Page 114 of Darling Psycho

They’d had a straightforward life in New Mexico. Juana and Tonio Cabello met and worked their whole lives on a peanut farm. Their first time on a plane had been to Denver. An ill-fated trip, Angela wished with all her heart she’d never begged for. Her birthday wasn’t until later in the year, but they’d taken the trip in the heart of summer to camp in the Colorado mountains.

Even now, she saw that night clearly behind her eyelids.

The attack.

The way her parents fought to save Angela from being taken by masked men.

They’d fought so hard, and she still heard her mom’s screams. Still felt the pain of being punched in the face and then waking up in the back of a truck, scared out of her mind. From that moment, Angela’s life was irrevocably changed, and to this day, she didn’t know what had happened to her parent’s bodies.

A long time afterward, she’d tried to reach her old friends through Facebook, but it didn’t take long to realize she didn’t feel right in her old life, that she was already stained by the world she’d been thrust into. Oh, her foster family cared for her as much as she’d allowed, and in some ways, she loved them for accepting a mourning, closed-off girl. But for whatever morbid reason, she always yearned to be around the dangerous men who’d saved her that night. It was always peace she experienced when she walked through the RSMC doors. She wasn’t born to that lifestyle or those people, but they were her family, and she’d do anything for them.

The only thing in her power now was to make her parents proud by going to college and earning a good living.

Behind her, as she stared into the impenetrable forest belly, she heard the crunch of feet. Her heart raced for an additional reason that had nothing to do with guilt or sadness. And when a hand came around her waist, Angela leaned into the massive body with the slab of quilted muscles decorating along his covered torso.

Zips of pleasure assaulted when a gray hoodie jacket came over her shoulders, and she slipped both arms in. Lawless turned her around to zip it up.

He’d been gone when she climbed out of bed, but heard him working out in the basement gym. She’d assumed she’d be back in the cabin before he noticed her gone. Angela should have been better prepared because Lawless knew and saw everything.

“I’ve been watching you for ten minutes, staring into the woods. Do you see something?” he kept them connected back to front, and she no longer felt the cold nipping at her face.

“Ghosts,” she answered, then turned her head to look up. “Have you been spying on me with your little cameras again?”

“Yes,” no hesitation, and she laughed at the way he didn’t give a fuck for his intrusion.

“Why does that comfort me? I must be crazy.”

“Must be,” Lawless smirked in return. “What’s going on, Angela?”

She told him why she was there, so he didn’t think she was insane.

He didn’t react.

More importantly, he didn’t show sympathy.

Lawless should scare her. His crimes were lengthy; his acts were atrocious. By anyone’s standards, he was not the good guy here.

On paper, she shouldn’t be attracted. She should run in the opposite direction.

On paper, he was mad, bad, and terrible. Without ethics, no morals to speak of, and living under his own code.

But there was nowhere on earth she felt safer than right there in his arms pressed against Lawless’ chest. She trusted him with every wrong thought and sad memory.

And because she trusted him, she shared what she hadn’t even voiced out loud because it made her despicable. She loved Zara, Rider, and the rest of them, but she could live without them. She’d miss Colorado and everything she’d achieved in her life in the last few years, but she’d cope without it.

Living without ever knowing Lawless, though? That was something she couldn’t face thinking about.

Though she missed her parents until her heart broke, if the events hadn’t brought her to Colorado, she’d never would have met him.

And that was unthinkable.

“I’m a horrible person,” she spoke quietly, emotion locking up her voice box, her eyes on the forest, wondering if her parents were there somewhere. She couldn’t bear the thought of them being cold and alone. Were they even buried together? Her mom could never sleep without Tonio beside her. “If it never happened, I wouldn’t have met you, grumpy.”

“That’s not true,” he said, curling a hand around her nape. He squeezed her gently. “monsters always find each other, Angela.”

Her heart thumped hard.

“I would have been on a run to New Mexico one day, and this dark-haired, mouthy thing would have caught my attention. She would have been busting someone’s balls for something they did because she’s a world defender. She looks out for the underdog. And at first, I would have been amused by the badass, probably with a nerdy boyfriend hanging close by, salivating over her. And then she would have looked my way, and I would have known.”