Page 14 of Twisted

“You’re family now, kid.”

Those four little words would still ring in Jaeger’s mind for years to come, washing away the sting of his first kill.

5

Maisie

Present Day

Maisie woke with a start, heart thumping like a little bird in the cage of her ribs, her eyes fluttering open to her sun-drenched room. It took her mind a moment to adjust, to remember last night’s horrid events. It was too late, though; she knew she wasn’t alone, knew there was no chance to plan or find a weapon. The scrape of chair legs across her wooden floor alerted her to his domineering presence.

Slow, she dragged her eyes to his, clutching at the blanket draped gracefully over her half-nude body. Even now, hours later, she could feel the slick remnants on her thighs, could remember her body’s utter betrayal of her mind and heart. Her body wasstillbetraying her, it seemed, but what quelled her fears of an attack while she was knocked out was the devil himself seated before her. He may have been shirtless, his torso chiseled, his chest covered in luxurious dark ink—an intricate design of flowers and honey bees, a cracked skull with a crooked crown right in the middle of the visage—but he wore jeans, and she didn’t feel particularly sore.

His movement made her mouth snap shut tight as he leaned forward, forearms on knees, a coy smirk on his pinkish lips. His hair, once pulled back, now fell in kinked dirty blond tendrils around his thick shoulders. In the daylight, he looked boyish, charming—vibrant and full of life and mischief. It danced in his striking green eyes, made her spine tingle, made her sex throb and thighs quiver. She shoved her lust away and focused on her dire situation, sitting up as she prepared to battle with him even through the relentless pounding in her head and the realization that she could not escape him easily—if at all.

Before she could say a word, though, he lifted one hand, and draped over the two fingers that had been exploring her cunt the night before were tennis shoe strings. She knew, as his gaze lit with fire, that her subtle reaction of widening eyes and flushed cheeks had given her away. There, on the once-white Nikes, was a coat of ash and dust.

The shoes she’d worn deep into the woods. The shoe’s she’d worn to burn all the evidence. The shoes she’d hidden in the back of her closet to dispose of once the coast was a little more clear. She had panicked after that disposal of evidence, as the weight of what she’d done began to consume her like carrion. It had been her fatal mistake, keeping those shoes in her momentary panic. She’d been so careful aside from that one little slip up. And now, he knew.

This man, though, would never be able to break her silence, would never be able to pry the location from her mind. She would die before she went to prison for saving herself from those men. She couldn’t, she—

“Maisie, Maisie. I see your wheels turnin’.”

Her eyes snapped up to meet his at his patronizing tone, and this time they were cold, hard and dead. She gulped. This change in his demeanor made him seem like he was pals with Satan, as though living in the shadows of the underworld was where he happily resided.

The shoes dropped with a thud and a poof of dust, and his eyes turned even darker.

“You see, Maisie, this is personal for me. You’ve made a real mess of my dealings, and until you give me what I want, I’ll simply take it. You can be a good girl and work with me, or you can keep makin’ this harder on yourself.”

Narrowing her eyes into slits as the fierceness of her rage burned through her, she twisted her mouth into a sneer, ready to fling threats at him. She would protect herself—shecouldprotect herself. She’d proven that. She would prove it again, here and now.

“You’ll have to kill me,” she hissed through clenched teeth and scarred lip. His eyes never once flickered at her words. They both knew the truth—she’d killed them. But only her mind harbored the more important information, and she would die with those memories still in her skull.

After a moment, he smirked, devilish and self-assured as he smoothed his rough palms together.

“Nah, baby doll. I ain’t gonna kill ya,” he said, gripping the seat of the chair between his legs and scraping a few feet closer to her bed. Maisie bristled like a she-wolf at the intrusion to her sacred space, tensing, preparing to fight like hell if he made a move again. But he only stopped, leveling her with a stare so potent it felt like fire in her veins to give her gaze over to his. He paused a beat, allowing those depthless pupils of his to drown her and daze her before his damning words were spoken with such dark eloquence.

“I’m gonna fuck you. Gonna bend you to my will, break you open and see the darkness in that soul. Gonna force you to your knees as you swallow my cock and my seed. And you’ll love it, baby doll. I’ll be your god, the only man that can bring you any sense of pleasure from here on out, and you will worship me.”

Arms crossed, she hid the strike of arousal coursing through her body well, but it was apparent this man could still see it as his smirk widened. Maisie, though, was stubborn, and even if her body undeniably ached to be bent to his will, she would never voice it, never show how desperately she’d always needed such a dominant man to tame her wild side while also setting her free of the confines of her mind. She’d thought Carter—being older, more worldly—would have been that man to her. As his face bubbled up in her mind, her fury flared at the entire situation.

“You touch me again, I shoot you in the fucking head with a smile on my face,” she hissed.

He looked down for a moment before he raised his eyes to hers from under his brows, that coy smile still plastered to his face.

“I’ve got plans for our first time together. Wanna know where this date will be?”

The fire that once flowed through her like molten lava just from his words and his eyes alone was soon frozen. There was something self-assured about his posture, about what he’d said. Some card he was holding that would win him the hand in this round.

He stood, towering over her, casting her in his long shadow.

“Get dressed. Was a fire near my cabin a little while back, up in the Blue Ridge range,” he said as he gripped his chin, his rough scruff scratchy in sound as Maisie began to tremble in trepidation. In a flash, he leaned in, knuckles on the mattress, their faces inches apart. His green eyes seemed to bloom before her, unfurling in spokes of golden rays that blended into the most luscious green.

“And yes, my baby doll, those little size six footprints matched these cute little shoes I found hidden in your closet.”

Swallowing the lump of despair that had risen in her throat, Maisie could only shut off every facet of her emotions, could only conceal herself in the concrete shelter of her mind. She’d learned from her years with Carter how to hide in plain sight, how to blend in with the scenery like a rattlesnake, coiled, defensive, and always ready to strike before anyone could hurt her further.

Carter never noticed the way that spark in her eyes died, how it flickered over the years, clinging to hope against the inevitable. Carter didn’t care enough to notice, and it only served to turn Maisie into an even colder-hearted woman. But here and now, as she felt her face shift, as she felt her shoulders tense as though her deceased ex were in front of her instead of this new monster, she could see reflected in those gem-like eyes just how dead she was—a corpse, a shell of a thing long gone.

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