Page 20 of Lesson In Forgiveness

Any man who dared to try and tame her better have watertight life insurance.

They were in for a wild ride.

Chapter Three

Tabitha

Why did he have to ask all the embarrassing questions that made her insides curl up and shrivel? How did he read her more thoroughly than anyone she’d ever met? What was it about him that made her obsessed with his every breath?

These were questions that plagued her as she forced herself to stay away from Rory freaking McCabe for an entire week. Just to prove she could, because her body was not stronger than her mind. Its… yearnings were not factoring into her decisions, no way, no fucking how.

“It really is very unfair,” she said aloud, enjoying the clomp of her boots thudding on concrete as she paced. She ran her fingers up and down between her breasts. “This is determined it wants to get close to him. I mean, those few hours on the couch with him were pleasant, but completely unorthodox.”

“Mmmph.”

“Nobody said you could talk,” she snapped, kicking her captive in the back of his knee, buckling his leg. For good measure, she booted the other knee so he dropped in his bonds, the coarse rope around his wrists biting into flesh when his weight pulled him down. “Bad men who sneak into little girls’ beds at night don’t get speaking privileges.”

Making pathetic noises behind his gag—a gym sock she’d soaked liberally in chili sauce and duct taped in his mouth—the middle-aged delivery driver, father of two, and all around very bad man was strung up before her like a naked piñata.

“My father was like you.” Reaching for the sheath at the small of her back, Tabitha slid her hunting knife free. “He didn’t sneak; he didn’t have to. Master of his own house, yadda blah. He summoned.” Walking around him, she flicked the blade with deft movements of her wrist, opening his skin one miniscule cut at a time. “Are you beginning to understand why I don’t like you, Mr. Luca?”

His plaintive moan told her he did indeed understand.

“What is it about pedophiles and kids? Is it because they’re smaller, easily overpowered? The sounds they make when you fuck them, prey animals succumbing to a predator?” Her mouth twisted as she remembered the noises she’d made the first time, and how her father reveled in them. “Does the act of breaking trust get your little dick all hard, or is it the fact you’re taking something innocent and marking it for life with your toxicity?”

He shook his head frantically, sweat splattering off the end of his nose.

Standing in front of him, Tabitha studied the worm wiggling on her hook. He’d been on her list for a while; she’d taken it as a sign when he finally took the bait she’d used to confirm his true identity. “Should I tell you what I did to dear old dad? Maybe I shouldn’t—wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

His eyes, brown with a sheen of panic, widened.

Pressing the tip of the blade to the center of his hairline, she cut a thin line down his forehead, his nose, skipping the tape over his mouth, and continued along his throat. “Ah, what the hell. I rarely repeat the same party trick twice. He was a bad man; much worse than you. Hurt everyone he came in contact with—men, women, and teeny, tiny tots. Bad man, bad man, bad man,” she sang under her breath.

She watched blood bead along the cut she made down Luca’s abdomen, the scarlet drops pleasing her beyond measure. Blood was her kind of currency, a universal payment balancing out sins and tragedies. “He used pain and fear as weapons. Raped women and little girls. Turned children into monsters. I cut off his cock and shoved it down his throat, letting him choke on it while his blood turned into a lake.”

Good times, she thought with a smirk. Dominic’ scream as her blade cut through the root of his pride and joy became the benchmark for every kill that came after—and she hadn’t managed to top it yet.

“Men who do despicable things to little girls and boys don’t deserve a penis. Honestly, I don’t understand why the world thinks the males of the species should be in charge.” A twitch of her wrist was all it took to slice the skin on his flaccid appendage, eliciting a pained cry from her victim. “It’s such a delicate organ, really, nothing special. I’ve castrated dozens of assholes like you, Mr. Luca. Made them beg for forgiveness, to atone for their sins. Heard them whimper like babies and scream for mercy. Scream, scream, scream,” she murmured salaciously. “What will you do, hmm? Whine, whimper, scream, beg?”

He shook his head frantically, sweat pouring off him. A litany of Mmmphs vibrated in his throat.

“You’re right, of course. That’s a difficult question to answer when you don’t know what I’m going to do to you. So…” She smacked the flat of the blade against his dick as she mulled over the possibilities. “What should I do with you? I haven’t skinned anyone alive for a while; that might be fun. No?” she asked when he gave her a pitiful look. “Huh, well, I guess that makes all the difference.”

Tabitha pursed her lips, pacing around him again as she mentally calculated the time. She’d arranged to meet Luca here, in his own specially modified storage unit, when he greedily chomped on her fake eleven-year-old girl profile she used on specific websites. The unit was soundproofed, there were high quality locks on the door, and the asshole’s lair was kitted out with not only a bed, but a lot of gadgets, hooks, and tie rings.

Her stomach knotted. How many times had she been trussed up in cuffs and chains, a rope around her neck in predicament bondage, so her father could train her how to take a fucking from a target before she killed them.

Everything was always about learning how to get her victims to let their guard down long enough to slip a knife between ribs. Dominic had taught the males—Jasper, Troy, Ashford, Darius, Wesley, and the rest—how to hunt their prey instead of pretending to be bait to snare it.

Oh, she knew why her training program was so different to her brothers’. It wasn’t because she was stronger, faster, smarter, or more vicious. No, her whole life came down to what was between her legs, what her father could take from her.

She spent days circling the rabbit hole, tumbling into the depths, because of what he’d done to her. Once, there was a time when she’d been on the sane side of civilization. The memories were vague, almost too far in the past to remember clearly, but they were there.

Buried under a lifetime of pain and craziness.

However, she had more important things to worry about, and her time was sneaking away as night crawled toward day.

Smacking his dick again with the knife, she let a smile curve her lips, dead and menacing. “I wonder if your victims want to watch you die. If I hadn’t been the one to kill my father, I’d totally have wanted to witness the moment when his life ended. Unfortunately for the ones you made suffer for your pleasure, the only comfort they get from this is knowing you’re dead.”

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