Home > Bloody Love (Lilah Love #6)(47)

Bloody Love (Lilah Love #6)(47)
Author: Lisa Renee Jones

 ***

 It’s the day after Christmas and I manage to get inside the CSI lab to study Desmond’s journal. For hours, I sit at a table in a room with concrete walls and just read. He was a sick man, with multiple personalities. One minute he’d praise a particular person. The next, he’d say horrible things about them that didn’t even feel like the same person was writing the words. Turns out, Desmond killed Ann, because Marilyn thought it was for the best, that Ann was a liability but Desmond had those multiple personalities. One of them had a crush on Ann and wanted to save her. But ultimately, he did what Marilyn wanted and killed her. Obviously, I was right when I thought Marilyn was stalking Ann’s phone and her parents’ house to ensure she was really dead. The groundskeeper was next. That man dodged death.

 Oh, and he was JJ/Jamie, a code name he took playing Banking the Billionaire. It was all part of the sex games he played with Emma, Naomi, and Rip to try to win the funding for his project. That project being Desmond Defense, the company that created, in Desmond’s own words, the perfect weapon—combat and battle-ready.

 One particular passage in the journal gets my attention:

 Emma says she’s leaving that cult of assholes for this new man of hers. And yet, she can’t get enough of using her engagement as a role play sex game with me. He goes out of town and we meet, drink wine, and fuck, all while she wears her dress. Well, she starts out in the dress. She promised to find me the money I need for my company launch, but all she wants to do is fuck. That’s what she did to the others. Marilyn said so. Marilyn told me all about it. She recorded Rip, Emma, and Naomi mocking me. I was losing my mind over it, but she knew exactly how to end them. Emma, she said, would be an easy target. She always pops Advil before she drinks. One more time for the history books, was about a win on the Banking the Billionaire Game, but it became a sex thing, too. Fucking so damn good we deserved to be in the history books. So I convinced her we’d fuck one last time—one last time for the history books. I knew she’d expect to drink. And I knew she’d take Advil.

 It’s just one of the many ways the journal makes it clear Marilyn controlled Desmond. He was intelligent, but she was conniving. Her real motive is hard to pinpoint, but it seems to have been both personal and financial and when her little circle of peers attacked Desmond and the defense company, they didn’t stand a chance.

 And more on Ann. She really was a patsy. Poor girl had no idea what she was involved in. She thought it was all an acting job. I dig for an answer as to how Naomi ended up broke, a question that got lost in everything else, but I can’t find it. There is very little on her murder, either. Which is rather curious.

 Eventually, I leave the CSI lab certain that we’ll find out more about Desmond as we dig deeper. I’m not sure this was his first time to kill. And we have a team working to take down Banking the Billionaire. It will be a battle, but one Murphy seems committed to winning.

 But no matter what I know about Marilyn, she will always be a hypothetical for me and all of us. We’ll never really get into her head. And while people who knew her can’t believe she was part of this at first, I knew. I recognized the killer in her eyes.

 

 

CHAPTER FIFTY


 New Year’s Eve comes quickly and yet, so very slowly.

 It took years to arrive, if you consider how long Kane and I have been trying to get to the moment of I do. Everyone I love is here, all in tuxedos. A photographer frets over a million photos and my nerves are all over the place. Tic Tac is adorable with a red tie. A five-foot-five rebel of a man, that one. And Murphy hugs me and whispers, “You look like your mother. Glad to see you embracing that part of you.”

 I want to punch him because he makes me want to cry.

 Bastard.

 “And the cakes look good,” he says.

 He’s right. They do. There are two cakes, white and chocolate, and flowers around the room. Lilies because my mother loved them. And roses because Kane’s mother loved them. Everything is perfect. Except my mother and Kane’s mother not being here. I don’t miss my father. At all.

 And then finally, on a perfect clear evening, as the sun sets behind us, on the glass encased balcony of our hotel room, I join Kane in front of the preacher. His eyes light on me, in my dress, and he captures my hand and leans in close and says, “So damn beautiful.”

 And he is so damn handsome in his tuxedo.

 God, I love this man.

 We face forward and stand side by side in front of a preacher, with those we call family around us. We choose not to say vows in front of other people. What we are and who we are is for us and us alone. But we do say one identical sentence to each other.

 “Live together, die together,” I say.

 “Live together, die together,” he says.

 And then we say “I do” and the preacher pronounces us husband and wife.

 We kiss and Kane whispers in my ear, “Finally.”

 And this time, I say, “Finally,” as well.

 ***

 An hour later, we’ve taken more photos, eaten cake, and everyone is drinking champagne and enjoying themselves. And there are gifts, lots of silly gifts. Andrew hands us his gift.

 “Is it a blender?”

 “No,” he says, waving that off.

 “It’s a blender,” I tell Kane.

 “Okay, it’s a damn blender,” Andrew says, “But Mom said, when they have everything, give them a blender.”

 I laugh and tell Kane, “She did say that.”

 “There’s this, too,” Andrew says, offering us another box. “That was at the station. The tag got knocked off. I think it’s from one of the guys. I hope you can figure it out after you open it.”

 An uneasy feeling settles in my belly and that same energy crackles off Kane. He takes the box and opens it, lifting the lid. Inside is a note. A familiar kind of note. A note from Junior that reads:

 Ding dong, the queen is born. The queen is born. Ding dong, the queen is born, the queen is dead.

 THE END

 

 Fear not, the next Lilah Love book, HAPPY DEATH DAY is up for pre-order now! To learn more visit: https://www.lisareneejonesthrillers.com/the-lilah-love-series.html

 

 

THE NECKLACE TRILOGY

 


In the vein of her Inside Out series, New York Times Bestselling Author Lisa Renee Jones returns with the dark, seductive world of the Necklace Trilogy...

Allison Wright is delivered a package meant for a different Allison—a unique, expensive necklace. Determined to right the confusion, she seeks out the proper recipient, a journey that takes her to the doorstep of Tyler Hawk, a good looking, recluse billionaire who deals with fine collectibles such as the necklace. She also learns that Allison, his employee, quit her job registering and restoring his vast assortment of collectibles. Ironically, Allison is the daughter of a rather famous archeologist who is also employed by a local museum, and her love of such things has her jumping at the opportunity. Soon she is spending her evening and weekends immersed in the job the other Allison left behind.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)