Page 6 of Executing Malice (Jefferson Rejects #4)

DANTE

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I wasn’t always like this.

Growing up with parents who saw children as nothing more than pawns to be used, I had a bleak outlook on life.

I never liked my parents or my siblings.

I didn’t like the other children that were dumped off on our porch with their garbage bag of things and emptiness in their eyes.

I crawled through each day only to see if the next would be better.

It never was.

Fourteen years of terror and torture, of lying awake in the dark, counting the screams and wishing I wasn’t so weak. I was created from violence and born into violence where I was taught to trust no one and believe nothing.

Then she arrived.

This tiny, fierce creature with the biggest, greenest eyes and a fire that seemed infinite. She slipped over the threshold with the defiance and calm rage of a feral cat.

It wasn’t love.

It wasn’t even admiration .

Seeing her, knowing what was about to become of her, I was filled with dread.

Grief even. I was overcome with panic knowing that she would not leave that place whole.

Even the toughest kids never outlasted my dad, or my brother.

The two were cut from the same sadistic slab of rot.

Twins to the core. The evil that oozed through the bulging veins of my father coursed through Everett, and we all knew it.

But she stepped into the dingy mess of Mother’s kitchen in her torn jeans, black hoodie and a single backpack slung over one shoulder and did what every kid under that roof knew to never do.

She looked straight into my brother’s eyes like she couldn’t care less about him. No fear. No resistance. He could have been an abandoned spoon forgotten on the sidewalk.

And, boy, did that piss Everett off.

He didn’t show it where the tired social worker could see the slip in his mask.

As the eldest, our parents depended on him to help them put on a good face.

The rest of us were too young, but Everett knew how to charm the pants off a duck once he set his mind to it.

Even with the devil in him, Everett had the face of an angel, but I knew my brother.

I knew he would not let her disrespect slide.

Even when he grinned back at her and motioned that she “follow him up to her new room,” I knew he would make an example out of her. He would make it hurt .

And there was nothing we could do about it.

Unlike Father, who loved little girls tucked snug in their beds, Everett liked them for a different reason. The same, but different. Father liked breaking their bodies. Everett fucked with their heads.

Not even our sister was safe from them and their hunger, especially when the social workers would bring boys. Father had no need for boys. Everett ... gender never mattered to him as long as he could make them bleed.

But Leila was different.

The urgency in me to keep her safe extended beyond my own safety.

It unspooled into an obsession, a mission carved into my very marrow by God himself.

It wasn’t this. This thing I feel for her today.

It wasn’t mindless madness, silk-wrapped in love and desire.

It was innocent. My love for her was protective and gentle.

A tenderness I hadn’t felt even towards my own siblings.

A friendship and connection unlike anything before it.

She was my person.

The light that chased away the demons in my head.

Her every breath was my religion.

I would sleep with my head on her chest just to hear the Morse code of her heartbeat just for me.

She broke my walls and climbed into the darkness with me when I had no one else and took my hand. All that time, I thought I was protecting her when in reality, she saved me .

She gave me hope. The possibility of a future.

Then she fucking left.

She vanished into the void like some ghost. She slipped free of me so effortlessly, I half believed I made her up. That she’d been a figment of my exhausted, malnourished imagination. An illusion derived of my fears and loneliness.

But then I’d touch the woven plait held together around my dominant hand and I knew I wasn’t crazy.

She had been my world for five years. She had promised me a forever place in her life once we both turned eighteen.

I didn’t falter from the plan. I stayed in that hell with her, waiting for her to join me over the invisible line of adulthood.

We only had a few more months to wait. Then we’d leave, get our own place.

Live together. Get married. Have babies.

That was the plan!

I tug sharper on the braid, desperately trying to anchor myself to stop the haunting urge to kick open the trap door and stalk downstairs. To march into her room and demand answers.

I focus back on the screen once more, on the figure shoving back the throw off her legs and pushing to her feet off the sofa. Her book is marked with a thin piece of receipt paper and set on the end table. I don’t need to look to know it’s ten; that’s her usual quit time .

“That’s it. Bedtime,” I murmur as I watch her fold up the loosely knitted blanket and drape it over the back of the sofa.

She shuts off the lamp, makes no effort to check the locks or set an alarm as she wanders lazily into the bedroom.

I hit record on my main monitor and sit back to enjoy the show.

I may have thousands of hours of footage, but I will never not watch as Leila prepares for bed. As she swipes off her loose trousers and T-shirt. I watch as she stands before the mirror in the corner and studies the hills and valleys of her body.

She’s perfect.

Every curve soft, sweet satin I could spend hours tracing with my tongue. Skin the delicate blush of a pink rose. Full hips perfect for a man’s greedy hands.

My hands.

My fingers digging and marking as I guide her back over me again and again.

Every inch of her is a poem, a prose I want carved into my flesh. Into my soul. I want hours ... days to explore every hidden freckle, every mark. I want to worship at her feet and erase every insecurity she might possibly have.

And I know she has them. I see them in the pursed state of her pouty mouth as she scowls at her reflection. The displeasure on her face as she takes in her midsection has my head rocking side to side .

Leila clicks her tongue and pokes at her stomach like it’s something disgustingly unworthy of physical contact. I try to see what she’s seeing, but I can’t. I don’t get it.

“How can you not see how perfect you are?” I mutter to myself and exhale loudly. “I guess I’ll just have to make you see it.”

She unsnaps the hooks on her bra and the full, generous globes spill free. Delicious hills that make my mouth water and my cock hard. My body instinctively tightens as if I can nuzzle them. Palm their spongy mounds and tease the tight little points until she’s writhing and whimpering.

I know she loves it when I suck on one and tease the other.

I know she likes it when I use just enough teeth to pinch.

Her breasts are her pressure points, tender areas that get her wet.

There’s also a spot just inside her knees that gets her going.

But as a breast guy, I don’t waste the opportunity when I get it to taste them.

I shift in my seat and wince at the sharp prickle in my side.

The raw burn still fresh beneath the flimsy square of gauze.

The area itches, a persistent reminder of my devotion to the woman below.

It’s no longer bleeding, but it had with every careful drag of the razorblade.

Every curve in Leila’s name. I read somewhere once that the abdomen was the place that left the clearest scars so it made the most sense, even if I nearly cracked every tooth in my head trying to stifle the agony.

Blood had welled and trickled along the plains of my abdomen, making my fingers slick around the blade.

Droplets hit the countertops and rained across the tiles.

I nearly lost a finger slipping the blade into the soft flesh of the apple.

It wasn’t nearly as easy as one would assume.

It was worse bending and moving to clean my mess. Couldn’t have Leila come home to that. It’s wiser not to leave blatant evidence all over the place.

Like the candy apple.

I didn’t think she’d call the sheriff or that he would actually do anything — wouldn’t have mattered if he had — but I’m not stupid and I’m not taking that risk. Our games have only just started and I’m not ready to show her my hand. We still have eleven days before the big reveal.

Beneath my bare feet, a phone rings. Obviously, not mine. I don’t even keep mine on. Not that I have anyone who would call me, but just in case.

My attention pivots to Leila as she turns away from the mirror and hurries to her nightstand where she’d plugged her phone in earlier. The device is disconnected, and her thumb brushes the talk button.

“Hey. ”

Even without the murmur of her sweet voice pouring through the headphones clamped over my ears, her words carry up through the floorboards.

“Not much. Just getting ready for bed.”

Curiosity has my head cocking to one side as Leila spins on the heels of her feet in the direction of the camera hidden over her vanity. The adorable, playful grin on her face has my eyes narrowing.

Who the fuck...?

I know she’s not seeing anyone. I made sure the second I arrived in town.

I went through the entire house, followed her for weeks, prepared to commit murder if necessary, but Leila has always been a creature of habit.

Work and home. The only man she associates with is the non-brother, but he never calls this late at night because he knows she goes to bed at this time.

So, who has her smiling?

“I don’t believe you. You’re just a tease who likes getting me excited just to leave me hanging.”

Okay, I am no longer amused.