Page 143 of Vicious Hearts

I give him the cash for the ride and open the door.

“Sweetheart—”

“I’m not a sweetheart.”

I shut the door with athunkand watch the cab pull a hasty U-turn and slip away into the night.

What the fuck are you doing?

I glance over to where Cillian’s GTO is parked and then peek down the side of the dark building in the direction I saw him head about four minutes ago.

Based on where we are, I’m willing to bet that my ragingly jealous ideas that Cillian’s going out to meet some other girl are probablyveryincorrect. But he’s here for a reason, and I’m not leaving until I find out why the fuck he’s been sneaking out so much late at night.

I have to know. I’ll go insane otherwise.

I creep down the side of the building. With every step, I frown as some kind of dull, quietthwackingsound fills my ears. It gets louder the closer I get to the far corner of the building, and suddenly I shiver when the sound is punctuated by a cry of pain.

My head peeks around the corner of the building…

…And my world goes still.

Cillian is moving like some sort of demonic creature of the night. The man in front of him cries out as something glinting and metallic flashes in Cillian’s hand. When the geyser of red explodes out of the man’s throat, I gag, pulling back and retreating around the corner, slamming a hand over my mouth.

Holy fuck. Holy. FUCK.

I hear the dull thud of a dead body hitting the ground. Then another man’s snarl. Steeling myself, I peek around again, and my eyes go wide as I fully drink in the scene.

There are two bodies lying lifeless in rapidly-spreading puddles of blood. A third man groans, trying to claw and drag himself across the filthy ground, his legs broken and limp, trailing long streaks of red behind him.

Cillian grins like a maniac and hisses like an animal as a fourth man charges him, brandishing a baseball bat. In one fluid motion, Cillian catches it on the downswing, wrenches it out of the man’s hand, and then shoves the blade in his other hand uphardinto the man’s belly.

Bile swirls in my stomach as I watch the man I’ve been sharing a bed and my body with jerk his arm violently. The man impaled on his knife chokes and gurgles as Cillian literallydisem-fucking-bowelshim right there in front of me.

Holy fucking Christ.

I whirl, trying to clamp my mouth shut. But there’s no stopping the vomit.

There’s no stopping the sound it makes, either.

I bend forward, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. I go to peer around the corner again…

…and fuckingscreamwhen I come face to face with Cillian—grim, brandishing the knife in his hand, blood that clearly isn’t his soaking the front of his shirt. Dripping off his hands. Spattering his shoes.

Speckling his jaw.

“Una,” he chokes, his eyes flickering as the malevolence I just saw in them morphs into something more familiar but still cataclysmically furious. “What thefuckare you doing here?”

“I—I—!”

My eyes dart past him to the three dead men. To the fourth, who looks like he won’t last another five minutes.

“What the fuck—”

“This is who I am,” Cillian snarls viciously. I shudder, whimpering as he grabs the front of my hoodie and yanks me close to sneer down into my stricken, terrified face. “You wantdarkness, Una?! You think what’s inside you comes evenclose toresembling the poison in me?”

I quail under the snarled words and cold look.

“Here!”

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