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“Fine,” he grumbled.
“Don’t be a grump. I promise I’ll keep myself alive for you.” I pressed a kiss to his lips. He grabbed my hand and kept me there longer.
“If you let anyone hurt you, Red, I’d hurt you for that.”
I smirked, quirking a brow as I pulled back. “What would you do?”
“Things.”
“Things I would hate or… love?” I licked my lips, savoring his taste.
By now, the obsession should be fading. It was only rational that after all these days, I’d get my common sense back.
I had hoped the bright red would fade to normal, the inferno would become a sizzle, but every time I looked at him, I needed more, I needed all of him. Every part, every secret, every thought and memory. I wanted to own parts of him no one else ever had, ever could.
It wasn’t just physical. It was something deeper, darker. It was as if a part of me was tethered to him, like our lives were somehow bound together by an invisible shackle.
His touch had always been a drug. Always been my undoing.
Was it the kind of need that would keep growing, no matter how much I tried to push it down? Was it perverse, masochistic, to depend on a man, when I had always been so willfully independent?
He pursed his lips as if he was studying me back, trying to decipher the thoughts in my head.
“What?” he whispered.
“I should hate myself for wanting you so bad, but I don’t.”
Gray eyes turned tempestuous.
“You look at me like that, and I forget every reasonable thought in my head.”
“Go, before I take you right here, before I can’t stop myself,” he said hoarsely. I swallowed. It was difficult to pull back, to open the door, to get out, when all I wanted was to strip him naked.
I watched his car disappear around the corner.
Taking a deep breath, filling my lungs with fresh air that didn’t smell like Ryden and sex, I turned toward the storage unit, already knowing what awaited me there.
Leo Kesler, and with him, there would be more questions, questions I couldn’t answer. I had to clean up more shit, as if I wasn’t buried under the layers and layers of crap.
Fuck you, you psychopathic pervert.
Oh, the helplessness was now filled with fury, and I just wanted to destroy him completely. To blow his life into smithereens and watch it go up in flames.
“It looks like he was killed a day or two ago,” Detective Myers said with a wince when I walked inside the familiar storage.
“The wound patterns,” Detective Rosario muttered, studying the body, his eyes narrowed. I knew he saw it when his eyes widened. “They match Victor Bane’s wounds. It’s an exact match.”
“It’s a perfect reproduction, even down to the smallest details,” a woman standing next to Detective Myers said. I remembered her from Amy’s crime scene, but I was too distracted then.
Detective Myers caught me glancing in her direction and offered a quick nod. “This is Detective Nia Hall. She just transferred over from narcotics.”
She must be Rishi’s replacement.
I gave her a brief nod, and she returned my nod. Her attention returned immediately to the dead body.
“His name’s Leo Kesler,” Detective Hall said, voice tinged with an edge of disgust. “He taught at a local middle school. About a year ago, several boys came forward, accusing him of sexual abuse. But before the investigation could go anywhere, he disappeared—fled the country, and no one could find him. We didn’t even know he was back in the city.”
Detective Rosario raised an eyebrow, rubbing his cheek.
