Page 74 of That Sik Luv

“Throw the fucking knife, Briony,” I snap, taunting her. “Throw it to ensure you’ll get your answers, or you get nothing more from me. I’m the only one alive who knows your secrets and is willing to tell them. So make your choice.”

Her nostrils flare as her other hand curls into a fist near her hip. “You evil bastard.”

I can’t help but smirk. Words like that are foreplay for a man like me. The pain of the inevitable truth behind the word bastard sends a blow to my gut, tearing through my emotional core, sending blood to my groin. If she wants her truth, she’ll be forced to learn to protect herself by the brutal assassin himself.

I rest my head back casually, cocking a brow as she wipes the tears from her face, angrily tossing them to the dirt beneath us, pushing through her pain to find the fight within her.There you are, baby.

“Fuck me up, darling,” I say, staring dangerously into her timid eyes as she squares herself off and I await my fate. “It’s your only chance.”

Chapter thirty-seven

Everything

I’mtrembling.Myfrustrationsare coursing through my bloodstream, burning hot with a rage so intertwined with confusion and pain I could burst.

I woke to find Aero had left the bed cold beside me. I’d assumed it would happen, and to be honest, I was hoping for the opportunity to get some answers about the man of mystery my heart beats for.

A man like Aero doesn’t think traditionally. I knew his secrets wouldn’t be kept in safes hidden in office spaces. No, his secrets would be kept in plain sight. Simplistic minds would never assume his assortment of uncovered documents would be tucked and stored in the most unsuspecting of places.

But after an hour of scouring his home, finding one strange door at the back of the house locked shut, and leaving the rest of his place in a chaotic mess of clothing, papers, and about a thousand hidden knives tucked away, I’d all but given up finding it. Thinking into the mind of the psychotic himself, I realized he assumed I’d be onto him. Maybe the key was simplicity. He’d assume I wouldn’t go for the obvious, knowing who he is. Who I am. These mind games are fucking with me, the reverse psychology hurting my brain.

Back to the room I went–the room he’d set up specifically for me. I thought to myself, where do stupid people hide money?Under the mattress.

My stomach dropped when I lifted my side of the bed, only to reach under and feel the edge of the wrinkled paper at my fingertips. It practically twisted into a knot when I saw the familiar yellowish-brown textured envelope slide out from beneath the mattress. It sank when I held the package to my chest, feeling the same weight in my hand I’d felt that night, pulling it from the safe.

I ripped into it, immediately pulling out documents and flipping through them.

I flipped so fast my brain couldn’t even retain the information correctly. Names, dates, certain words popped out at me and flooded me with a wave of uncertainty and panic.

Certificate of birth.

Callum Westwood.

Veronica Fields

United States Vs. Aero Westwood

Alastor Abbott.

Margaret Moore.

St. Augustine’s Hospital.

Felony murder.

Briony Strait.

What is this? What are these documents in here for? Nothing is adding up, and why is my birth certificate part of this? I’ve been tied into whatever sickening history Aero carries, and he’s held this from me.

My whole life...is a pool of deception and lies from the powers that be. According to the birth certificate with my name on it, it says I wasn’t even born in 2002, but in 2004, at a different hospital, in a completely different town.

This has to be wrong. Some sort of sick, twisted mistake.

I’ve been swimming in deceptions. Drowning; slowly, the bubbles drain from my lungs of my past life until I’m left fading into the numbing sounds of the deep water surrounding me.

That was, untilhefound me.

I can only hope there is some sort of explanation for this. That Aero has answers to clear up whatever I’ve discovered. That he will justify his reasons for keeping this information from me, and will take this painful piercing sensation in my brain and make it stop.

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