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“That involves hearing about what I do for a living. Which is kill people.”

She releases a shaky breath, but instead of retreating as I had expected, she nods her head. “Okay.”

That single word only made up for four letters, meant more to me than she could ever imagine.

“You’re not going to like what you hear,” I argue, and for the first time, I think I’m searching for an excuse not to tell her. I’ve always been honest with her, but right now, I don’t think I can handle her vicious rejection.

“Maybe not,” she concedes. “But you said before you save women and children. Was that not true?”

I pin her with my stare, conveying just how serious I am. “That is what I do. All of what I told you is one hundred percent the truth. I just didn’t go into detail about what I do once I catch them.”

“Torture them,” she easily guesses. Those four politicians exposed that truth.

She pauses, her caramel eyes boring into me. She’s absently chewing her lip, contemplating something, it seems. Whatever she decides, she nods her head slightly to herself.

I’m very curious to know what’s going on in that head of hers.

“Tell me,” she says, her tone firm and unyielding. “I want to know everything… about you.” She ends her sentence with a wrinkle of her nose as if she thought she’d never say those words. It brings a small grin to my face.

“You mean besides what it feels like to have my cock in every hole of your body?”

She scoffs, a pretty blush staining her cheeks.

“You have not,” she snaps.

“Yet,” I promise. I haven’t taken her ass yet, but I fully intend to. Soon.

“Zade, focus,” she hisses. But her clenched thighs and blown eyes don’t go unnoticed.

I look off to the side and stare out at the Bay, focusing on something mundane, despite how beautiful it is with the water sparkling beneath the sunlight.

Everything is mundane when Addie is present.

There’s a small thicket of trees leading up towards the cliff, the crooked branches deprived of leaves and reaching towards the sky as if begging for life again. They’re dying, and it imitates what I feel on the inside right now.

“I target specific people. Politicians. Celebrities. Businessmen. People in positions of power or who have money. And even people who are the lowest of the totem pole and will do anything to get by. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what their job is or how much money they have because they’re all the same. They’re human sex traffickers.

“For years, I’ve been targeting pedophile rings and dismantling them. Rescue the girls and children and either send them back to their family or send them to a safe, undisclosed location where they can live the rest of their lives in comfort.

“But about nine months ago, a video leaked of a sadistic ritual taking place. They were sacrificing a child and drinking his blood. Since then, a few more videos have leaked, including one last night.” I pause, clenching my jaw and trying to regain the composure that is beginning to slip through my fingers.

Blowing out a deep breath, I continue. “I’ve told you already that Mark was in the first video, which is why I targeted him and the three other men I killed. All four of them were performing the ritual. The night I killed Mark, he disclosed the location to me, so I went there yesterday to insert myself, gain trust, and be invited into the dungeon

. They were drinking out of the same goblets that they use in the ritual.”

I pause, nearly blind from rage as I admit, "I think this recent video was from last night, and those goblets were full of blood from a sacrifice they performed while I was there."

The coffee cup clatters against the metal table, nearly toppling over as Addie attempts to set it down. Her hand is badly shaking and it looks like a piece of the ceramic breaks off.

“What the fuck,” she breathes, her eyes wide with shock and repulsion. Though, they don't stray from me as she says, "Zade you couldn't have known that's what was happening. You can't blame yourself for that."

I clench my teeth against the snarl threatening to take over my face, the muscle in my jaw threatening to burst. "The fuck I can't," I snap.

She flinches, her face softening.

"I didn't build Z and become who I am today to allow for a child to be sacrificed right fucking below me. And watch sick fucks drink their blood like its goddamn water."

Tears form in her eyes, but she stays silent while I work to calm myself down.