Page 91 of Tempt Me

“Please man. You have fucked me enough in this life. Save some for the next one, yeah?”

Unsure if the world’s hand puppeteer heard me, I sighed and finally walked out of the door. I hated leaving Fallon.

She was just attacked, but I had to get this man away from her, away from the baby. He raped her in a busy hospital, there was clearly no line he wouldn’t cross. Judging by his flashy clothing, I could assume he was some prized societal member of the rich bitch club.

Funny. The rich and the poor bled the same.

I took two steps at a time, hustling to the dumpster outback. When I got there, I dared to look up at the window where Fallon was. I could see doctors and nurses fussing over her and the baby. She was being put on a bed and cleaned up.

I remembered her beautiful face and how it was bloodied, and I let that rage infuse into my being. Gripping the asshole as roughly as he manhandled her, I yanked his ass out of the metal bin. He smelled like the swine he was.

Not bothering to pretend like I didn’t want to rip this man’s face off, I all but dragged his half-limp body out of the hospital parking lot and to the back where the car was sent from Goliath. Randall was ‘the wheelman,’ and he said nothing.

Instead, the cop took one look at me and got out to open the trunk. He may have worked under Quinn, but Randy had balls that were more from the streets than the fancy badge on his chest. He could see that this swine was as disgusting as the bedpan shit clinging to him.

“Goliath told me to drop you off at the back. The basement is cleared for you.” he seemed to hesitate.

“What is it? Just spout the holy grail bullshit already, cop.”

He laughed, surprising me.

“Nah, man,” he said, helping me shove the shit stain inside the trunk. “But you need to know that killing someone for real isn’t like movies and shit. Whether they are monsters or not, they are still living, breathing humans. When you cool off, you’ll see the blood on your hands. Right now, it’ll be invisible. Hell, it may be hard to see for years…but one day you will.”

It was rare to hear Randall say more than a few words, so speaking to me this deeply had me listening to him. He was right. I knew he was right. Joe literally haunted me, and I didn’t kill him. Judas did.

Will I have to live forever with this monster in my mind, too?

“Tick-tock.”

My eyes widened. The lid shut with a click, but I could have sworn that before he was shut inside, he said…

“What the fuck did he say?” I said to Randall, frantically trying to open the trunk again.

Randall looked at me like I was losing it. I probably was.

“Uh. He’s groggy. I didn’t hear anything. Maybe mumbling? You threw his ass from a second-story building, bro. He has some busted ribs, at the least.”

I smiled at that knowledge. He would have so much more than that when I was finally kind enough to grant him death. This man looked weirdly familiar, and I wondered where I could have seen him before. It didn’t fucking matter. He was dead.

“What’s the best torture technique? You were in the military, right? What makes a person really suffer?”

Randall searched in my eyes for something. I was breathing heavily, and I could feel that mania creeping into my mind again.

“Look at you, Boyo. You finally grew some nuts.” Of course, Joe was here, and I tried my best to ignore him.

He was poking at my crotch and wolf-whistling. Randall was already staring at me like I would bolt at any second. I didn’t need to go swatting at my imaginary ‘friend.’

“You need to ask Big Papa over here how to kill a man? That’s pathetic even for you, Roe Roe.”

Joe’s grating voice made my jaw twitch.

“Fuck you,” I spat.

Randall quirked a brow and shook his head. “Man, let’s just get you to the basement. You’re brothers are waiting.”

Judes was awake?

“Judas is heavily medicated. But he’s awake,” Randall said, answering my unasked question.