Page 45 of Graves

“Wo-ork?” I tremble as I look up at him.

He smiles down at me and shakes his head.

“Dominic doesn’t tell you anything, does he?”

I don’t even want to know what he means by that. I don’t care. All I know is that if I want to make it out of here alive, I need to be compliant. Closing my eyes, I steady my voice as I speak.

“Are you going to kill me now?”

“Hmm,” he hums. “Depends. Are you gonna tell on me,angel?”

My eyes fly open at that, locking onto his.

“No.”

I’m convincing even to my own ears, and for a moment, I have a small amount of hope of making it out of this. Until he gives me a wicked grin that sends a chill down my spine.

“Liar.”

Fear trembles through my body as he lowers his head into the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply as he smells me before flicking out his tongue and running it over my pulse point. The exact place where he stabbed the man.

“Come with me,” he rumbles into my ear before nipping at my earlobe.

I look up to see him pressing his finger against the biometric scanner, forcing the door to spring open. He pulls the door wider, gesturing for me to go first.

“B-but you’re so bloody.”

He looks down at himself, grinning, before lifting his shirt over his head and wiping his face and hands with it before tossing it to the ground near the growing puddle of blood on the floor. The first thing I notice is a smattering of tattoos across his chest. There are so many that it takes me too long to see them all before he’s gaining my attention again.

I look up to see him holding out his red-stained hands for inspection as I stare blankly at him. He rolls his eyes, slamming the door shut once more as he saunters down the hallway.

“Be back in five.”

Seconds later, I hear the sound of a shower fire up downthe hall. My gaze hasn’t been able to leave the dead body on the floor, though. His eyes are still open, wide and terrified, with only tendons holding his head onto his body. The sight is enough to make my stomach roil, and yet, I can’t look away. Like a car accident, my eyes are glued to the horror in front of me.

My first instinct is to call Dominic, ask him why the hell he would leave me alone with his serial killer brother. But then a thought hits me: what if Dominic is just like him? What if I’m not in danger at all, not outside these four walls at least? What if this is all an elaborate ploy? To gain my trust, let down my guard and gut me like the family pig.

Quickly, I look around the kitchen for something, anything. A landline, a cell phone, a fucking smoke signal. I need to get out of here. Get away from these psychopaths before I end up just like?—

“Let’s go,” Zayden says with damp tousled hair, a new shirt, a leather jacket, and pants, along with a sparkling white smile.

The wolf really hides in sheep’s clothing. Any woman would see either of them in the street and throw their wet panties directly at them just for a second of their attention. That’s what makes them so fucking dangerous, though. Who even knows how many women they’ve killed, how many people they’ve killed, and how many more they plan to.

“D-dom said I wasn’t allowed to leave the apartment,” I stutter, despite my best effort. Every bone in my body is screaming at me, begging me not to leave with this man.

He grins at me, giving me a wink that sends my stomach roiling.

“Dom’s not here right now.”

He opens the door once again, forcing me out first before shutting it behind himself. We walk through the hall in silence before stepping into the elevator. The entire way down and all the way out to the parking garage, not a word is spoken.

Zayden stops short of a motorcycle before he tosses his leg over it.

“Get on.”

I hesitate, looking the thing up and down, before he turns an almost irritated look at me. It’s the first time I’ve seen him look at me with anything other than creepy obsession. And I have a feeling that is not a good thing, so I do as he says and climb on behind him.

He fires up the bike as I keep my hands tucked into my lap before he reaches back and yanks my arm out and around him, doing the same to the other side before he peels out of the garage in the next minute. We fly through the moonlit-drenched city streets, weaving in and out of cars and buses. It almost feels like we’re flying.

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