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42

ELLA

After a nap that lasted longer than I’d wanted it to, I made my way to the designated office in search of my husband and Kip. However, as I peeked through the entryway, there was no sign of them. As I made the rounds through the building, I still hadn’t found them. Maybe they were with Xavier. It was the only other place I could think of unless they were outside, chatting. It was difficult to stay in this dingy place all the time, but I understood Death couldn’t make it more livable, or it would look suspicious to anyone who wandered upon it.

As I flung open the door to Xavier’s prison, my nostrils were immediately assaulted by a putrid stench that almost caused me to gag. He sat in the corner, his body covered in grime and filth, desperately in need of a bath and clean clothes. I hadn’t noticed it earlier since I was trying to stop Death from killing Xavier.

I glowered at him as I remembered all he had done. The kidnapping, the emotional torture with those goddamn spiders and cage—and just like that my fleeting moment of compassion disappeared, replaced by seething anger and hatred towards this man who has caused me so much pain and fear.

My heart pounded in my chest as I cautiously approached Xavier, keeping a safe distance from him. Death had left him unbound, relying on his broken knees to keep him in place. But I knew better than to underestimate his resourcefulness.

“Xavier?” My voice cracked as I spoke, trying to maintain an air of control. He looked up at me with bloodshot eyes and a lazy smile, clearly high on pain pills.

“I really like these,” he slurred, his movements sluggish and clumsy.

I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pity for him, knowing that even if his knees somehow healed, he would never walk properly again without medical care.

“Have you seen Death or Kip?” My question almost made me laugh. Here he was, drugged out of his mind and locked in this room with no hope of escape or interaction with anyone else, and I was asking if he’d seen my husband. Unless the guys had recently visited him, he was completely isolated.

“Kip gave me this pill, but that was a while ago.” His head rolled and he continued to grin.

My hands balled into fists at my sides, my eyes narrowing into icy daggers as I imagined the different ways I could rip him apart and revel in his pain. My mind raced with sadistic pleasure and a sickening desire to torture him when the time came. But when he’d revealed he was Death’s brother, something inside me snapped. A primal urge to learn more about this twisted family consumed me, overpowering any thoughts of violence. Maybe I could extract some valuable information from him while he was under the influence.

“Xavier?”

“Yup?” He popped his lips.

“Who is your boss? You call him the Pied Piper, but who is he?”

“My boss, my boss.” He peered at me through squinted eyes. “I bet he’s looking for me. We’re very close, you know.”

“I bet that’s nice to have a friend.” I wasn’t sure I was going to make any headway with this conversation, but I had to keep trying. He’d always fallen for my kindness, so maybe it would work again, especially with the help of a pain pill.

“How did you meet him?” A thought had been buzzing around in my brain since Xavier had revealed to Death that they were brothers.

“My family.” He snickered. “The ones still at my kitchen table, waiting for me to come back.”

I kept my mouth shut. He wouldn’t be going home, but he would find that out soon. Even if I didn’t kill him for what he’d done to me, Death would because Xavier knew too much and was crazy enough to not keep our identities to himself. Eventually, he had to die. I didn’t see any other option.

“Boss would come over to my parent’s house for dinner and be nice to me. Sometimes he would even bring a game over and we would play chess or checkers. My family never did that with me. They just locked me in the basement.”

“Kind of like what you did to me, huh?”

His expression fell. “It wasn’t the same, Ella. No. Not the same.”

“And how is that? I couldn’t leave. You held me captive. Fiona said that your boss would have been mad if he knew that you kept me in a cage. Would he have been upset?”

“Nope. It was his idea.” He cackled. “Fiona is a compulsive liar. Nothing that comes out of her mouth is the truth. But me, me you can trust. Death and I are brothers.”

“How, Xavier? How are you related? How in the hell would you even know all of this?”

“Not my story to tell, Ella. But …” He winked at me as if he were a sexy beast.

I stifled my laugh. He was almost entertaining on the pain pills.

“I’m trying hard to understand, but I just don’t. Please help me.” I gulped, attempting to force the next words from my mouth without throwing up. “I need you, Xavier.”

His expression morphed into awe and excitement before he leaned in closer. “You know, Ella, you’re not as innocent as you pretend to be. You’ve got secrets too, don’t you? Dark shadows lurking in the corners of your mind. You and I are the same.”

I raised an eyebrow, intrigued despite myself. “What do you mean?”

He threw his head back and laughed like a damn hyena. “You married a serial killer. You have to be as twisted as he is in order to do something like that.”

I resisted the urge to punch him in his already fucked-up nose. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. He was toying with me, and I was growing impatient.

Xavier leaned in closer, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of mischief and madness. “You want to know the truth, Ella? The truth about Death, about me, about everything?” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.

I glared at him, unsure if he was playing another twisted game or if he was finally going to reveal something substantial. Despite my better judgment, I couldn’t help but be lulled into almost a trance by his cryptic words. “Tell me, Xavier. Tell me everything.”

He sang a few lines of “Prisoner” by Raphael Lake, Aaron levy, and Daniel Ryan Murphy.

Goosebumps pebbled my skin with the haunting lyrics.

Once he was finished, he flashed me a manic grin. “Sebastian thinks he killed his pa-paaa.”

He said papa like crow cawing, and I wanted to reach over and wrap my fingers around his scrawny neck and choke the life out of him. I was sick of his riddles, but this … I hesitated and realized what he’d just said. This riddle might change everything.

“Yeah.” I didn’t want to say too much to encourage Xavier to continue.

“The man he killed wasn’t his pa-paaaa,” he said again with the crow-like pronunciation.

“We.” He tapped his chest. “We were …”

“You were what? You can tell me, Xavier.”

His gaze narrowed on me. “But if I do, you’ll run to tell Death. Boss says it’s not my story to share.”

I gritted my teeth together in an attempt to gather my words and not blurt out what I really wanted to say. “Is this the entire picture or just a tiny detail?” Working in law had helped me rephrase questions and form a loophole or skirt the truth. Maybe it would serve me now.

He held up his first finger and thumb a little bit apart. “Just a dollop.”

“Then you’re not going against what your boss has asked of you, right?”

He leaned against the wall, pondering what I’d said. “You’re a smart one, Ella. But are you smart enough?”

“Are you?” I fired back at him, furious at his nonsense.

He sneered at me. “I’m not the one in question here. Are you smart enough to play the game and walk away with your mind intact?”

I refused to answer him. Stepping backward, I spun on my heel to leave him alone with his pathetic thoughts.

“Sebastian Fletcher was …”