Page 67 of The Dollhouse

Might be a few hours, but everything came with a price, ignorance especially.

I pulled away from her, my hand falling away from her face as I watched her step back and sit on the couch that had seen a lot of use in my time at the Dollhouse. This time, for once, sex was not on my mind; vengeance was.

Carter stood near Bryan, his head turning to look at me when I exited the backroom, sans Zoey. “What?” he asked. “She doesn’t want to see?” He rolled his eyes. “Women.”

“What—” Bryan tried to speak, but Carter hit him on the back of his head, stopping him.

“How did you find her?” I spoke, acting like my Glock was the most interesting thing in the world, pacing in front of him.

“I hired a private investigator,” he spat out, probably hoping the information would save his life. It wouldn’t; I just needed to tie up every loose end. I didn’t doubt the investigator’s number was in his phone somewhere, or in his emails.

“Give him your phone,” I instructed, and Bryan was slow to reach into his pocket and hand Carter his sleek, crack-free phone. Looked like the newest model, too. It must’ve needed a face to unlock it, for Carter held it in front of Bryan the next moment before scrolling through it.

I knelt before Bryan, meeting his amber eyes. He was sweating, obviously scared now of what he’d walked into. The fool thought he’d storm in here, take Zoey, and leave, just like that. What an idiot. What a fucking idiot.

“Any last words, Bryan Oakes?” I questioned, not really caring either way. A part of me wanted to prolong this moment, to make it last; this was the part of the hunt I so enjoyed. Some people might not like what they did, some people might hate their jobs and loathe their bosses, but I was one of the lucky few who was able to do what I liked—and fortunately for me, it was something I was very good at.

Carter took a step to the side, no longer directly behind him, in the blast’s way, still flipping through his phone in search of that private investigator.

“Last words?” Bryan echoed, head tilting up as he watched me stand. “Yeah, fuck—”

He was probably going to say more, but I didn’t let him. In a split-second, I straightened my arm, pointing the Glock right at his face. I pulled the trigger. The bullet soared from the chamber, splintering through Bryan’s forehead the next moment, the force so great at such a close range his skull cracked in more places than one.

Bryan fell backward, his body twitching for a few seconds before becoming still, the bullet hole in his head bleeding out a bit. Luckily, head wounds were not as messy as, say, neck wounds, but there would still be some cleanup work to do.

While Carter was on Bryan’s phone, I whipped out mine, dialing. When the rough voice answered on the other line, I said, “I need you to come to the Dollhouse, now.” A rumble escaped my chest when he tried to say he was busy. “I don’t care what the fuck you’re doing, Mario. You’ll get your ass here now with all your shit, otherwise I’ll go to your father and tell him—”

That was all I needed to say, for in the next moment, Mario was muttering that he’d be right here.He wasn’t our only cleaner, but I liked bugging him the most, since he tried his best not to involve himself with family business.

I hung up, stepping over Bryan’s corpse to move to Carter. “Anything on that PI?”

“Yeah,” Carter said, gruff. “Some bastard named Stanley. I have his cell, his office number, and even a fax number.” His green eyes flicked to me, waiting for me to say the word.

“We’ll take care of him,” I said, a promise to him, a promise to the dead boy near us.

I was not fibbing when I said there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect Zoey, and if that meant destroying every single bit of her old life that threatened to creep into this one, then so be it. I would make that sacrifice, all the while refusing to give that girl up.

She was mine, and she would remain mine until the day she died.

Chapter Twenty – Zoey

It blew my mind how things still didn’t feel real, even after all this time. It’d been months since Roman had… let’s just call it taken care of my ex, and even now, when I tried to think about it, when I tried to feel some kind of guilt over the fact that Bryan would never go home again, I didn’t.

Did that make me as much of a psychopath as Roman? I didn’t know, and frankly I didn’t care. He was a cheat, and call me crazy, but in the end, he got what he deserved.

I’d decided that night I didn’t want to know the details of anything Roman did. It wasn’t that I lost sleep over it, I just… it made me worry about him and Carter, you know? It made me fret over whether or not there would come a day when one or neither of them would come home.

Roman still wanted me to move in with him, but I kept pushing him off. It was nice to be out on my own—relatively—and even nicer to be next door to one of my boyfriends.

Yeah, I called all of them that now, as much as Carter hated it.

I was in the bathroom in my apartment, getting ready for what was certainly going to be a long night. I had a date with Lake, you see, but it wasn’t just a normal date. It wasn’t him driving me to dinner and a movie; oh no, this was something that had been in the works for a while now, something I wasn’t sure whether or not Lake could even handle, but he’d agreed to it, so we were going to try.

Was it weird I was nervous? Probably. I didn’t get nervous when it came to being with any of my guys, but this… it was going to be something new.

My hair was freshly dyed, the pink bright and almost blinding. It was now winter out there, and even though the area didn’t get much snow, it was still too cold out for shorts, so I wore jeans with my usual pink shoes. Though my poor shoes were looking a little worse for wear, they still had some life left in them yet. I stuck with a plain t-shirt, knowing the clothes I wore didn’t much matter. They wouldn’t stay on long anyway, once we got to where we were going.

Once I was satisfied with my makeup, I left the bathroom, finding Lake in the kitchen, leaning on the counter. His blonde hair was freshly cut, so he had that awkward look all guys did right after a haircut. He was still ridiculously cute, though.

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