Deviant (Boys of Winter #3) - Sheridan Anne Page 0,35

him.

The boys begin moving in, slowly stalking him as we each watch his eyes growing wider with desperation, until they come back to mine. “Joke’s on you,” he tells me, quickly whipping around and grabbing the meat cleaver out of the knife block.

The boys run.

“My wife is a fucking whore just like you,” Preston rushes out with a sickening gleam in his eyes. “She doesn't know shit.”

Then in one lightning-fast move, Preston brings his hand down in a rapid arc and slices a viciously deep cut straight across his throat just moments before the boys reach him.

I scream as blood spurts across the room and with a smile on his deranged face, Preston Scardoni collapses to the ground and joins Royston Carver, Sam Delacourt, and his bastard of a son in hell.

CHAPTER 9

Cruz’s stare settles on the side of my face as Carver drives through the streets of Ravenwood Heights, dragging my ass back to school despite my endless protests.

It’s been three weeks since getting shot, and since having to spend an entire night helping the boys scrub bloodstains from the grout, pretending my stomach wasn’t turning, I’ve been in a mood. A fucking shitty mood.

Preston Scardoni is dead, and now we’re all out of options. I pushed him too far—showed him my crazy too soon. I told him exactly what I planned to do, and maybe I exaggerated a bit, but regardless, I handed my game plan to him on a silver platter. Instead of sitting back and allowing me to play out my twisted little game, he took himself out of the picture. He was the last hand I had to play, and now I’ve got nothing.

Fucking nothing.

There are still too many questions I need answered.

Who was Royston working with? Who has been hiding my mother? Who was conspiring with Preston to kill me? And who the fuck killed Tobias King under my roof and under all of our noses?

Still feeling Cruz’s stare, I turn toward him and narrow my eyes, hating how fucking bitchy I feel today. “What?” I snap, only to watch his stare harden and instantly feel like shit about it. I let out a sigh and press my lips into a tight line. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

Cruz just nods, always so quick to shrug off my moods when they come up to bite us all in the ass. He scoots back in his seat, leaning his head back and keeping his curious stare on me. “The other day when you were describing to Scardoni exactly what you were going to do to him …”

Cruz pauses and I narrow my eyes. “Spit it out, Cruz.”

His lips press into a hard line, and after releasing a soft sigh, he finally lets out whatever has been plaguing his beautiful mind. “What you said about the video and torturing his wife with it; that was some dark shit, Winter. I was expecting some fucked-up, twisted things to come out of your mouth, but I’m not gonna lie, what did come out of your mouth … that fucking shook me, babe.”

My lips press into a hard line and I reach across the backseat to grip his big hand. It curls around mine as though it was made for me. I quickly glance up only to notice both King and Grayson watching intently, making it obvious that the same thing has also been on their minds. “I know, I’m sorry, but I was desperate,” I tell them, now sensing Carver watching me through the rearview mirror. “I said what I had to say to get a reaction out of him, and I was hoping that he would cave and talk. I pushed him too far, and because of what I did, we don’t have the answers we need.”

I turn to King. “I’m sorry,” I say, fighting the tears and forcing myself to remain strong. “I know you were hoping that Preston might have gotten us one step closer to whoever killed your dad.”

King stretches his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into his warm, inviting chest. “Don’t stress about it, babe. We’ll find who killed my dad, but that’s not what we’re asking you right now. We don’t care that Scardoni is dead and it puts us five steps backwards. Fuck, babe, I can’t tell you how badly I wanted to end him myself. Every time I went down there to get answers, he’d just fucking smirk at me … shit. I’ve imagined all the ways I could