Page 83 of Not All Himbos Wear Capes
Kicking down Butch’s condo door revealed a suspicious scene. It looked as if someone had blown through and rifled through his drawers before disappearing again—and I had a suspicion who it was.
Collapsing onto his ridiculous white couch, I pulled out my phone and accessed the app connected to the remote camera I’d installed in his hallway after our first date. I replayed the footage, desperately hoping for a clue while mentally berating myself for being so distracted by Butch’s hot muscles to not stay on top of monitoring the feed.
All I saw was Butch or Captain Masculine.
Going back through the last couple of weeks revealed both men coming and going, always from the stairwell to the door, although days would pass when neither showed up at all. The last sighting of Captain Masculine was only a few minutes after I’d confronted him on the beach, meaning he’d come directly here.
Probably to remove any lingering evidence.
Now I understood why Butch never seemed to want to return to his condo—why he wasshaking in fearwhen we were driven to Solomon Biggs’ office. That he’d had been constantly bullied by the famous supe, including while we were together, made me see red.
I vowed to punish the Captain severely, even if it turned out he hadn’t killed the love of my life. There were no signs of a struggle—or an incinerated body—so I deduced that whatever happened to Butch took place at a different location than his condo.
That left Biggs Enterprises as my next stop, but I barely made it through the front door before security appeared. I couldn’t seem to access whatever badass windpower I’d conjured against Vortexio, but it still took six of the jacked up normies to drag me outside.
After that, I was at a loss. I couldn’t call the police because they were in Biggs’ pocket, and a Google search for the name Hawthorne in this state brought up nothing.
It’s like he’s a ghost.
So I called my mother—the last person I’d ever expect sympathy or comfort from, and she met those expectations. After listening to me tearfully relay what happened, she suggested I come to the compound. Before I could express my gratitude, she briskly added that I should bring my ray gun project with me, since my father wanted to see what I’d accomplished so far.
Thanks, mom.
“MOTHERFUCKER!”Violentia abruptly shrieked, and my startled gaze shot up in time to see her leaping over the balcony railing to the ground below.
From the shouts and chaos, it sounded like the entire compound had responded by the time I ran out onto the balcony to see what had sounded the alarm.
Captain fucking Masculine.
Ultra Violent and Captain Masculine were fighting hand-to-hand, although it looked more like the Captain was blocking her hits than anything. My mother was standing off to the side with her fingers on her temples, screaming at Vi to stop, and for my other siblings to stand down.
What the fuck is happening?!
Captain Masculine shoved Violentia off before saying something I couldn’t make out, angrily gesturing at the house. Whatever he said made Vi stop attacking and cross her arms before vehemently shaking her head. When he tried to take a step toward the building, she blocked his path, and the resulting blue flames that danced over his suit were hot enough for me to feel from where I stood.
“I WANT TO SEE XAN!”he shouted, causing Vi to take a step back and my younger siblings to cock their heads in confusion. The only ones who didn’t look surprised by the familiarity were my mother and Wolfgang.
Wait…
Time seemed to slow as I followed Violentia’s lead and hopped over the railing. The seconds ticked by at half-speed as I slogged through molasses to reach the clearly unhinged—but oddly familiar—superhero raging on my family’s front lawn.
He was hunched over and panting, his enormous muscles bulging through his uniform, practically begging for my tingling fingers to trace their recognizable shape. And when he spotted me—when those pretty blue eyes met mine with way more desperate love than two strangers should have for each other…
Oh, no.
Oh, fuck.
“Xan,” he whispered, before reaching up and pulling his mask off his head.
“Oh, fuck,” I repeated out loud as every red flag I’d ignored wildly flapped in the breeze.
Violentia spun to face me, her expression a mix of shock and admiration as she jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. “You’ve been fucking Captain Masculine this whole time?”
Apparently, yes.
Butch shoved his way past Vi and dropped to his knees at my feet. “Xan, I am so sorry. I couldn’t tell you who I was at first because I thought you were a normie, and I didn’t realize whoyouwere until we came here for dinner. But I didn’t tell you whoIwas that night because I was confused and afraid you wouldn’t want to be with me anymore. Then I decided to go all in and figure out how thiscouldwork between us before coming clean. And then all that shit happened yesterday, and it just seemed easier to make you think I was dead then have you leave me once you realized what a monster I was… and now that I’m saying it out loud, I realize how fucking stupid it sounds. I’m just so sorry for everything, but especially for being such a selfish, cowardly, himbo dumbass.”
My brain had stopped functioning.Iwas now an automaton lacking human emotion. For a moment, I wondered if one of my siblings would have to attach jumper cables to my nipples to kick-start my heart.
