Page 10 of Pray for the Damned

KADE

Iwatch them from the other side of the club as my twin tries and fails to capture Waverly’s attention.

There’s not much my brother isn’t good at, but it appears catching the woman he’s been lusting after for a decade isn’t one of them.

Not that she’s not intrigued by our resident priest. Even after she storms off, she can’t keep her eyes off the booth in the corner, and each time her eyes clash with his, the prettiest blush covers her cheeks.

She’s wearing too much makeup tonight, hiding the dusting of freckles I’ve never been close enough to truly admire.

Normally I can rein myself in when it comes to her, but tonight I’m finding it particularly hard to remain in the shadows. Perhaps it was easier when we were both lurking in the background, keeping her safe from a distance, but seeing him so close has something that I’ve felt a few times in my life rising to the surface.

Jealousy.

When I said there’s not much my brother isn’t good at, I should have mentioned that there’s nothing I’m not better at.

Until now.

Because he found a way into her sights without ever having to work for it. This is the work of fate, something I’ve rarely accepted. But how else can you explain the woman we’ve been following for years showing up for a trial run at the place he visits almost every night before he moves to park out the front of her apartment building?

Maybe it’s not a coincidence. Maybe he orchestrated the job for Waverly as a way to get close to her.

I rub my fingers over the stubble on my chin that matches his exactly. I’ll need to look into the possibility that my brother has finally decided to make his move on the woman we’re both obsessed with.

Movement catches my eye, and I watch as Emmett stands, throws a few bills on the table, and stalks toward the exit. If I know him as well as I think I do, he’ll remain outside until she leaves to make sure she gets home safely, and I consider my options. I could follow him, see what he does.

Or I could have my own opportunity to meet the little siren that has no idea the danger she’s in by being the object of our obsession.

It only takes a few seconds for me to make my choice, and I quickly stalk toward the booth Emmett just vacated, slipping the cash into my hand to leave for her when I leave, and wrap my tattooed fingers around the glass.

I doubt she’ll notice the difference in our tattoos, because they’re similar in so many ways, even if their meanings are significantly different, and thankfully we’ve always dressed similarly. Probably a twin thing.

I catch Waverly’s bright green eyes, and her brows pull together in confusion. She must have seen Emmett leave, but she shakes herself off and hesitantly moves toward the table.

Each step she takes brings her closer to me. The closest she’s ever been.

Unlike my brother, I wasn’t there that night when he killed her father. I was down the street making sure the coast was clear, and it wasn’t until my own father demanded I check what was taking so long that I saw him helping her jump the back fence with a ratty bag in tow.

I remember the fear and confusion that shone bright in her eyes as she looked back at him, but he just told her to go, to run as fast as she could, to never look back.

That’s how my obsession with her started. I wanted to understand what my brother saw that night. Why he took the wrath of my father when Salvatore Draper’s men failed to bring him his prize.

But it didn’t take me long to figure it out.

It took a little while to find her. Being such a tiny thing made it easy for her to hide in plain sight, and in the beginning, she bounced around a lot. By the time I started searching, she was already out of South Dakota and well on her way to Kansas City.

She was smart, even back then, and made sure to cover her tracks, but she couldn’t compete with the trained predator that I was raised to be.

Too bad for me, I wasn’t the only one tracking her.

To this day, I don’t know if Emmett knew I knew his dirty little secret, but every time I got close to the girl, somehow he wiped any trace of her and took me on a wild goose chase, all the while we completed jobs for our father, wiping the earth of scum while tracking an angel across the country.

I’m distracted from my thoughts when Waverly stops at the edge of the table, and I flick my eyes up to meet hers. The wild berry scent I’m all too familiar with wafts over me, and I have to bite down on my lip to stop myself from groaning. Every time I step foot into her apartment, I grow more addicted to her, but having her so close has me fisting my hands to stop me fromgrabbing her, from taking her somewhere I can finally have her all to myself.

“I thought you left,” Waverly says, her voice soft as she darts her gaze at anything but me.

I wonder if she can sense the danger she’s in.

I wonder if she knows she’s in the presence of the devil.

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