Page 132 of Unholy Bonds

Why?

My lungs hurt. I was drowning from the weight of his trust and certainty, and I wanted to break free and resurface. This was a bad place to be.

“You’re not an animal,” I finally choked out.

“I am. I’m looking for K.Y. Wolff because she saw me kill a man.”

No, no.

“I’ve killed more than one man, and I—they call me The Abstract Killer.”

TAK? Oh Fuck. That was something I hadn’t expected.

It made sense. The Abstract Killer only left pieces of his victims. The rest of them must have become wandering ghosts of ashes and smoke in Enzo’s funeral home.

His kills were precisely planned. I had done an autopsy on a hand he left—a hand holding onto a severed cock when I was working under Doctor Mikael. I shuddered in excitement, even though I knew it wasn’t the time for that.

You two are a match made in the worst parts of hell. Kat’s voice was a sarcastic scoff.

The man Ryden killed, Jacob Levey, was a rapist, and I thought what was done to him was poetic. Knowing that Ryden was the one behind it did nothing to dissipate my admiration.

“Yara? Red? Baby?”

I knew I should say something, do something, but I couldn’t. I simply sat there, staring blankly. My skin was cold, my breath was burning.

“I know it’s selfish of me to ask you to keep this secret, but… I want to kill the animal in me for you. I want to be normal for you, as normal as I can become.”

Fuck normal. We couldn’t be normal even if we tried.

I wouldn’t let him bury a part of himself for me.

We were too messed up for that. Perhaps that was why we could be perfect together, but no, that was just another lie.

“Oh, Red, please… don’t waste your tears for me.”

I didn’t even know I was crying. Why the fuck was I crying?

Because you care.

You lie, Kat. I can’t care about this man. I don’t care. This is supposed to be lust. Only that.

“If you want to take me to the DPD, you can. I won’t pressure you to lie for me, to break laws for me. I love you, Red.”

Fucking piece of…

I jumped up from the couch like I was on fire, swiping my eyes with a growl.

He told me he was a killer in one breath, and then he was telling me he loved me. This man had a strange fucking sense of timing.

I wanted to punch him in the nose, break his stupidly sexy jaw, or kick him in his fucking dick. I decided against the last part because it was a beautiful fucking cock.

Shaking my head, I stood up, scowling. I couldn’t stay.

I was afraid, afraid of him, afraid of what he had just given me. This was more than I had bargained for.

Like the fucking coward I was—I had been pretending all my life that I wasn’t one, playing make-believe with myself—I shook my head.

“No. No. This isn’t… it isn’t supposed to be like this.” I scratched my face with a wince.

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