Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 94076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
I reach for her shoulders but stop myself from touching her. I let my hands hover in the air and clench my fists instead. “Gregory Martin deserved to die. So did the thugs who assaulted you. It wasn’t the first time they’d assaulted a woman. They both had rap sheets as long as my arm.”
“You can’t just—”
“I donate heavily to the police department. If the system is going to work, I am simply greasing the wheels. But it doesn’t, and someone has to do something about it. There’s evil out there. You know that as well as I do.”
Under the water, her chest rises and falls with her accelerated breathing. “You’re evil.”
“Do you really think that?”
She closes her eyes instead of answering me.
“I’ve never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
“Murder is wrong. You, of all people, should know that.” She flinches as she says it. She doesn’t like bringing up my parents. She doesn’t want to hurt me.
Even fighting with her, I want to hold her in my arms.
“Sometimes taking a life isn’t murder. It’s justice.”
“You call it justice, but it’s an excuse. You like killing. You like playing vigilante. Admit it.”
I bare my teeth. “I do enjoy it. I never said I didn’t. I rid the world of filth. Ask their victims if what I’m doing is wrong.”
“You’re not doing it for them. It’s all for you. You’ve isolated yourself from everyone and put yourself on this path, calling it justice.”
“Are you profiling me? Or are you profiling yourself?”
She sucks in a breath like I’ve struck her.
“I know you, Inara. I know how alone you are. I’ve been watching you, and I know. . . you’re like me. We need the cause. This higher calling. Because what else do we live for?”
“No. . . I’m not. You’re just a broken boy who grew up to be a broken man.”
“Once again, I’ll ask, are you profiling me or yourself?”
“Stop it,” she whispers.
“I am the man I need to be. I hunt only those who deserve it. And if I had hunted the man who killed your family, he’d be behind bars. Or dead.”
Her skin goes ashy. “He is dead.”
“I would’ve gotten him before he killed the second time.” I don’t say before he killed your family. I don’t have to say it. “The system is broken. It failed us. It failed me. It failed you. And yet you defend it.”
“Stop talking. Please.” Her eyes are wide, pupils black.
I’ve gone too far. She’s going to be sick.
“Little bird.” I reach for her, but she hunches her shoulders, avoiding my touch.
“Don’t call me that. Not now. Not after you’ve admitted to all of this.”
“I told you I’d tell you the truth. I don’t want any lies between us. What else do you want to know?”
“How many people have you killed?”
“I don’t know. I’ve lost count.”
She stares above my head, looking into the abyss. I wonder what it’s like to look through her eyes. What horrors she sees in me.
If I could, I’d spare her. But the darkness is part of me.
“They all deserved it,” I tell her. “I can list their sins. Murder, rape, abuse—”
Her lips move, but nothing comes out. She’s overwhelmed.
I stop talking and call her name to bring her back. “Inara.”
She blinks slowly. This is not unlike a power exchange scene, where I give her pain and take her to a higher plane of consciousness. Only this time, she’s being devoured by the darkness. Subsumed into an underworld that I’ve never wanted her to visit. She’s sensitive to evil. It affects her.
She’s the reason I go hunting. To make the world safe so innocents like her don’t ever suffer.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not sorry for killing them. They deserved it. But I am sorry it hurts you.”
Before my eyes, she steels herself. And I know this is why she is the woman for me. She’s the only one who can face who I am head-on. She’s strong enough to withstand me.
“You should be sorry for the victims.”
“I am.” The victims of crime. The victims of the monsters I hunt. Families like hers and like mine.
She shakes her head as if she knows what I’m thinking. I’ll never feel remorse for hurting people who hurt others.
“Any more questions?”
“Just one,” she whispers. Her tone is low and sluggish like the words weigh her down.
“Ask.”
“Who are you planning to kill next?”
“No one at the moment.” I dip my head as if sharing a secret. “I’ve been too busy hunting a little bird who amuses me.”
Her tiny scoff tells me she’s back.
I straighten so she can see me grin. “Did you hope I’d confess now so you could stop me?”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m sure you won’t make it so easy.”
“You don’t like it easy. You like it to hurt.”
“Oh yes, because you know me so well.” She folds her arms over her chest, but all it does is draw my attention to her breasts. My cock is stiff, straining toward her. “Because you’ve been hunting me. Like you hunt the rest.”