Page 36 of Spiteful Heart

Chapter Eight – Lola

Sylvester and Maddox were almost back from their little trip. It was good timing, too. After night fell, someone tossed a small rock into the living room window, sending it straight through the glass. When Mike and Viper had gone to investigate, they’d found a tape sitting on the driveway, too far away from the house to be caught on the cameras Sylvester had installed.

Inside, I was a ball of nerves. Hah. I know, me? Nervous? It was ridiculous—but all this shit with this serial killer made me on edge. I went to get the tape player from my room, and together, we huddled around my bed as I switched out the tapes.

Looked like keeping Big Mike and Viper here had been a good idea. We might not have gotten a tape otherwise.

My breath suddenly thick in my lungs, I hit play.

“Lola Harding,” a low, menacing voice spoke on the tape, the same voice as the first, “I’ve been watching you run around like a chicken with its head cut off.” He stopped to inhale a ragged breath. Whoever it was didn’t sound too healthy. “It’s been fun, can’t lie. Leaving you little presents here and there… I hope you’ve liked them.” He coughed.

Jaw grinding, I wished I had the fucker here in front of me. I’d really give him a piece of my mind—and by that, I meant a knife in his gut. Or a baseball bat to his kneecaps so he’d never walk again.

“But I can tell you’re growing tired of this game.” He practically growled out the next words: “I am, too. It wasn’t supposed to last this long, but I just had to leave you another present in the Gilded Rose. I hope you liked her. I left her there for you.” A pause. “Well, you and that asshole, Newton.” A dark chuckle left the man, the sound so low it sounded almost inhuman. “I bet you thought I was him, didn’t you?”

A sinking feeling rose within my gut, because I had. My thoughts ran wild in my head.

“Even after all this time, Lola, you’re still so blind. Have you forgotten me already?”

He started to say more, but I paused the tape. The hairs on the back of my neck had started to stand straight up; even the hairs on my arms did the same. Both Mike and Viper stared at me, their hazel eyes wordlessly questioning.

After gathering myself, I hit play, and he continued, “You made me into this… this monster. You took everything from me, and now I’m going to take everything from you. I’m going to kill you, Night Slayer, just like I killed all those other girls. I’m going to make you scream before I end you. Everything you are, I will destroy. You may have forgotten me, but I haven’t forgotten you for one fucking second.” Such hatred in his voice. Such pure, vile hatred.

“Come to the warehouse district tomorrow at midnight—alone—where you and your men like to get rid of bodies. Come to me, alone, and maybe I’ll let your men live. Maddox, Sylvester, Viper, and Big Mike. If you want to save them, come to me.”

I glanced at Viper and Mike. Not many people outside our circle called them by their nicknames, which meant that we were right and this guy did know us. He knew everything there was to know about me, and he knew all about my guys.

“If you don’t, I will kill them all. Every one of them, one by one until you’re the last one left. Everything you’ve gained you will lose. You might’ve beat me once, but you won’t do it again.” He coughed again, though this time it was more of an uncontrollable fit he couldn’t fight. He said nothing else, the tape ending.

I sat on the edge of my bed, setting the player down without a word and getting my phone. I dialed Sylvester. “Lola, what’s going on?” he asked. After I told him about the new tape, he added, “Hang tight, we’re almost there.” And then he hung up. I didn’t tell him the details of the tape, because he could listen to it himself after he got back.

“Shit,” Viper finally broke his silence. “He sounded a little better this time, less sick. The first tape, he didn’t sound familiar, but this time…” He glanced at his brother. “He called you Big Mike.”

All Mike did was nod.

That terrible feeling in my gut wouldn’t go away. “He hates Newton, too,” I whispered. The body he’d left in the Gilded Rose had been as much a present for Newton as it had been for me. But why? Why did he hate Newton?

“Newton can be a dick,” Viper pointed out. “The guy doesn’t make it hard to hate him.”

Our killer wanted me to meet him alone tomorrow night at midnight, where we liked to dump our bodies into the river. Something told me that my guys wouldn’t like the idea of me going to meet him, but at this point… what other choice was there?

I believed him when he said he would kill my guys if I didn’t go. Now, whether or not he’d actually succeed in killing them was another story, but was I willing to take that risk?

It was a long wait until Sylvester and Maddox got here, or at least it felt like it. It felt like a fucking eternity passed before they strolled into my house in a rush. We were waiting for them in the kitchen, the rock and the tape player sitting on the island. I’d rewound it so they could play the tape and hear it from the beginning.

Sylvester grabbed the tape player, sapphire gaze meeting my stare. No one said anything as he hit play.

As I listened to the man on the tape again, I wanted to vomit. That voice… I knew I’d heard that voice before, but where? It was like my mind didn’t want to put the pieces together, like something in my brain was blocking it.

Once the tape was done playing, Sylvester set it down. He glanced between Viper and Big Mike, something finally dawning on him: “What are you two doing here? Shouldn’t—”

“One of them be watching Harvey?” I offered, and Sylvester frowned at me. “Yeah, I went with Viper to watch Harvey a little. He was supposed to have a date today, before his shift stalking Newton. He didn’t, though.”

“He lied about it,” Viper clarified. “Lola texted him about the date, asking how it went, and he said fine.”

“But that voice in the tape… it’s not Newton,” I said, knowing it in my heart of hearts. It was someone else, someone else I’d obviously met before and fucked up… but who? “Whoever he is, it’s not Harvey and it’s not Newton. He hates Newton just like he hates me.”

Viper asked, “What did the big man have to say?”

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