He picked me up in his strong and steady arms and carried me back to his couch. With this look of desperation, he removed every item of clothing on my body, treating me delicately. He kissed me everywhere, savouring every inch of my skin, and I came against his sweet tongue before he took me again.

I was done for.

Without effort, it took him no time at all to steal my heart.

Five

Kate

“So what happened next?” the man asked me.

I stared at him and at the knife he was lazily dangling in his hands.

“With what exactly?” I numbly replied.

“With the two of you, obviously. What the fuck else could I be talking about?”

I flinched at his anger. “Why do you want to know?”

“Like I said, I’m killing time before I get around to killing. Just tell me. It might be good to unload, especially since you’re going to your death and all. Hell, if you humanize yourself enough, I might have you pass on peacefully.”

I shuddered and brought my knees to my chest, holding back the sobs that were bubbling to the surface. “Why do you want to kill me?”

The man leaned forward, his eyes dark and ominous. “Let’s just say my brother is restoring balance. Eye for an eye kind of thing. Your dream boy ripped him off good, and he can’t get away with that. He can’t just show up out of the blue and steal our turf. He has to be scared of crossing us, and what better way to do that than to sort you out?”

“Marcus will find you.”

“No, he won’t. When your body is rotting at the bottom of the New Raven River, he’ll be so consumed in your death, he’ll never think to find us.”

I didn’t respond to that.

The man was crazy, and I was certain then, more than I’d ever been certain about anything else, I truly was going to my death. There were no words to describe the horror of that, but there was also something eerily peaceful about it. I was making amends to myself, forgiving all the wrongs I’d committed, letting go of the problems that now seemed so drastically insignificant.

Life really was short, and had I savoured every minute of it?

My soul consoled me that I’d tried.

I’d tried damn hard to live for myself.

“Talk,” he then demanded. “Tell me about your relationship.”

“I’m not going to give you anymore moments,” I retorted, fighting hard to keep my voice steady. “You won’t steal another one. Now I answered you already. I told you how we met, and I gave you a little more too, but that’s it. No more.”

He stared at me for a solid minute, and the seconds dragged with unease.

“You want to cut to the chase then?” he suddenly asked. “You want me to cut your heart out now instead of later?”

I stared at the knife, shaking like a leaf at the thought of him sticking it in my chest.

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” I cried out in frustration, my teeth chattering. “I’m a good person! I haven’t harmed anybody. I haven’t done anything to deserve this.”

“How long were you with him?” he went on, completely disregarding my words. “If he left four years ago, that means he had one with you. Isn’t that right?”

I just gaped at him, wordless.

“One year with you shouldn’t have impacted him so much, should it?”

“After a few months, we started spending every day together.”

“Were you open lovers? Did the world know?”

“No,” I whispered, vacantly looking past him as I resurfaced those moments in my life I’d never get back. “We were together in secret. We crafted our own world. It didn’t matter Marcus didn’t have money. It didn’t matter what part of town I came from. We left our troubles and our lives behind us when we came together.”

“Was it just sex?”

“No, and yes. It was…everything. Sometimes I was at his place, other times he was at mine.”

“Did he pleasure you every time?”

I overlooked his desperation to know and nodded. “Yes.”

Marcus had explored every inch of me, always pleasing me while he reserved his pleasure until the very end. But… even then, I felt that he had some other side to him sexually. I didn’t know what it was, and he never talked about it, but he held back every time he took me.

“And nobody knew?” my killer pressed.

“Eventually they did. I started to distance myself from everybody and I got careless about hiding my tracks. After I neglected my friends, spent little time talking to my parents, and my grades suffered, people started to get really suspicious.”

“So he became your world.”

“Yeah.”

Nothing thrilled me anymore except the feel of him and what he could do to my body. Or that I could open up to him and tell him every little thing and he would never judge me the way others would.

“Who discovered it?”

I sighed, reliving that horrible memory. “My father.”

And that was when everything changed.

*

Marcus had dropped me off at six in the morning, well aware that my father was due to come pick me up for breakfast at seven. We’d been together for nearly a year at this stage, and it was just as brilliant and addictive as day one. In our own little world, we lived and breathed each other in, and it was always cathartic ending the day in his arms. It balanced me out, made me feel like maybe I could tackle on his ugly life after all. I’d reminisced about it often. In my mind, I saw myself abandoning my studies, forsaking my father’s expectations, moving in with Marcus, both of us getting a job and making it by. It could work, couldn’t it? I didn’t care if that meant being poor or going without. I didn’t care so long as I had those full lips against my own.

“Call me,” I told him, kissing him. “Don’t make me wait around again, Marcus. You take forever.”

“I’ll call you tonight,” he promised, running his fingers through my hair with this look of worship. “I won’t make you wait, beautiful.”

I gave him one more heart melting kiss before breaking it off and rushing into my building. I looked like shit, and the elevator mirrors confirmed my suspicions. My skirt wasn’t in place straight, my hair was frizzy and my make-up was everywhere – the mascara in particular had completely rubbed beneath my eyes, making me look like a raccoon. Yeah, if anyone saw me, they’d know exactly what I’d been up to all night.