“Not anymore.” I shake my head.
“I don’t believe you,” she argues. “There has to be something I can do. Please … tell me.” The desperation in her voice makes me smile.
I turn around and cup her tear-streaked face. She sucks in a long breath, and her body presses into mine, now interested. Funny how women turn to sex when they’re desperate for forgiveness. “Unless you plan on falling to your knees and opening that mouth of yours so I can fuck it, I have no use for you.”
“I don’t believe you,” she whispers again as new tears run down her face.
“That’s your problem. Not mine.” Her eyes stare up at mine, silently begging me to forgive her and tell her that it’s all gonna be okay. That I love her. I’ll die before I ever say that to her again.
When she licks her wet lips and falls to her knees like an obedient slave, I look at her with disgust. I’d always held Becky to a higher standard ’cause she continually held her head high and didn’t care what others said or felt about her. Cole was not driving the car when it wrecked and killed three of our friends—she was—and she allowed him to take the fall for it. Though I can’t blame her for that part. I understand firsthand that when Cole makes up his mind, you can’t change it. I’m just like him in that aspect. But she lied to him when she told him she was pregnant. She wanted him to feel sorry for her and tell her to run, and it worked. She played him, and then she kept it from me because she knew I could tell him the truth.
I’m a killer. But I’ve never lied without a reason, and that purpose is rarely just to save my own ass.
She looks up at me, tears running down her face, and she pulls her shoulders back as though she has a backbone. “I’ll prove it to you.” Her voice doesn’t waver with her renewed determination. As if sucking my cock is gonna make me fall in love with her all over again.
She’s not the first girl to suck my dick who I didn’t fall in love with. And she won’t be the last.
“Deke?” Her shaky voice pulls me out of that memory. Her hands are on my chest, and she breathes heavily.
I love that I still have this effect on her. After three months of nothing, I can still turn her into a fucking puddle of water that I can stomp through. I once loved Becky, but now I hate her with a passion.
My fingers dig into her arms. “Yeah, baby?”
She bites her bottom lip at my words. I avoid her like the plague, but maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe she could be more useful than I thought. If I told her to drop to her knees right now and suck my dick, would she do it? Only one way to find out.
I let go and run my hands up her arms. Her breath hitches when I move them over her neck, being as gentle as I can when I really wanna fucking break it. Watch her perfect fucking lips open as she tries to breathe while the life drains out of her pretty blue eyes.
I can be a fucking heartless bastard.
Her blue eyes look up into mine, and I see it. That same desire she used to have for me. I wonder how much she faked. Did it make her sick when I touched her? When I kissed her? How about when I fucked her?
I’d love to make her hate herself as much as I hate her now. I can make her believe I love her again. That I’ve forgiven her.
My hands slide into her hair, and she licks her painted pink lips. “I’ve missed you,” I lie.
A shiver runs through her body, but she says nothing.
“Have you missed me, baby?”
Her eyes close shut, and her lips part. The act reminds me of that last memory when I allowed her to suck my cock. The hopefulness she had in her eyes as tears ran down her face from my force. Those boys in high school were wrong—her mouth didn’t make up for what her cunt lacked. But when you love someone, you’re blind to their every flaw. Now that I hate her, I see much clearer. The fog is gone, and I see Becky for who she really is—a slut I can use to my advantage.
Sweet fucking revenge. I’m an expert at fucking someone over. No one plays that game better than I do.
I lean down, pressing my lips gently to hers, and she opens up immediately, but I don’t take the bait. Not yet. Why rush this, when I can have some fun and draw it out?
I pull back, and she opens her heavy eyes. “Deke—”
The doorbell rings, interrupting whatever she was about to say.
I let her go and walk out of the kitchen. I open the front door to see the neighbor kid Misty standing there with her dark hair up in a ponytail. She reaches up and pushes her glasses to sit higher on her nose. She’s a fourteen-year-old girl with three older brothers. I sometimes play basketball with them out in the driveway.
She smiles at me. “Hi, Deke. Austin called and said she needed a sitter tonight.”
I step aside for her to enter. “She’s upstairs in the shower right now, but Lilly is in her room.”
“Thanks.” She walks inside, bouncing down the hallway to find Lilly.
When I return to the kitchen and find it empty, I take my ass up to my room to get ready for the night. I’m gonna seduce Becky. And she’s gonna realize she’s weaker than she thought when it comes to me.
CHAPTER THREE
DEKE
TWO HOURS LATER, “Like a Nightmare” by Deadset Society plays inside my SUV as I drive us to Silence. The sun has officially set, and we decided to go earlier rather than later to beat the crowd and traffic since it’s a Friday night.
Austin leans forward from the back seat and taps Cole on the shoulder. “Turn that down for a second, please?” He does as she asks, and she begins to read something to us off her phone. “Did you know they can touch you? I’m on their website, and it says that you should not wear open-toed shoes or nice clothing. That you may have to crawl, jump, or run to get free. And that you may have blood thrown on you.”
Cole stiffens in the passenger seat at the mention of blood. And I wonder if he has the same thought as me.
Five months ago
Cole pulls up to the Lowes estate and doesn’t even bother turning his car off. He jumps out, and I follow him up the stairs, and he barges into Bruce’s house. Celeste, Austin’s stepmother, lies dead at the bottom of the stairs. Neither one of us gives her any thought.
“Austin?” Cole yells, pulling the gun out of the back of his jeans. I’m holding mine down by my side, and it’s ready with a bullet in the chamber. “Austin?” He shouts again, running down the hallway.
He follows the blood trail down the hall, and my throat tightens at what we’re going to find. It won’t be good.
He takes a sharp right, entering the kitchen. “Austin?” I hear him choke on her name, and my heart begins to pound. What did he find?
I enter behind him and gasp. “What the fuck?”
Austin lies in a pool of blood on her father’s marble floor. Fuck! She’s bleeding too much. Her shirt and her jeans are soaked. Her once sun-kissed skin looks pale, and the pool of blood underneath her slowly gets bigger. The smell alone almost knocks me off my feet. Kellan still holds the gun in his hand. Why did he shoot his best friend’s girl? I don’t understand.
“Take him,” Cole calls out, not looking up from her body. He goes to touch her but then pulls back.
She’s dead. I’ve helped him kill enough people to know what a lifeless body looks like. “She needs help,” I argue. Looking over her with narrowed eyes, I know there’s not much we can do for her at this point. Kellan killed the only thing Cole has ever loved. And Cole will make Kellan suffer in ways he can’t even imagine.