Page 136 of Blue

I spit in his face. “I was fucking ten years old the first time you touched me. You ruined my life. Now, I’m going to ruin yours.”

Rogue came up next to me, wrapped his gloved fingers around Carl’s neck, and squeezed. With his other hand, he used tissues from the desk to wipe my spit from Carl’s face, then he grabbed the hanging tooth, twisted it, and ripped it from his mouth. “If we kill him, we don’t want to leave any DNA.”

Unable to breathe, Carl’s face turned deep red. His eyes bulged.

Rogue leaned into him. “Show some fucking gratitude. I’d have you choking on your balls by now. Blue—I mean Brantley doesn’t want you dead. He just wants the photos. You might want to think about cooperating before he decides to let me have you. Do you want me to tear you apart?”

“He’s a big guy,” Cruz said and laughed as he continued to open and close files. “You should let him. I want to watch you bleed.”

“I’ll fuck you up so good,” Rogue whispered and released Carl’s neck. “You might even like it.”

Carl gasped and clutched at his throat.

I glanced over my shoulder to Cruz. “What’s on the drive?”

There was no humor left in Cruz’s face. His lips turned down at the corners, his jaw clenched, and his brows furrowed. “Shit I don’t want to know about.”

“It’s none of your fucking business,” Carl said, wiping bloody slobber from his mouth. “It’s always consensual. If those guys didn’t want it, I wouldn’t be attracted to them.”

Words I’d heard before, words to convince him what he wanted wasn’t wrong.

Bullet pulled a cigarette from his pack. “Those aren’t guys. They’re kids.”

“Age of consent is in the mind,” Carl rasped. “Ask Brantley.” He glared at me and tilted his head to the side. “Did you tell them about how you’d moan as you sucked me off? I never had to beg you to offer up that ass to me.”

“Who are you trying to convince?” I asked him and glanced at the three guys who’d brought me to hell to make sure Carl burned.

“Blue, what do you want me to do?” Cruz asked.

I moved behind the desk with Cruz, and Rogue picked up my gun and took position in front of Carl.

“He’s the only reason you’re not being fucked with a baseball bat,” Rogue said.

Cruz stood, giving me his chair. “I only looked at the first few photos,” he said. “It’s your folder. But there are other folders. A lot of fucking folders.”

I sank into the chair, no longer under the delusion I was the only one. Cruz turned his back to the computer but stayed next to me. My hand trembled as I opened the folder.

In an instant, the past slammed into me with the velocity and impact of a meteor. A global killer, a destroyer. Here was all the evidence that he’d broken me.

Pressure built in my chest and an increasing drone of noise clamored through my mind. Using the mouse, I clicked through the photos. Delete. Delete. Delete.

The pictures disappeared from the folder but still lived in my mind. I banged my fist against the desk. Delete. Delete.

Cruz rested a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to look at them.” He reached around me, tapped the keyboard to close the folder, and deleted it.

“Will it be retrievable?”

“Not if we take the thumb drive with us. We can move the other files to his desktop. And there’s no way he can remove the footprint once we upload them to the cloud.”

“Delete them all,” Carl said. “This can all go away.”

“Nah. Next time you need a boyfriend, you can get someone from D-cell.” Bullet leaned against the wall and crossed his legs at the ankle. “You ever been to prison?” He plucked another cigarette from his pack. “Probably not. Let me give you some advice. All you need to know are the three f’s. Fight. Fuck. Or hit the fence. For you, all fit and shit.” He blew a stream of smoke from his nostrils. “You’ll be popular with the inmates.”

“Brantley, listen, we remember our relationship differently.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Rogue said.

I opened each folder before moving it to the desktop. But there were dozens. Some only had one or two pictures. I clicked on a folder, and the screen exploded with images. I shoved away from the computer. It was as if time moved in slow motion. One by one, the images loaded.

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