Page 140 of Beat of Love
His mind wouldn’t stop spinning.
Kamila was alive.
He could still see her face. That cascade of hair. That red blouse with its ridiculous bow tied neatly around her throat, just begging to be twisted tight.
And the taunt in her eyes as she stared directly into the security camera.
Shewantedhim to know she was here.
Wanted him to know that he might’ve destroyed her organization, but not her.
Never her.
She had outfoxed him.
Planted a double in her bed.
Let him believe he was free.
Rafferty sucked in a deep breath, held it until his lungs screamed, then let it out slowly.
As long as she lived, she posed a danger to those he loved.
The hot water streamed over the scars on his back, prickling, burning, permanent reminders of her cruelty.
He curled his fingers into tight balls as anger, hatred, overwhelmed the deep-seated despair. Fighting down the urge to put his fist into the wall, pretending it was her, he let out an inhuman roar.
He didn’t want his darkness to return.
For too long, revenge dictated his life.
It nibbled away at his moral compass until there was nothing left. Nothing but a hollow pit of darkness and despair.
But now, it hovered over him again, growing larger, taunting him, feeding the desire to kill.
Murderer, his conscience mocked. “You’re no better than Kamila,” he ground out between clenched teeth.
A man with darkness in his heart will not rescue a deer.
“You’re wrong, Red. So very wrong.”
His heart was dark. Pitch black.
Kamila Carvalhowoulddie.
By his own hand.
*
Rafferty strode across the sloping ground to the edge of the shimmering lake grateful for the protection of sunglasses and ball cap shielding his eyes from the bright glare. A grouping of mature willow trees, their weeping branches strung with fragile green shoots, blocked his path. He shoved through the trailing limbs into a thin, half-formed canopy where the sunlight bledin weak and broken shafts. The ground sucked at his feet, damp and cold. A shiver raked down his spine, and he quickened his pace, bursting out into the open as if the demons of hell were at his heels.
“Fuck,” he exclaimed, breathing hard. He yanked off the cap and sunglasses and closed his eyes, lifting his face to the sun, absorbing as much of the mild spring heat as possible. But instead of warming him, of energizing him, a weariness that went beyond a sleepless night overtook him.
He cursed again, needing to get his act together. Snap out of this funk.
His meeting with CPS was rescheduled for four this afternoon, and he needed his mind in the right place, not mired in the past.
Fucking Kamila, yanking him back into his nightmare.
