Page 68

SIXTY-EIGHT

XERO

It’s astounding.

Amethyst drags the corpse through her backyard and into the trees bordering the cemetery, all the while looking over her shoulder to meet my eyes. I don’t know what’s going on in her twisted little mind.

Does she think I’m a ghost or a hallucination? Either way, she’s taking my presence in stride. Her reactions—both to my appearance and stabbing a man to death—are proof that she pretended to be a delicate little flower who needed my guidance.

All that woman ever needed from me was a knife.

Not to mention fortune and fame.

I follow her at a distance, breathing hard through my mask, ruminating over the best way to punish such a hardened liar. She made me think I’d found a kindred spirit, when all she saw in me was a cash cow.

Amethyst moves through the cemetery, making sure to hose down the paving stones leading from her yard. She’s a clever little killer who’s aware she needs to cover her tracks.

From the way her mother talked, she’s tired of covering up her daughter’s kills. How many men, and what were the reasons?

Today’s slaying was a clear case of self-defense, and the music teacher was righteous punishment. What I don’t understand is why Amethyst didn’t tell me about the others… Unless she killed them before the age of ten.

Shit. How do I even know she’s telling the truth about her memory loss? Her fragile mental state made her stand out among all the women writing to me with their fantasies. That, and a vague sense of familiarity.

Not to mention the heavenly scent of her pussy.

Gasping, she struggles past the path of mausoleums to the graveyard bordering the new rectory. Up ahead is a freshly dug grave, complete with discarded tools. Amethyst stops at its edge, grabs the broken handle of the shovel someone discarded, and jumps in.

My jaw drops.

This woman knows exactly what she’s doing.

Footsteps approach from behind. I turn around to find Jynxson strolling down the path. He’s discarded the prison uniform in favor of a black hoodie and jeans.

“Xero?” he asks.

Striding toward him, I raise my finger to my masked lips, making him stop in his tracks.

“What are you doing?” he whispers.

“Watching my obsession,” I mutter.

His brows pull together. “The president of your fan club?”

“Yeah.”

“The woman who left you at the altar?”

I bristle at the reminder. “That’s the one.”

He stares ahead at the grave, where Amethyst left that man’s corpse. “And what is she doing?”

“Hiding a body. What do you think?”

Jynxson scratches his head, his brows creasing, seeming to mirror my own state of confusion. In the space of six hours, I’ve gone from thinking Amethyst was a heartbroken victim held back from completing our union by the warder’s machinations, to the kind of black-hearted grifter who would manipulate a man for personal gain. This third possibility transcends the realm of fiction.

“Did you…?” he starts to ask but can’t find the words. “Are you making her, I mean? ”

“No, I didn’t catch her with another man. At least not in the way you’re thinking. And no, I didn’t force her to do a thing.”

“Right.” He rubs his chin. “Then why are you standing there, dressed like a reject from The Matrix ? Shouldn’t you help your lady?”

“She’s a mercenary little vixen who used me to get a million-dollar book deal.”

He hesitates. “You sure, man?”

“Her personal assistant told me everything,” I snarl, my blood heating at the reminder. “All those letters and morning phone calls were just content for some prison smut book.”

Jynxson bows his head. “Damn. That’s… What are you going to do about it?”

“Undecided.”

“If it makes you feel better, I can hit her over the head with a shovel and cover her with dirt.”

Rage ignites in my gut, consuming all reason and restraint until all I see is red. I whirl around, snatching the front of his shirt and snarl, “No one touches Amethyst but me. Keep your filthy hands off her.”

He snorts. “You still love Amethyst.”

“Get fucked.”

He grins, his eyes dancing. “I’ve never seen you like this over a woman.”

“Keep your voice down.” I drag him back toward the mausoleums.

Jynxson has always been an asshole. Even from the age of ten. He’s the kind of dick who would lie in the bottom bunk in the middle of the night and kick a man while he slept, just to ask him for the time. Or borrow a man’s computer games without permission and return them splattered in juice.

He’s matured over the eighteen years since we first joined the facility, but not by much. And he hasn’t grown out of his shitty sense of humor. I only keep him around because he’s talented and a loyal motherfucker.

“Are you going to kill her, then?” he asks.

“Not until I’ve solved the mystery of her mind,” I mutter.

He glances over his shoulder toward the open grave. “Didn’t you just tell me she’s a user?”

“Who kills men and knows how to dispose of their bodies?” I ask.

“Point taken.” He folds his arms. “Do you think she could be a spy?”

“From the Moirai?”

He nods.

“No. A trained professional would have disabled the man she killed. When I walked in on them, she was losing and about to die.”

“Okay, so what’s special about her?” he asks.

“One, when I slid over the knife, she stabbed him without hesitation. Then she did it again.”

“But isn’t that normal for an angry woman?”

“Two, she called her mother in tears, who ranted about all the men she’s killed.”

Jynxson’s eyes widen. “Interesting.”

“Three, how many civilians do you know can fall calm after killing a man and go straight to clean up?”

Our gazes meet, and my mind races back to her first letter. Amethyst was one of multiple mentally unhinged women who wrote to me, but her letter stood out amongst them all. While the others sent nudes, used panties, and their poorly written fantasies, Amethyst intrigued me with well-crafted phrases on paper scented with her heavenly pussy.

“What are you thinking?” he asks.

“I have no fucking idea. She saw me following her but just looked through me, like I was a figment of her imagination.”

We stand together, debating the nature of her mental state, when a soft grunt returns our attention to the open grave. Amethyst climbs out, her hair in disarray. With calm precision, she rolls the corpse into the open grave and jumps back in.

“You see?” I murmur. “She’s obviously done this before.”

“Hear me out,” Jynxson says.

“What?”

“Is she a former Lolita? ”

I frown. “They stopped bringing girls after our first year. And she’s only twenty-four.”

“They stopped bringing girls to our facility, because we kept asking questions. What if they moved them to another one?”

My stomach drops. All this time, I thought they were a failed experiment. None of the girls who joined the academy were former Lolitas, so I just assumed they were disbanded. I couldn’t stand the thought of more innocent girls being corrupted by that man.

“How the hell could he still be operating?” I snarl.

He places a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. There’s no way you could have known.”

I nod, my gaze darting back to the grave. “There’s only one way to find out.”

“You going to ask her?”

“She doesn’t remember anything before the age of ten.”

“Then how?”

“Crack her open. Once she’s raving mad, I’ll extract her secrets. She might even have leads on where he’s hiding the facility.”

“What about our backlog of paying clients?”

“Our goal is revenge. Those clients only exist to fund the search for my father,” I snarl.

Jynxson doesn’t reply because he doesn’t want to go through this conversation again. We’ve tried everything imaginable to smoke him out, from ruining his business to murdering his family. I thought he would at least attend my execution.

“What if he’s dead?” Jynxson asks.

“He’s alive,” I snarl.

“Maybe it’s time to let go and focus on taking down the Moirai.”

“I can do both.”

He shakes his head but doesn’t waste his breath. It’s different for Jynxson. He’d been living on the streets as a child from an early age and welcomed the chance of shelter, good food and boys his own age. For him, the facility was a refuge.

When Mom’s condition became terminal, she made arrangements for me to live with a friend of hers who had a daughter my age. I was plucked from a happy home, brought into one filled with misery, and manipulated into choosing the facility over a normal life. Seeing something similar happen to my sisters only doubled my resentment.

“The gang wants to throw you a welcome back party,” Jynxson says.

“Later.”

“Should we at least air out your place?” he asks.

“Not yet.” I flick my head toward the open grave. “I’m staying with her.”

“Where?”

“13 Parisii Drive.”

He whistles. “Coincidence?”

“You see why I can’t kill her? Besides, he’ll get sloppy now that he thinks I’m dead. If she’s a former Lolita, I’ll interrogate her for clues.”

Jynxson is about to protest when Amethyst climbs out of the grave, panting hard, and covered in even more dirt. Her stockings have come loose from their garter belt and now gather around her ankles, making her look like she’s been thoroughly fucked.

My cock stirs, and the sensation is accompanied by a surge of jealousy. She might be a lying, conniving, little ghoster, but the only man who should dishevel her is me.

“That’s your plot.” He nods toward the grave.

“What are you talking about?”

“The one your fan club bought.”

I flash my teeth. “You’re fucking kidding.”

“Nope. Someone overheard the gravediggers talking about it earlier.”

“And she’s using it to dispose of scum?” I snarl, my jaw tightening.

He raises a shoulder. “You want someone to remove the corpse?”

“Yeah.” My hands clench into fists. “Have it dug up, embalmed, and brought to number 13.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Smirking, Jynxson gives me a salute and disappears behind a mausoleum.

I drift back to the graveyard, already calculating the number of ways I will terrorize this little ghost. No one exploits my emotions. Not Father, and certainly not some two-faced woman trying to profit from my notoriety.

She brushes the dirt off the front of her corset and hobbles back toward the path. Every few steps, she glances in my direction and shivers.

“By the time I’m finished with you, Amethyst Crowley, you’ll be a nervous wreck. I’ll crack you open, and after plucking every dirty secret, I’ll grant you a messy death.”