Page 3 of The Misfits
The jury gasps in sync, but the ruckus is barely heard over Cleo’s loud gulp. She knows what’s coming, that I am once again freeing her from his trap.
“Do you have any proof of this?”
While nodding at the judge’s question, I make my way to the desk I’ve sat behind grinding my teeth for the past three weeks. I flip through numerous pages of text until I come to the evidence the DA failed to lodge. “Deprivation of liberty. Harassment. Cyberstalking. Credible threat to cause harm. Rape.” For each sentence I deliver, I hand proof of the crimes associated with them to the bailiff. “Hehacked her computer.Heharassed her at her place of employment.Hecyberstalked her for months beforeheraped her under the guise of an exchange in power.”
The judge’s bushy brows shoot up his face when he scans the evidence presented before him. The images are horrid, ones I’m certain Cleo would never like publicized, and although I don’t want to hurt her, to free her from his madness, I need to exposehimas the monster he is.
“As you can see, Your Honor, I’m not in any of those photos because I am not a monster who hides his face to ensure his crimes remain unprosecuted. I’m merely a byproduct of his madness. An innocent caught up in a world run by violent, heinous men.”
I add an affluent edge to my voice. It’s the tone I generally use when surrounded by my father’s associates. He taught me well. I play the game so perfectly the judge is soon eating out of my hand. “I did not hurt the complainant, Your Honor. I was merely trying to save her from that. From him. If that makes me a terrible man, so be it. I’d rather rot in jail as an honorable man than be a spineless one.”
I refuse to look athim, but I know I’ve secured his utmost attention. I can feel his black-as-death eyes burning a hole in the back of my head. Smell his aversion thickening the air. How? The putrid scent seeping from his pores is as repulsive as mine. The hate blackening his blood is just as tainted, and his world just as violent. He simply hides his evilness by referring to it as his ‘lifestyle.’ That’s why he is a coward, and I am a god. I don’t require a contract to exert power nor a safe word.
I give an order.
You follow it.
The rules don’t get any simpler than that.
When the judge requests the bailiff to hand my evidence to Cleo, her hand shoots up to clamp her mouth. I take a few moments to relish the stream of moisture gliding down her cheeks before I dart from my chair to blockhimfrom her view.
He brainwashed her for months. It’s time to even the playing field.
My girl is strong, but my pull is even stronger than that.
She cannot resist me.
For every step I take toward Cleo, the fire in her eyes grows. The temptress I feed off like a vampire drinks blood is striving to break free. She wants me to save her. She wants to come home.
“I didn’t kill your baby, did I, Cleo?”
Her earthy brown hair falls from her shoulders when she shakes her head. Her strength as the woman behind the mask resurrects from the tombheplaced her in is cock-thickening.
I suck in a lung-filling breath like the devil did while claiming the throne in heaven when Cleo confirms, “You didn’t kill my baby, Dexter.”
The jury members’ stunned gasps are loud, but they’re nothing compared to the painful groanheemits.
Heknows he is losing.
He shouldn’t be surprised.
No one can compete with me.
I take a step back when Cleo faintly murmurs, “You killedourbaby. The baby I created with Marcus. The baby I plan one day to still have with him.”
Her words are barely whispers, but one of them bombards me with an immense amount of violence—his name. It resurrects the devil I struggle to contain. The sadistic villain who maims without regret and smiles while sliding a knife into a pregnant woman’s womb. He is the evil spawn my father loves, and my mother hated. He is the runaway, the misfit. Marcus Everett’s worst nightmare.
He is the true me.
He is Dexter Elias.
“No!” I shake my head the way I did when the doctors ran off their long list of diagnoses to my mother ten years ago. “I didn’t kill your baby! I killedhisbaby! I fixedhismistake! I took back what is mine!”
“I’m not yours. I’m Marcus’s!”
Cleo doesn’t whisper her confirmation.
She shouts it for the world to hear.
