common with her,” Ollie said, and the anger crashed inside me, bouncing off the walls of my skin like a pinball machine. Ollie dipped his finger between the woman’s legs. I turned my head away from the sight.
Ollie laughed, and I heard him step toward me. “Look at me, Cheska,” he said softly. I didn’t. I kept my head turned away. “I said look at me, bitch!” I whipped my head to him, eyes wide at the way he’d just spoken to me. He smiled lovingly. “That’s better.” He glanced back at the girl, who still stood staring out at nothing. “You have no idea how many of her there’s been.”
I stopped breathing.
“It takes me months to find them. They have to look just right.” His eyes took him far away, but then he hurtled back to earth, his fucking stare on me. “They look like you, speak like you.” Ollie leaned forward and kissed my forehead. I recoiled at his touch. He didn’t seem to notice—or care. “But they’re not you, Cheska. None of them ever measure up.” Ollie got to his feet and walked back to the girl. In one second he’d taken out his knife, and a second later he stabbed her straight through the heart.
The cool demeanour I had been trying to hold on to vanished. I screamed as the girl hit the floor. Her head hit the cement, splitting her skull. Blood poured out. And I saw it, saw the only bit of life I’d seen in her flash across her eyes as she took her last breath. Relief.
She wanted to die.
My gut squeezed. What had happened to her to make her want to die? To have no hope left in her broken heart?
“You killed her!” I snarled. “Why did you kill her?”
Ollie wiped his knife on one of his men’s coat and put it back in his suit jacket. “Why do I need her when I have you? Now I have the real thing. After all these years, I finally have you. No more pretenders.”
“You don’t have me,” I said, the words clear and loud. “You’ll never have me.”
Ollie flew at me, stopping only an inch from my face. Spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke. “And who does? Adley. Fucking Arthur Adley.” He laughed. “And you think me a demon? He’s a fucking monster.”
“He doesn’t traffic people,” I spat. Ollie shook his head, as if he was disappointed in me. No—as if he was sad on my behalf.
Ollie cupped my cheeks. I tried to pull away, but his hold was ironclad. And I hated it. I hated it because Arthur held me like this. He always held me like this. When he did, I felt wanted. I felt safe. I felt adored.
When Ollie did it, I felt violated.
“You poor, poor, naïve woman,” Ollie said, his tone as soft as if he were speaking to a toddler. “You have no idea of the evil that lives inside him. You haven’t seen the amount of darkness that lives in his soul. Aren’t you afraid of that darkness inside him?”
I made sure I was looking right into Ollie’s eyes. “You haven’t seen mine yet.”
Ollie reared back as if he didn’t recognise me. As if whatever version of me he craved had been poisoned by Arthur’s influence. Good. I wanted to be ruined in his eyes. The truth was, Ollie didn’t know me now. He had never met this Cheska. The one who had been robbed of all her family, her friends. And it wasn’t by Arthur. It was by him. All of this shit was because of him.
He’d poisoned me. He’d ruined the girl he used to crave. I was a monster of his own creation.
Ollie got to his feet, and I knew by the disgusted look he threw my way that I had pushed him too far. I didn’t care if he wanted to toss me aside. I wanted him to never touch me. I wanted him to die. I glanced at the girl on the floor. He had to die for killing her, hurting her, stealing her from this life.
“She was a piss-poor imitation of you,” Ollie said, following my gaze. “Her parents had really fucked up with their loan. Made a deal with me that they couldn’t repay.” He kicked her, rolling her onto her back. He shrugged. “But she was relatively cheap to buy. Her parent’s debts weren’t too much to cover.” He took his gaze from the girl and, with