Page List

Font Size:

“Hedoesown me,” Butch quietly interrupted. “At least on paper.”

“Thanks to your parents,” I growled, itching to march down to the news station and slice out Vortexio’s entrails on live TV.

“He owns them too,” Butch grimly added.

Thatshocked me into silence, so he continued, “Ever since the Biggs family founded Big City, they’ve had superheroes on the payroll. I obviously don’t know all the specifics, but it’s not the type of job we can just leave.”

“What the… what thefuck?”I stammered, too confused and ragey to access intelligent words.

None of this made sense. Solomon Biggs—and his forefathers—were all normies… normies who were inexplicably given ultimate power over much more powerful beings somewhere along the line.

Something isn’t adding up.

Determined to destroy at least one contract by nightfall, I tapped my phone awake and texted Wolfgang.

Find out what the terms are in Butch’s

marriage contract.

Then take care of the problem.

Big Brother is always watching:Have you decided what’s in it for me?

Blowing out a slow breath, I looked at Butch, who was watching me type over my shoulder.

Again, he gave me a single nod of approval, only this time, he smiled sweetly. “I trust you to know what’s best, Xan. For me and forus.”

I simply stared at him, willing myself not to cry. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d find someone like Butch—that I’d experience this level of connection and understanding with another person.

Why did I ever think villains were incapable of love?

After taking a moment to sufficiently tongue-fuck Butch—since he was too tasty of a snack to resist—I returned my attention to making a deal with Death.

My inventus and I will have your back.

Until the next time we need you to get

your Hand dirty.

Big Brother is always watching:Consider it done.

I had zero idea what Wolfgang was going to do, and from my experience, it was better not to ask.

As Butch led me back to the couch, I realized I needed to tell him about the statement his father gave. This made me drag my feet to delay the inevitable, but Butch gave me that rare,calculatinglook I now knew came from what he did for a living.

If you can call indentured servitude a living…

“What did you learn, Xan?” he bluntly asked, pulling me down to sit with him. When I hesitated again, he narrowed his eyes, making my dick twitch from the stern Daddy vibeshewas giving off.

Jesus, maybe I’m a switch.

“I saw your father on the news,” I spoke slowly,reallynot wanting to upset him. “He was commenting on Gemstonia’s almost-accurate claim that you abandoned her for another woman.”

Butch dropped his head back against the couch and sighed. “Let me guess—there was a lofty speech about how Captain Masculine would never run from his duty because of all the people in his life he’d horribly disappoint?”

I smiled sadly at this wonderful man who’d put up with way more mistreatment than he deserved. “Oh, you’ve heard that script before, huh? Well, hedidadd some extra pizzazz at the end by announcing that an unregistered Suarez villain named Doctor Antihero had kidnapped you.”

“THAT FUCKER!”Butch yelled, startling me more with the swearing than the volume. “Fuck! I can’t let you take the blame for this, Xan. We need to go public and tell the world who we are to each other—”