Page 141 of The Deceptions
Once I set the glass in the sink and wipe my hands down my jeans, something like excitement takes me over.
I’m about to go hunting.
My entire lifehas dealt with sneaking around in the shadows. It’s something Boss instilled in me from the second he rescued me from that hotel room of Hell that formed my childhood. Actually, I think it formed me. I am the Malic of today, because of my mother and because of Boss. They molded me into… well, me.
“Malic, you be a good boy and watch Mommy,” she whispers, putting her fingers between the black wire in front of my face.
A dog cage. Meant for an animal. Not me. I tried to work the lock on each of the exits, but I need a key. A key that my mother has dangling from a chain around her neck.
“Mommy,” I whisper in a panic, recoiling when she attempts to brush her fingers through my hair. “Why am I in here?” I blink several times as her grin widens.
There’s something in her eyes—something I can’t place. The black part of her iris expands when a knock sounds at the door of the hotel room we’ve been living in for the past month.
That’s when everything fell apart. Meredith left to live with her biological father. Thankfully, my mom knew who he was. Unlike me. We’ve always been just the three of us. Meredith, Mom, and me living together. Unless Mere went to visit her daddy on the weekends.
But then we lost our house after Mom lost her job and Mere. And it’s spiraled from there. Leading us to this point. In a dark, damp hotel room and me in a cramped dog cage. She was never like this before.
“Be a good boy.” My stomach turns when a man enters the room and removes his tie first thing. There’s a familiarity there. Him and my mom. Like they’ve known each other for a very long time. But I have no clue who he is. His eyes find mine. Evil wafts from the depths of his fucking soul, making goosebumps spread across my flesh. I want to scamper away. Leave this cage and run for the hills. Maybe if I ran to the police, they’d help me. Arrest my mom. Or something.
He holds my gaze for the longest time and tilts his head. A big smile spreads across his lips.
I shake myself from the taunting memories of my birth giver and the hold she had on me. Had, being the key word. That woman no longer ruins my days and nights. She’s just a fleeting memory of my fucked-up past. Sometimes I wish I could bleach my brain and never recall those horrid times she locked me away in a dog cage for hours at a time. Mostly, it was so she could leave and do her new job. Other times, I was an unlucky bastard.
But no matter.
That was long ago, before Boss swooped in, stole me from my cage, and set me free to work for him. He raised me into the manI am today—tough, loyal, sometimes obedient. Sometimes being the key word here.
Like right now. If Boss had any say in this, he’d tell me to walk away and not engage. Thatmy revengeis a dish best served cold after many nights of deep thoughts and careful planning.
But not tonight.
I don’t have time to reel myself back in. Absolutely not. Now is the time to unleash the monster lurking beneath my skin and let him have free rein. Someone wronged Meredith, and Huxley fucking Crewes is the key to that. My monster knows it. I know it. So, I set him free. He encompasses every inch of me, taking away my feelings and replacing them with a numbness hellbent on revenge.
Here I come.
I hum from the shadows of the forest as a large SUV pulls into the driveway next to the historic mansion. It sits on a hill, dark and surrounded by the forest. It has its advantages, like concealing me in the shadows of the night. I am one with the darkness. It feeds my body, mind, and soul. Taking a deep breath, I let it overtake me again, stealing every distracting thought and pushing it out of the way.
I’m sure that if the boys did their due diligence and checked their surveillance cameras, they’d see me sitting here twiddling my thumbs and waiting for them to show up. Too bad they’re too cocky and egotistical for their own good. They won’t check anything. They’ll meander through their unlocked front door, walk up to their rooms on the second floor, plop into bed, and not emerge until the morning.
Their lazy, uncaring ways are about to get one of them kidnapped.
Sure, I could have walked through their front door twenty minutes ago and hid in Huxley’s closet, waiting for him to appear so I could jump him. Then he’d scream, calling the othersto his side. Could that still happen? Yes. Do I want to hear his screams for help? You betcha. But I don’t want it to happen until I have him strapped to the metal chair in my secret lair.
Besides, where’s the fun in that? That’s too easy, even for me. I like challenges. Look at my little ghost. She’ll be my greatest challenge yet. But you know what? I’m going to lock her down. Someway. Somehow. Like I should have done five years ago.
Fuck. A giddy feeling soars through me, and my scary smile breaks free. If Wilder were here, he’d tell me to stop it and think about what I’m doing. Oh, my keeper, I have. I’ve thoroughly thought out every little detail of this plan. The tips of my fingers tingle. This is it. I feel it in my fucking bones.
I’m about to get answers to the questions I’ve had for weeks now. Where in the fucking world is Meredith? Huxley knows. He was up to something. But what? Well, I’m about to find out. One way or another. And if Huxley has to perish under my hands, then so be it. Bye, bye Huxley Crewes. You didn’t deserve a life anyway.
I don’t hold my breath as Huxley, JJ, and Mack emerge from their fancy vehicle and make their way up the stairs toward their front door. Clueless idiots. They don’t examine their surroundings. Hell, they barely look up from the ground they’re staring at.
Exhaustion pulls at them with every step. Making me wonder what the hell they got up to tonight. Just as my boss does to Wilder and me, they probably went out on some sort of mission, doing... Well, I don’t have a fucking clue. It’s the one thing I’ve never been able to pinpoint. What does Nathaniel Franco have his foster sons do? Gun runs? Drug runs? Killing the traitors?
Not everything, that’s for sure. Yet, anyway. He’s putting them through college, much like Boss is for Wilder and me, giving us a legit degree, so we can step into his businesses and help to run them. All of them.
All in due time—as he likes to remind me.
Silence descends on the three fuckwits when they enter through the front door, none the wiser I’m lurking just outside, ready to attack—or not attack. But take what I need to take. More specifically—who.
