Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 422(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“It had to be me,” he said, not bothering with any kind of pretense. Wasn’t his style.
“To find her that day, to be the first one to touch her,” he continued. “It had to be me.” He gave me a level look. “She wouldn’t have been able to survive it being you.”
Then the fucker just turned and walked off.
I really hadn’t wanted to believe him at the time, I’d wanted to think he was a friend who saw me beating myself up and wanted to placate me with bullshit. Except Hades didn’t do bullshit.
And the more I’d thought about it, the more I understood. He was the darkest fucker in the club, bar none. There was something about him. Somethings that unnerved even the most hardcore of criminals. Scared them. He’d seen shit, been to places even I hadn’t.
It had taken two fucking years to get Sariah to stop running from me. Months more after that to get her to believe she was worthy of me, as fucked-up as that was. It had taken everything she had to let me in. Because I wasn’t the one who found her in her worst moment.
I fucking hated it, but without Hades being the one, Sariah wouldn’t be mine, she wouldn’t have my mark tattooed over her scars.
So yeah, I didn’t like their connection on principle, but fuck was I grateful for it.
Because of that connection, Hades was hell-bent on finding this copycat before he could plunge her into a place neither of us could get her out of.
It had kept me up at night. Every day we didn’t find him. Every moment I wasn’t with her.
What was fucking laughable was that Sariah seemed … okay. Sure, there were more shadows behind her eyes, but she smiled. Laughed. She slept in my arms, through the night, no nightmares.
She wasn’t haunted by this.
And I fucking wouldn’t let her be.
Until we heard that he had the reporter. Though none of us liked the bitch, no one deserved to be fucking tortured, tossed in the desert like trash. Well, the fucker hurting women deserved that.
My phone was at my ear as I jogged out of the coffee shop toward the apartment, a two-minute walk away. I could see the prospect on his bike outside. That should’ve reassured me, but it didn’t. I had a boulder in my chest.
“I promise, I did not condone this,” Ollie spluttered as she answered.
Fuck.
“I told her to call you. The police.”
I ran faster, rocks in my stomach. “You told her that,” I seethed, “but you also told her where he was, knowing her well enough to know she wouldn’t call me or the cops.”
“I did,” Ollie sighed, having the decency to sound ashamed. “She needed this.”
“My woman did not need another moment of blood, of being near a man who cuts up women,” I roared, ending the call before shoving my cell in the pocket of my cut.
I’d already known Sariah wasn’t going to be there. But it hit fucking home when the place was empty, her glass still half full, computer still open to the plans for her women’s center.
Her purse was gone.
As was the gun I’d given her.
Fuck.
“I swear, I was watching the whole time,” the prospect said when I stormed out of the building.
I didn’t verbally respond to him, just punched him in the face. Hard. Hard enough for him to fall on his ass.
“Don’t get up,” I snarled at him. “Not in my presence. And when you do peel yourself off the sidewalk, take off that fuckin’ cut, and get the fuck outta town if you want to be breathing in the morning.”
I turned to Hades who was observing like he was watching the morning news.
“We gotta get there before it’s too late.”
He nodded.
But somehow, I already knew it was too late.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
SARIAH
It was not a smart idea.
I’d had some pretty dumb ideas in my life.
Going on a date with a serial killer made the list. Though in my defense, I didn’t know he was a serial killer at the time.
This one took the cake.
Ollie had tried to talk me out of it. Persistently. But Ollie was also the one who told me there was a DNA match for the killer in the federal database and that the police hadn’t found him yet.
But she had. By pinging his cellphone. Along with Emily’s. They were at the same location.
He had her. Whether it was because he’d seen her poking around or she’d accidently stumbled upon him didn’t matter. This was a man who wanted to kill women. He wasn’t organized or meticulous like Granger. He’d deviate from his classic victim profile if he had the opportunity. And it seemed he had the opportunity with Emily Ryan.
The smart idea would be to go to the police. For any other citizen. If you were currently dating an outlaw biker, the smartest idea would’ve been to call aforementioned outlaw biker boyfriend. He and the club would’ve ridden out there to save her, kill the murderer. As they’d done with me.