Page 3 of Bad for You

Once Georgie’s chest is cut open, I peer into the cavity and am mesmerized by his heart—the epicenter of one’s existence, the reason we do what we do. But as I crack open his rib cage, thanks to the tools I carry with me in my bag of tricks, I realize that even though I may have one of these, it doesn’t feel how others do, and that’s because I don’t feel…a thing.

I’m as hollow as Georgie’s chest when I reach into it and rip out his heart.

It looks so…mediocre. I can’t believe the world revolves around this piece of meat that evokes things I don’t understand like…love.

“And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” I whisper, holding the heart to the light and closing one eye, desperate to see what the fuss is about.

I don’t, however, and that’s because I’m as dead as Georgie is.

I peer down at my handiwork and smile.“Daddy is proud of you, baby girl.”

I hear his voice just as I always do when I do something bad. I know this is my mind playing tricks on me, helping me cope with the atrocities I commit and do so with a smile.

I only hear his voice because I don’t know what my mother sounds like. She ensured to take her secrets to the grave by cutting out her own tongue. She’d rather be a coward than own up to her sins and face her maker.

I know who she is and where she is, thanks to Gianna. I owe Gianna everything.

But when I hear another voice, the voice which has comforted and taunted me in the same breath, my bloody dream soon turns into a nightmare.

“Amen,” he says, and I turn slowly to see him standing in the doorway, casually lighting a cigarette.

He wears black ripped jeans, boots, and a black shirt with three buttons undone, revealing that tattooed, muscled chest I know too well because I have laid my head against it, listening tohisheart and believing in a thing called love…only for him to rip it away.

Our eyes lock, and I know what I’ve done because the man I just killed was his.Heis Gianna’s competition.Hewas also her faithful student once upon a time, only to turn against her and use her secrets to build his own empire.

Unlikehim, I value loyalty.

I was to do this, knowing it would start a war.

But I didn’t care because when I look into those blue-gray eyes, eyes I’d been lost in since I was a child, I knew this would bringhimback to me. And there’s a reason for it.

“You’re in so much trouble,tesoro mio,” he coolly says, blowing out the match.

He tongues his upper lip, and I remember what it felt like when I clung to that tall, muscled body and kissed the ever-living fuck out of that mouth. The mouth that kissed and defiled every inch of my body.

I also remember when that mouth uttered the lie,“Ti amo.”

Those memories have me climbing off the cooling corpse and tossing the heart of his man at his feet. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

It’s been five years, but I can see that time hasn’t healed all wounds. I wish time would have erased my feelings for him, but they haven’t. All they’ve done is make me miss him all the more.

He smiles that slanted grin, and I die a thousand deaths because I lied…I do feel something.

I always have.

In the most dire circumstances, we found one another, and I thought he was my forever. But forever came with an expiration date when he became the enemy.

Lennon Shepherd…the man I love with every beat of my heart, is the man I must kill because if I don’t…he’ll kill me.

He’ll kill me because I have been guarding a secret, a secret so grave, Lennon will never forgive me when he finds out the truth. But if I don’t tell him, then someone else will.

Regardless of our feud, this is the one thing we will both fight for.

But when he enters the room and closes the door behind him, I know it isn’t that simple. But nothing with Lennon ever is.

It’s war…

TEN YEARS OLD

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