Page 43 of Crazy Rich Monsters (Necessary Evils 1)

The towel slips from my waist, pooling at the floor around my ankles. Her eyes shift down. Even in the midst of what she perceives to be a life and death argument, she still can’t keep her eyes off of me. I can’t help but to smirk a little as a reach for my clothes on the bed, making sure to not take my eyes off her. God knows what she’s capable of.

“Just give me a moment okay.” I climb into a pair of black boxer trunks. “I promise we can pick up right where we left off.” And then I pull a pair of loose jeans over my legs, watching her as she continues to watch me. Her eyes flinch when I button the top button of my jeans.

She clears her throat and looks away, looks anywhere but straight at me. It’s as if she doesn’t want me to know she was looking at me the way she was.

A little too late for that, princess.

“I admit that I’m fucked up, but you wallow in your sociopathy like you don’t know,” she says. “I guess ignorance really is bliss. I wish I didn’t know the things I know.”

“You’re talking about Emily?” I raise an inquisitive brow, hoping that somehow, she glanced overthat partof the forum post.

“What in the fuck is wrong with her?”

“For starters, you killed her brother. Allegedly.”

“She was there that day, so she’s quite certain what happened. If you’re so confident that I did that, then answer me just one question.” She steps close to me, her pretty eyes level with my chin, but she stands tall and firm in her stance. “Why did she confirm my story?”

“That’s a very interesting question and the one I brought you here to discuss, because I have to be honest, none of it makes any fucking sense to me.” I point to my own head. “Maybe that means I’m fucking crazy. I don’t know anymore but darling, today I’m going to understand, even if that means tying you up and coercing a confession out of you.”

I hadn’t exactly considered doing such a thing, but now that I’ve said it, I realize it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever had. As has become typical, the imagery in my mind goes sideways. She’s tied to a chair with her hands cuffed behind her back and wearing a matching set of lace panties and a bra. There’s a ball gag in her mouth, but there’s not exactly tears in her bloodshot eyes. She peels her eyes upwards, hooking me with the claws of a sexy,come fuck me, gaze.

I shake the image from my mind and when I come back to reality, Addison is in the process of attempting to brush past me. I twist on my feet and reach for her arm, pulling her back. “I’m not finished with you yet.”

“Oh, I’m well aware of that.” She shakes free from my grip. “I just want to make sure I’m standing on the opposite side of you so that you can’t throw me through the window or something.”

“That’s rich,” I scoff, considering who I’m talking to.

“We still have a long list of things to discuss,” she says. “Why are you stalking my friend, Paige?”

“That girl isn’t your friend, for starters. Whatever relationship the two of you had when you were younger, that’s over. And for the record, she believes you’re just as guilty as I do.”

That seems to get a reaction out of her, one that’s real and rooted in anything other than a charade of a performance. The corners of her eyes glisten. They strain, pulling tight, in a desperate attempt to hold back any display of emotion that might be consideredreal.

“She’s the only reason I’m back in this hellhole,” she says lowly, rocks in her throat, as she drags a finger over the edge of her eyes. “I never should have come back.”

“You can’t change the past.”

Her eyes peel upwards. The tears are still there, but there’s bloodshot anger narrowing in on me. “Do you think I don’t know that? I never thought things could get any worse, but just take a look at me. Take a look at my life. My mother is as big of a mess as she ever was. I’m trapped in whatever this is between you and me, and the one person I thought I could count on tried killing my mother and me.”

It’s almost sad. If I was the type of man to shed tears, this would be my perfect opportunity, but I’m not built like that. She’s reached this moment in her life by the consequences of her own actions. For the first time ever, she’s letting down her walls, and I have every intention of taking advantage of that.

“Why has Emily protected you all this time?”

She looks away from me, dragging her hand over her eyes. “She’s like a sister to me.”

“That’s not answering my question.”

“I don’t know.” She throws her hands outwards. “Why did you protect her? You cornered me in the hospital, took responsibility for the fire, and blackmailed me into going to the Fire and Ice Ball. Why go to those lengths? It’s like you wanted to punish me. You wanted to have that power over me, so you admitted to doing something awful just to get a rise out of me.”

“Maybe we’re more alike than either of us want to believe,” I say with a shrug, but my words don’t ring true. It’s all a game of manipulation. The more she can relate to me, the more she’ll be comfortable telling the truth. No matter how long, no matter how, I won’t allow her to leave this house until the truth is spilled onto the floor like a pool of blood flowing from a lifeless body. “We’ve spent all this time at war at each other when we should have been working together.”

She stares me down and I’m unsure if she’s buying what I’m trying to sell. She cocks her head sideways, contemplatively. “When I came out of the house, I saw you standing across the street. You were there.”

I nod in agreement before taking a step backwards and dropping down onto the edge of the bed. “The house was ablaze before I even arrived. I was only there for maybe a minute before you came stumbling out the front door. If you would have come out a minute sooner, you would have seen Emily running away from the scene of the crime. To answer your other question, Emily doesn’t know that I know what she did.”

“I could have turned you into the police.”

“But you didn’t.” I wag my finger at her. “I don’t know why you didn’t.”

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