Page 7 of Devil Inside: Green

“Wow,” I say, laughing humorlessly. “They didn’t fill you in on anything while you were in the joint.” It wasn’t a question. I already knew they hadn’t.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You and me—we have a lot in common.”

“What?”

“My mom was Constantina Romero.”

He sucks in a sharp breath and then utters, “Fuck.”

Fuckis right.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came looking for the Horde about six months ago. I met Cutter and Reaper and they brought me here to talk with Vlad. Vlad agreed to help me find that damn killer because I’m going after him with or without help. He destroyed my life when he took my mom. But there were problems within the club, so he sent me home. He told me he’d be in contact when they could take up the hunt.”

Folding his arms over his chest, he clenches his jaw staring me down with stone-cold eyes. “You’re not going after him alone.”

“Are we sleeping together?” I ask.

“The fuck?” he asks with a tilt of his head, taking me in as if shocked but considering the idea all at once, which I think I might actually enjoy as a momentary distraction. Lord knows it’s been a while since I’ve let a man in close. Green has this sort of Patrick Swayze as Darry Curtis fromThe Outsidersvibe going on. Dishwater-blond hair slicked back greaser-style. Tall. Broad, muscular shoulders. His body fills his cut like no one I’ve ever seen. And being among so many bikers, I’ve seen a lot.

“Are we in a relationship?” I push on.

Hazel eyes narrow on me. “No.”

“Then you have no say in what I do.”

His eyebrows shoot up because the light finally clicked on. “It’s dangerous.”

“I’m aware. What do I have to lose at this point?”

“Uh—your life.”

“I’m on paid leave while HR tries to get me my crappy call center job back that my boss fired me from after I rebuffed his sexual advances. My sister, my only family left, was taken from me to go live with her sperm donor. My mother—my best friend—was taken from me in one of the worst possible ways. So please, tell me how my life is worth more than hunting him down?”

Green watches me, silent. Contemplative. “You really going hunting?”

“I am. Once I got let go, I decided that I’d given Vlad enough time. So I came here hoping that he’d be ready to assist me. So far, he’s not.”

“Do you even have any idea where to start looking?”

“I’ve been tracking him. I check murders of women in every state in the Bible Belt. The last woman he killed was in the southern tip of Missouri. Going off of past patterns, he’s either here in Kentucky or in Tennessee.”

“A state is a lot of ground to cover.”

“You’re right. But I’ve also been tracking his pattern of kills. I’m sure the feds have been tracking them, but as they aren’t sharing that information, I figured out a pattern there, too. The last woman he got going into a Golden Corral.”

“Gluttony,” he whispers.

“Gluttony,” I repeat. “The woman before her—lust. I went back and looked at all the previous kills, and aside from victims two and four from his first go around, he goes down the list in order. Like he read them off a Wikipedia page. Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride.”

“So you’re thinking that victims two and four were found out of order, then?”

“Yes. Victim two should have been Gluttony. She was victim four. It just took authorities longer to locate victim two.”

“If that’s the case, then his next victim will be—”

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