Page 103 of Hunted By Valentine

“Do you have a knife?” I ask.

Shaking her head, she replies, “Michael has some stashed all over the house. It shouldn’t be hard to find them… wait, what are you doing?”

While she was talking, I grabbed my leather jacket. “Want to use mine?” I ask as I pull the blade from the inner pocket, offering her the handle.

She smiles as she accepts the weapon, then she moves over to Michael, crouching in front of him. He’s still as paralyzed as he’s been since I joined her here in the living room. Whatever poison she’s given him is good.

It’s been hours, and she hasn’t needed to give him more, he hasn’t moved anything but his eyes. But with the way they’re now stuck in a way that makes it look as though he’s looking upward, I wonder if it’s getting more and more potent. Maybe in time he wouldn’t even be able to swallow.

I don’t take my eyes off of her as I reach for my boxer briefs, quickly pulling them on.

“Here we are,” she hisses, placing the knife under his chin. “A part of me is sorry you’re stuck like this. It feels both too easy and somehow anticlimactic. I should have made you go through just a fraction of the shit you’ve done to me over the years. But there isn’t time.”

Isn’t time? What does she think is going to happen? I’ll keep Marco sedated, and I’m sure she can keep her brothers away if that’s who she’s referring to.

“I guess our vows will be more accurate than we thought all those years ago,” she murmurs. She says it so softly I barely hear it, which makes it seem like it’s more for herself than him. “Until death do us part. See you in Hell, Michael.” With those words, she deftly drags the knife across his neck.

The skin splits, blood gushes from the wound. The gurgles that escape his throat are the only sounds in the room. And fuck me, I’m hard again from watching her kill the man who’s tormented her for years.

She stands and turns away before he’s finished, walking back toward me with the knife dangling loosely in her hand. There’s something almost casual in her demeanor, as if she’s just completed a mundane chore, like taking out the trash or washing the dishes. Her calmness should unsettle me more than it does.

“So that’s it,” I say, though I’m not sure if it’s a question or a statement. I take the knife from her hand and wipe it clean with a rag from my pocket. The blade catches the light for a moment, flashing like a sinister wink.

“That’s it,” she confirms, though there’s an emptiness in her voice that makes me wonder if she believes it herself. I reach for her, but she sidesteps me. “I could use a bath. Do you mind getting it started? I want to stay here and watch.”

The words sound good, reasonable even. But the way she keeps looking toward one of the windows makes me feel like she knows something I don’t.

“Sure,” I agree.

I tell myself not to look back as I exit the room, but I do. I pause momentarily in the doorway, watching the way she clenches her fists while gnawing on her bottom lip. Whatever relief Michael’s death should have brought her doesn’t exist. She’s wound tight.

“You sick bastard,” she says, her tone filled with venom.

As I watch her kick Michael, I realize she might need some time alone with his corpse to fully comprehend that he’s dead and that her nightmare is finally over.

With that thought, I walk into the bathroom, already knowing which one is hers from when I inspected the house earlier today, before she came home.

After plugging the tub, I let the scalding water pour into the porcelain. Then I add some of the products on the side, only too late realizing she probably shouldn’t have any of those in there with her burn. Well, I can’t do anything about that now—

My thoughts are interrupted as I hear what sounds like glass shattering. “Ruby?” I shout, switching the water off again.

A scream rings through the house, and I’m immediately sprinting toward the living room.

“Ruby? Are you okay?” The words barely leave my lips before I’m back in the room, but apart from Michael’s corpse, I’m alone. “Ruby? Answer me!” I bellow.

Only then do I realize the front door is wide open, and she’s nowhere to be seen.

Chapter 38

The Prey

Darkness suffocates me, pressing from all sides with the heavy stench of mold. My arms are chained, stretched painfully overhead, fingers numb and useless. I thought the pain would be sharper, more immediate, but it’s a dull, distant ache, like my body has already given up trying to tell me anything important. My eyes open to slits, then shut again. It doesn’t matter. The black is absolute.

I hear his breathing before I see him. Slow. Measured. Controlled. A man’s breathing, deep in the chest. Then a flicker of light, sickly and pale, that catches on the planes of his face, casting him as some skeletal specter.

John; Michael’s brother.

“Awake already?” His voice is velvet over ice, the kind of smooth that makes you slide when you want to stand. He holds something in his hand, and the light dances on it as it sways. My eyes track it, hypnotized. A whip. He uncoils it slowly, like a snake charmer, like he has all the time in the world.

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