Page 6 of Vicious Little Darling

“Sorry,” I say. “I have a friend who lives here.” I give her my gentlest,I’m a good boytone.

She doesn’t waver. “You look like a pompous frat rat who needs to get back to their side of town.”

Wow, okay. Now I’m offended.

“You shouldn’t be so quick to pass judgement,” I say, folding my arms across my chest. “I really do have a friend who lives here, and I just wanted to make sure she got home safe.”

“Oh, Ihighlydoubt she needs your help to get home safe, you fuck twat.” She steps toward me, triggering the taser with a crackle. “I’m gonna count to five and then I ain’t gonna count no more.”

I sigh. “Got it.” I hold up my hands in surrender. “My bad. I won’t bother you anymore, ma’am.” I slink off into the darkness,glancing over my shoulder as I go. She’s still watching me, waiting to make sure I leave.

It would figure that Ember has a watchdog for a neighbor. I breathe out a sharp sigh as I trudge off, not sure how she got the idea that I’m afrat rat.I was never in a fraternity. My putrid, abusive mother would never have allowed for her fuck-up of a son to grace the upper crust society. No, onlyshewas allowed to do that.

I spit a wad of saliva onto the sidewalk as I make my way back home, ignoring the pull to return to Ember’s apartment. It’ll take time to figure out her routine, her habits, and exactly how I want to torture her. Something about Ember makes me want toreallyget under her skin. She comes across as a tough girl—as if she thinks she can handle me.

She has no idea who she’s dealing with. A little pepper spray won’t stop me from spreading her legs and devouring her pussy. It won’t stop me from taking everything I want from her. Her buff friend and watchdog neighbor won’t stop me. They don’t stand a fucking chance.

I’m like a mountain lion; quiet and calculating. She’ll never know when I’m creeping in the shadows, intent on stalking her. She’ll only see me whenIwant her to see me. The rest of the time, she’ll think she’s losing it, going insane. She’ll isolate herself out of fear. Maybe she’ll go to the police, who will pretend to give a fuck and tell her to keep a journal.

But it’ll only send her further into the depths of insanity.

Andthen,I’ll strike.

I mull over a plan as I make it to the fourth block from her apartment complex, hanging a left to make my way back to the bar. I’m curious to see whether her brawny friend returned to the bar, or if he really called it a night. He’s a hard bastard to read, and I can’t tell if he wants to fuck her or marry her.

Either way, he's unlikely to get either. In fact, I’m going to take his options away from him. The only ceremony he’s guaranteed to attend for her is her fucking funeral, and I’ll be at that one too.

My phone rings in my pocket, and I grimace, fishing it out and staring at the name on the screen. Of all the damn times, why would my mother be calling me right now? I close my eyes, before taking a deep breath.

“What?” I answer, my tone cruel and cold.

“Son,” she slurs, her drunken tone as obvious as a whore’s STD. “I don’t understand why you never come home anymore. You know that I just want to see you, right? Can’t you come home for once?”

I roll my eyes. “I’ll betyou’renot even home, Darcy.”

“Don’t call me by my first name,” she seethes, her voice dropping off as I hear a man’s hushed tone somewhere in the background. “You know I want you to call me Mom.”

“And you know good and well that I don’t want you to call me Son,” I snap at her. “Yet, somehow youstillcall this goddamn phone and try to convince me that I was ever anything to you other than your personal punching bag. Go fuck whoever you’re with and leave me alone.”

“Ted is a nice man.” She burps at the end of her sentence. “He’s going to take care of me, and maybe if you would share some of your inheritance, I wouldn’t be stuck having to rely on the kindness of—”

“Shut the fuck up,” I snap. “I owe younothingfor the way you treated me. You’re nothing but a narcissistic bitch.”

“And you’re nothing but a fucked up, weak, pathetic loser.”

I cackle, my voice carrying into the night. “You know what’s funny about that, Ma?”

“Nothing,” she growls. “You’re a disgrace. Your father would be so disappointed if he knew how you’d turned out.”

“Well, there’s only one person to blame for that,” I pause, ignoring my hammering heart. “And that’s the vagina I came out of.”

With that, I hang up the phone, fighting the urge to chuck it across the street, as I arrive at my high-rise apartment building. It took my father twenty-five years to find me, and then the bastard went off and had a heart attack. All I have to show for it is a shit ton of money and a vicious problem with sadism.

What a hand of cards I’ve been dealt.

Chapter Four

EMBER

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