Page 45 of The Naughty One
“How did it feel? Your firstkill?”
Gaius smiled. “Godlike.”
Dacre laughed. “I’ll drink to that.” He took a long swig. “Romy will be on her way back to the statesnow.”
“So her sistersays.”
Dacre sighed. “It’s time, man. When we were killing those girls, all I could think of was doing the same thing to Romy. Sticking that knife into her gut over and over. I got hard just thinking aboutit.”
Gaius nodded. “I agree, it’stime.”
Dacre was deep in thought. “The best place to do it will be at the hospital. No one suspects me there; hell, she doesn’t even recognizeme.”
“Well, you did do a transformation from preppy asshole to redneck psycho.” Gaius smiled as Dacre laughed. “Yeah, she won’t see youcoming.”
“God,” Dacre grabbed his cock and squeezed it. “The anticipation of that pop, the moment when my knife cuts into herskin.”
“Dude, don’t jerk off in front of me.” Gaius’ nose was turned up in disgust, but Dacre justlaughed.
“Don’t flatter yourself, asshole.” He took another long drink of beer. “So, what about you? You gonna fuck your brother up? Or are you going to leave him alone to mournRomy?”
“Both.” Gaius’ eyes glittered with malice. “I’m going to beat him to within an inch of his life, then drag him to watch you kill Romy. How does thatsound?”
Dacre’s smile spread slowly across his face. “Dude … that sounds just aboutperfect.”
Chapter22
The funeral was well-attendedand as painful as they all expected. Octavia’s coffin was lowered into the cold January ground; Dan, her father, had such a look of desolation on his face that Romy could barely look at him. The guilt she felt was overwhelming, and since she and Blue had flown back to Seattle, a week ago, she had been working with the police to try and smoke Dacreout.
At the hospital, she and Blue had had a conference with Beau and the head of security and decided the measures would stay for now. “I’m not risking your life or anyone else’s, Romy.” Beau said. “I’ve had experience at the vengeful ex thing—my Dinah nearlydied.”
“I know, Beau, and thank you.” Romy looked between the two men. “I’m so sorry for bring this all down on yourheads.”
“It’s not your fault,” Blue repeated for what seemed the hundredth time, but Romy couldn’t help but feel it pressing down on her. Octavia’s horrific murder had affected the whole family —Dan, to his credit, hadn’t blamed her, or Artemis but Romy almost wanted him to yell and scream ather.
At night, after she and Blue were in bed, after her adored husband was asleep, his arms tight around her, Romy would lie awake, thinking up ways to bait Dacre into revealing himself, and then coming up with increasing violent ways to kill him herself. Her rage was all-consuming. She would sleep for a couple of hours then get up, grab her laptop, and go through all the information she could find on Dacre, his family, the murders. On more than one morning, Blue had found her asleep on the couch, her laptop stillopen.
She knew Blue was worried about her and couldn’t blame him for being so. Never, even after the attack of the previous year, had she felt so on edge, like she was on a tightrope and nothing could stop her fromfalling.
Only at work could she focus on what she was doing. She and Blue were even more in tune in the operating theater, and even their recent marriage hadn’t affected her relationship with her colleagues—much to herrelief.
Mac was the only other resident who knew everything. Romy found she was leaning on him more and more, someone outside their family, a friend, a sounding post. She had told him —then told him to forgetit.
“Everything I talk about now seems to be about Dacre,” she said, with a sad smile. “Promise me that when we talk, we’ll bust each other’s chops or just talk about work, or our love lives—rather, your lovelife.”
Mac smiled, his smile splitting his handsome face and lighting it up. “You got it,gorgeous.”
And he kept his word, joking with her, relieving some of that stress. Romy had never been so grateful to someone as she was toMac.
Magda,back from her honeymoon, was stressed out and hyper when Romy went over to her house to visit. After Magda had hugged her for way too long, Romy escaped her mother’s arms and rolled her eyes. “Mom, I’m fine. It’s Arti and Dan you should be worriedabout.”
“Oh, I am,” Magda said, grim-faced, “but Dacre’s not trying to kill them, is he?” She sighed and covered her face and, to her distress, Romy saw her mother was crying. She went toher.
“Mom, I have protection coming out of my ears. Look at the two hulking guys I had to bring with me to come visit. Dacre’s not going to get to me unless I lethim.”
Magda dropped her hands and glared at her daughter. “What does that mean? Unless you lethim?”
Romy silently cursed herself for the slip. “Just a figure of speech, Mom, chillout.”
