Page 52 of The Masks She Wore

?I glanced back, taking in her exhausted form, the light from the crack of the door illuminating a line across her tear-stained face.

?I turned back to the doorway, my eyes locking with Azrael’s. He was smiling, raising an expectant brow.

?Ignoring her, I shut the bedroom door. To be truthful, I wasn’t sure if I would have answered her had he not been here. I might have. If I wanted to claim her, what was the reason in not doing it? Besides, hearing her moan my name? Fuck, even just the thought of it had me wanting to walk right back in there and fuck her into a coma.

?“Why would he call you?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “How did you beat me here?” He was AWOL, how was Malachi even able to reach him? Nobody could reach him when he went out on his excursions.

?“I’m in town doing business,” he answered vaguely. “You kill your monstrous brother and then fall for the first assignment you get?” He clicked his tongue. “So pathetic. It seems to me like you’re spending too much time with dear old Greyson. And here I thought you and I were the most alike.”

?A lie. Azrael didn’t like to think of himself as ‘alike’ to any of us in any way whatsoever.

?I sneered. “I am no more him than I am you. We made a deal,Azrael. We claim whoever we want,wheneverwe want, so long as we follow the laws.”

?“Oh, I know,” he purred as I made my way to her fridge. “I just didn’t think any of us were weak enough to have to follow that particular law.” He paused as I opened the fridge. “Is this because of your interest in her mother’s murder?”

?I grabbed a water, grinding my teeth as I turned to him. “How do you know about that?”

?He gestured his cane towards her coffee table. “I’ve been here for 10 minutes, and I got bored. You can accomplish anything in 10 minutes. Anything.”

?I ignored his comment and started for the living area, taking in the papers that covered her table. She left them out tonight. Why? Was it another clue into who she really was or just due to the mind of a complex person who hadn’t felt like putting it away this time?

?“I was going to install cameras for you so you could watch her more closely, but I understand that my brothers aren’t as diligent as I am."

?I rolled my eyes. “I don’t feel the need to watch everything she does.”

?“Pity,” he replied, picking an invisible lint from his jacket. “I do.”

?My eyes shot towards him, that rage boiling under my skin.

?He laughed. “Don’t you worry your darling little head, Jacky my boy, I don’t like blondes or brunettes or redheads. In fact, the onlything a woman is good for, in my opinion, is taking what I give her until she’s got no strength left to even breathe.”

?I frowned, watching him for a moment longer before turning back to the files across the table.

?Azrael was fucked up in so many ways. It was the institute, I swear. He had always had something broken inside of him, but when Beckett finally sent him to a place we thought could help him at the age of 17, he came back as something even more sick and twisted than before.

?I worried about the people he came in contact with, but the truth of the matter was that he was the best of us all at this game and he reminded us of it constantly. In one way or another.

?I picked up a random file, skimming over the page she had been looking at. There was nothing here I didn’t already know. Pool ofblood, no body, no witnesses, no cameras. Nothing at all, just that pool of blood that the police claimed was Marla’s, but there were no official tests done to actually prove it. I wondered if she had caught onto that yet. They never ran the blood, they just said it was hers.

?I had been asking myself why for days.

?The door swung open, two women—one with black and red hair, cut to her shoulders, and the other with hair almost as short as mine, the color of wheat—walking in.

?Poppy loved dying her hair outrageous colors, but right now, her face matched the red she had chosen. “I have been looking for you forthree days, you absolute dick.”

?I rolled my eyes and found Zo’s as she made her way over. We weren’t related, but we might as well have been with how similar we looked. The same shade of blue in our eyes, the same height, almost the same nose.

?She glanced at what I was holding. “I couldn’t find them,” she explained when I tossed it down.

?“We’ll have to keep a better eye on her,” I decided, not that there had ever been a choice in the matter. “Shh,” I lectured Poppy and Azrael when she got louder. “Everybody out. Now.”

?“And here I thought the fun was just getting started,” Azrael sang.

?Poppy straightened, folded her arms over her chest, and waited.

?Once Azrael passed her, she was right on his heels, nearly stepping on them.

?I turned to Zo again. “I’m sure Malachi told you too.”

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