Page 61 of Bound to a Killer
The roar of the shower stream suddenly feels too loud as he finishes rinsing me off. We both avoid each other’s eyes as I stay facing the wall, the water cooling around us.
My chest tightens as I wonder where we’ll go from here. What all of this will mean tomorrow.
18
LEDGER
I’m a fucking bastard.
I steer into the last narrow road that’ll take us back to the janky warehouse, my hand flexing around the wheel, mind reeling with the aftermath of what went down yesterday in the shower.
The sounds of her breathy moans. The perfect arch of her slender figure as she bowed to my touch, her legs trembling as she shook with the pleasure I gave her.
My jeans tighten as I replay every second of it, chest heaving with the weight of what I’ve done. The guilt claws its way up, ruthless and familiar, reminding me of just how much of a piece of shit I am for touching something that was never mine to take. I fucked up. Again. Like I always do.
I had no business scattering my filthy, blood-stained hands across her silken, untarnished skin. Skin that always seems to heat beneath my touch, drawing me deeper, as if I could leave some kind of mark on her before we inevitably part. This time for good.
Today was supposed to mark our last day lying low in the shadows as Antonio’s fugitives, biding our time until I finallygot the call that, in my mind, would wash away all my previous sins. Offer all of us a clean slate as we embark on a new journey far away from here. Different names, a change of scenery, a fresh start. One where I didn’t have to force myself over her to extract fear and obedience for the sake of our survival. A chance to mend what was broken.
Except now I see just how delusional that line of thinking was, after I fumbled and warped what was supposed to be my display of dominance into an uncharted territory, a murky space that teeters dangerously close to redefining the cold, hard truth to myself.
That I’m a deeply disturbed, sick individual. Someone who pushed manipulation and fear tactics to overpower a girl who didn’t have another option but to submit to my will.
A girl that I was sure was below the legal age.
A girl that I’d illegally kidnapped before shredding every aspect of her old life apart and cruelly reminding her of it each step of the way.
My stomach sours with a heavy churn.
Once I get us all out of this forsaken place, she’ll want nothing to do with me. I’m nothing but the villain in her story, the monstrous murderer who took everything away from her before tossing her aside in some foreign land, abandoned and alone.
She’ll resent me forever. I knew that with every twist and coil inside my gut when I stepped into that shower with her, that this would be the one and only time I’d get to pretend that she wanted me there. That I hadn’t screwed up too badly.
And maybe one day, she’ll realize why it had to be this way. But that day isn’t today.
Right now, every other thought has to be set aside to make room for what matters: tying loose ends and getting the hell out of here before we run out of the last grain in our quicklydwindling hourglass, the countdown flickering at the edge of my vision every time a cop car passes in my periphery.
So far, luck has been in my favor, especially with the added security of being across state borders, but it won’t hold out for too long. Nothing good ever does. We’ve gotten too far to be met with an arrest or stumble into one of Antonio’s men along the way.
After we depart and I sort Frankie and Aria’s living arrangements, I’ll come find Antonio myself. I won’t let Tanner go down in this alone. I swore it.
Aria keeps quiet just as I trained her to, eyes glued to the window, pensive and distant. I’d give anything to be able to get into her head right now. Dig deeper into her thoughts. See how much of them are about how vile and irreparable I am, like I don’t already know it myself.
What happened between us in the shower wasn’t a mutual act of desire or longing by any stretch of the imagination. Although, a flicker of hope has sparked somewhere in my blackened heart, a deeper yearning for something that’s impossible to ask for, especially from a victim.
My victim.
Who am I kidding?
Any affection she’s ever shown me was for survival, nothing more. My conscience won’t let me forget it.
I pull into the wide parking lot, my eyes leaving the rearview mirror to focus on the shiny, new, charcoal gray Dodge Charger parked beside the red pickup truck. My muscles tense almost instantly, my foot easing up on the gas pedal, my vision scanning the otherwise empty lot as I creep forward.
There are two men who work inside, so it makes sense why there’d be two vehicles. Still, it only appearing now while it was nowhere in view yesterday alarms me, but there’s no need to tense over a detail so miniscule. Car troubles aren’t uncommon,and neither is sharing a vehicle. So they drove separately today. No big deal.
“Guess all of us still need to go down together,” Frankie says nervously from the passenger seat as I park near the back entrance, leaving a couple of empty spaces between us and the other two cars.
The locks flick open and I snap my seatbelt off before twisting my neck to the side. “We’ll be in and out this time. Just have to grab the IDs.”
