Page 31 of River of Deceit

It had taken time for me to get up the nerve to try again after my disastrous first time with Pandora — and hell, it had taken time for me to recover both from losing my finger and from beating beaten to a pulp by my fucking father — but I’m more than confident in my ability to get laid many, many times before I destroy her.

Pandora gets her thigh between my legs and lifts it high enough to press against my cock. “If you don’t want to get laid, and you aren’t murdering me, why are you here, then?” she asks, an amused smile on her face. “You just wanted to see me?”

I can’t even answer that question, not honestly. She’d only gloat if I told her the truth, that seeing her withthemnot once, but twice, had been more than I could handle. I’d had to concede defeat and stop following them once they’d disappeared into the tunnels, and I hadn’t been able to follow her again after that point.

The fact that I don’t know what had happened when she’d been out of my sight drives me crazy.

All of this does.

Yeah, I want payback from everything I went through, but that doesn’t explain why I have a knife in my hand and I’m not using it on her. I’m not even forcing her to back off.

Why?

Maybe it’s because I’m not ready to be arrested and sent to jail. Maybe I want to live a little longer on the outside before I give in to the inevitable.

Well. It’s not like I’d live for long on the inside. The Pavone Family may seem legitimate now, but everyone in the underworld in New Bristol knows what they used to be—and what they still are, underneath that veneer of legitimacy. I have every reason to think that a missing finger will be the least of my problems wheneverything goes down.

Or maybe you’re scared, a voice taunts in the back of my mind.

Maybe I fucking am.

“I deserve more than what you did to me,” I say, keeping my voice as steady as possible even as my cock starts to respond to the stimulation of her leg rubbing against it.

“I deserved better that day too,” Pandora whispers. She runs her thumb along my lip. “I was devastated, and…” she trails off. “Oh. Wait, you can’t murder me yet. I still have to avenge Rachel.”

“You think I wasn’t devastated, too?” I ask hotly, resisting the urge to lick her thumb. “Rachel was my friend, too. Then yeah, I fucked up, butI lost my finger.” I’m getting frustrated with her inability to comprehend how serious it is, but then, I guess for a family that wiped another off the map shortly after she was born, it isn’t much.

“Well, it’s as much your fault as mine,” Pandora answers glibly. She presses her thumb harder against my lip. “Help me get revenge for Rachel. I know her killers are connected to the university.”

“You aren’t a private eye, Pandora,” I tell her, pulling back. She persists, and my lips part despite my best efforts not to do it. I suck lightly on her thumb before I come back to my senses and take a step away from her. I should be menacing her, not the other way around, but this is familiar in a way I don’t like. “And you aren’t a vigilante.”

But if anyone can find Rachel’s killer and avenge her death, it’s Pandora’s stubborn ass.

My jaw clenches, and I stare at her. Rachel, her best friend and one of mine, shouldn’t have been cut up and thrown into the trash like she had been. She hadn’t deserved to be tortured before that, either.

If her killer — or killers — have connections to Dyschord, and it’s a solid lead, Pandora Pavone is crazy enough to find them and make them pay.

“I’m definitely a vigilante,” Pandora says, her smile widening. “But I’m not a man, and whoever did her in has ties to that Kappa Omega Buttsex frat. I can’t easily infiltrate them.”

Kappa Omega Buttsex?

I almost ask about that, then I realize it’s Pandora doing what she always does—turning things into jokes, making me laugh, making me forget who she really is.

“I have zero desire to join a fraternity,” I tell her flatly. I have zero desire to do her bidding.

I have zero desire to see frat guys paw all over her while I’m helpless to do anything but watch.

Pandora presses even closer to me. “Think about it! Brotherhood, companionship, all the roofied girls you could ever want…” She laughs bitterly. “Though if you sleep with a roofied girl, I’m going to remove more than just your finger.”

Anger flares within me. “I’ve changed, Pandora, but I haven’t changed that much,” I snap. “You, though? You haven’t changed one bit.”

“I haven’t,” Pandora agrees. She leans up and brushes her lips against mine. “I’m going to destroy the world, River. Wouldn’t you rather be on my side when that happens?”

I grip her shoulder with the hand not holding the knife, trying to keep her at a distance even as I want to pull her closer and kiss her for real, to see if her lips are as soft as I remember.

The truth is that the best way to destroy her is to get close to her, and the only way to get closer to her is to play along. “Fine,” I tell her. “I’ll help you, but it’s only because it was Rachel.”

But once her killers have been dealt with, all bets are off.