Page 168 of Merciless Obsession

Did that say something about my moral compass?

“Do you always have to be so damn bloody when you get like this?” River muttered, standing in front of the two corpses. His hand cuffed his nose and his brows furrowed. “Good thing we put the tarp down first.”

Ezra didn’t reply. He stood still with the chainsaw in one hand and his other fist balled at his side. Splattered on him were the blood and insides of Douglas. Not only did Ezra take his time cutting his fingers, he also grabbed the chainsaw from the table and used it to split his chest open. It was a good thing he had on a plastic suit.

I rubbed my heavy eyes and blinked a few times. The pain pills Lucas had given me were making it hard for me to stay steady on my feet. The events of today were starting to catch up with me. I wasn’t sure what time it was but I knew my body was begging for a warm bed and pillow. Dull aches came from my wounds. My head hurt and my temples throbbed.

“We’ll wrap this up, but we need to check out these two houses to see if there are any clues that can lead us to who hired them or anything else that can help us,” Nazai told us. “They were just the middlemen and probably low on the totem pole. From what I understand, The Veil uses lackies like these guys to do the dirty work. There has to be someone pulling their strings though. We need to find out who.”

I swallowed hard. “I think I know how they’re getting the girls,” I mumbled, causing eyes to turn to me.

Wiping my eyes, I wrapped my arms around myself and focused on Ezra whose back was still facing us. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the bodies since he finished.

“When they got me in the police car, a weird smelling gas filled the back seat and the next thing I knew I was waking up in that basement. I wondered how so many girls were taken so easily without a fuss. What if they’re being lured in by someone they think they can trust. Most aren’t going to question a police officer. You can’t get out of the back seat from the inside, and if they’re being knocked out by that gas, it makes them easier to transport.”

“That makes sense. No one is gonna question a teen in the back of a cop car,” Lucas commented.

“Watz was involved. We know Handly or Tommy whatever was too. They would know how to cover their tracks and keep the suspicion away from them.”

Nazai pulled his phone out and checked the screen. “We’ll talk about this another time. It’s late, it smells like literal shit in here, and my wife is threatening to cut my balls off if I don’t bring her some pickles and peanut butter right now.”

I stifled a laugh.

“I refuse to reattach them if she makes good on that threat.” Lucas gave him a deadpan stare.

Inaya giggled. “I don’t know why we ever hated these guys, Zee.” She looped her arm through Emmet’s but looked my way. “They’re so entertaining.” Staring up at Emmet, she batted her lashes. “How about a sleepover, handsome?”

Emmet stared at her with his usual blank expression. “Have you ever had a mental evaluation?”

Inaya snickered and laid her head on his arm. “You’re funny. If you want to evaluate me you can all you want, whenever you want.”

“Jesus, she’s almost as bad as Ezra,” Nazai muttered and walked toward River.

I was startled when I faced forward and Ezra was now in front of me. I didn’t even hear him approach. He had taken off the bloody plastic suit. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His eyes were like a black hole, empty and dark.

I opened my mouth to speak but he caught me off guard by grabbing the back of my head and slamming his mouth into mine. The kiss was fierce, demanding, and aggressive. It sent a wild swirl to the pit of my stomach. My heart hammered in my ears. My pulse got trapped in my throat.

Pulling away, the intensity of his stare caused the hairs on my body to raise and my skin to prickle. He didn’t speak.

Swallowing hard, I thought about Dominic’s warning. “Will you be able to handle his darkness?”I thought his actions before were what he meant but it was clear this was the darkness I was supposed to be wary of.

Slowly, I reached up and brushed my hand over his cheek. His nostrils flared. For a second everyone disappeared and it was just the two of us in this barn. His head turned slightly and his lips pressed into the bottom of my palm.

“I see you,” I whispered. His eyes were still locked on me. “And I accept you.” My heart became lodged in my throat.

Tossing my arms around him, I hugged him tightly, ignoring my aching body and digging my face into his chest. A wave of emotions threatened to swallow me whole. For the first time, someone came for me and defendedme.I didn’t have to face the challenges alone and be tough to survive. I wasn’t even gone twenty-four hours, yet the way Ezra’s eyes raged when he found me? You would have thought it had been months. He made me feel safe and confused at the same time. I never was able to let my guard down, but at this moment I felt like the shackles that had been weighing me down were slowly starting to loosen and release.

____

“How many times am I going to wake up with you staring at me?” I asked with a small, closed mouth smile on my face. My eyes fluttered open. Just like I already knew, Ezra was sitting against his headboard on his laptop. Instead of looking at the screen, he was watching me. It had been a week since I was taken and saved and he’d barely let me out of his sight since. Besideswhen he had to go to court, he had been working from home. The security system in the house had been upgraded to the point where I didn’t think even the FBI could easily get inside.

“Does it bother you?”

“Oddly, no.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Good because it’s not gonna stop.” Ezra was back to his normal self. The darkness I saw in him that day almost felt like I’d imagined it. That night when we came home, we washed up and he clung to me as if I would disappear. I wasn’t even sure if he went to sleep that night but I didn’t complain. Before leaving, River had pulled me to the side and warned me that tonight Ezra would be on edge and I needed to be his light no matter how intense he got. It had been a long night for both of us, and if it eased his mind, then I could handle a night of intense cuddling.

“I never asked, but how did you guys find me so quickly that day?”