Page 31 of Vicious Little Darling

“It’s my job to clean up after you, Jax. If I’m not one step ahead, then I’ll get royally fucked. I keep thinking this charade is going to end, but I’m starting to question that thought.” He leans back in his chair as a waitress appears, to pour him a new glass of wine. He thanks her, orders for the two of us, and waits for her to leave.

“What do you want from me?” I ask, sighing. “I’m doing what you want. Therapy. Staying away from your side of the city. I’m not breaking any of the rules you’ve set in place.”

“Consider this me checking up on you,” he says, crossing his own arms across his chest, mirroring me. “I want you to get a job—just fuckingdosomething with your life, Jax. I’m tired of you spending all your time playing Ted Bundy.”

“I don’t lure random girls into my car,” I joke.

He glares at me, his gaze menacing. “Same thing in my book.” He’s got more blood on his hands than I do, but he’s a different kind of killer. If he gets a hard on from dismembering bodies, I’d never fucking know it.

“I want you todosomething else. I’ve given you years to figure your shit out. I’m done.”

“Well, lucky for you, I got a job,” I snap, pushing back from the table. “And I don’t need your fucking charity meal.”

He rolls his eyes. “What’s the job?”

“Bartending,” I quip, waiting for him to have some kind of reaction.

His face stays stone cold. “I see. I’d guess this is in connection to yourhobby,yes?”

I hesitate. “Kind of. She works there.”

“That’s quite ballsy, Jax.” He frowns. “It’s not a good idea, though. You’ll put yourself on the radar. You’ve always been more methodical and invisible than this.”

“Okay, yeah, but this girl…” I trail off when I realize how stupid I sound, and I get to my feet, suddenly feeling suffocated in the private dining room.

Clearly, my uncle is intrigued now.

“What about her? Is she finally waking up that dead heart of yours?”

“No,” I mutter. “I’m just morecurious.”

“Tell your therapist.”

“Fuck no,” I spit back at him, shaking my head. “He’ll call the cops, and you know it. He can’t know shit about me.”

“He already does, dumbass. Why do you think I hired him?”

I ignore that comment. “I got shit to do. I’ll see you later.”

“Maybe ask her on a real date instead of strangling her, kid,” he laughs after me, and I cringe as I storm out. I’m overreacting. Being emotional. I hate that. It’s abnormal for me. I don’t need to have this kind of thing going on. It’ll cloud my judgment, and I don’t want that.

The hostess gives me the stink eye as I slip out into the street, and I run my hands over my face. I have a shift at the bar tonight, and I have to be ready to face Ember, as the guy who bought her a coffee—and then was fuckingrejected.I can’t act as if I know how tight her pussy is.

I swallow hard at that thought, my cock growing rigid and my mind running wild. I head back toward my penthouse, thankful that shadowy facial hair will line my jaw by the afternoon. I don’t want Ember to see me with my pretty boy face. It’s obnoxious, and she’d immediately be turned off by it.

That’s the man behind the mask.

My stomach lurches at my uncle’s mention of someone finding out about me. It’s annoying being so fucking messed up in the head. I’ve never tried to get close to someone as myself, while also intending to harm them.

He’s right, itmightbe a mistake.

I could just let her go as far as stalking goes…But I don’t like the idea of being just another rejected friend of hers. I run my fingers through my hair as I make it to my apartment building.

“Jax,” the doorman greets me with his usual nod, and I slip past him, wondering who my uncle has on his payroll to keep an eye on me. He’s got the whole city under his thumb and, as much as I dislike the guy, he’s the reason I’m probably not locked up in a cell somewhere.

Though I probably should be.I laugh at my own joke as I step into the elevator. My phone begins to vibrate in my pocket and I fish it out, expecting it to be my uncle, trailing me to verbally assault me for leaving.

But no.

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