. I was his gory, vicious end and all that anyone would remember about him after this night was how he died at the hands of a girl he’d dismissed, who he’d thought would disappear quietly into the dark never to return. But return I had, Cedric Rawlings.