clarifies, “The authorities said they found dozens of women’s and girl’s bodies buried on the compound when they finally infiltrated it.”
My throat feels too tight, too thick to swallow. Air doesn’t penetrate my lungs as I’m transported back to that time, to that place.
To the heat. The stench. The screams.
A hand touches me, bringing me back. Grounding me. I stare down at it, at the soft palm that’s free from calluses, but stained red from my back.
She touches my chest like she has the right to touch me there, and fuck, if I hadn’t felt the same way when I rubbed my hand over her hair.
This is weird. Beyond strange. But what about my life isn’t?
“They were all raped before they died,” she says huskily, stepping closer to me now she’s back on her feet, not allowing me to move away from her.
Not allowing me to hide.
“Yes. All of them,” I rasp, shuttering my eyes like I wish I could shutter my mind to the memories.
In front of me.
My jaw clenches at the memory.
Sixty-six women.
All butchered in front of me.
Sixty-six victims that were used as leverage to force me to absolve souls who deserved to rot in hell.
“It’s amazing you’re still in one piece,” she whispers, her eyes wide as she stares up at me.
But she’s wrong.
I’m fractured into a million pieces. I’m not whole. I haven’t been since Oran.
People have suspected, but they never come out with it. That’s the only joy to no one ever discussing my past.
“God sent me to you,” she rasps. “To help you.”
She’s crazy.
“He gave me wings to fly to you.”
Insane.
I shake my head. “You need help.”
“No. You do. You need mine.” Her smile is wry, crooked. God help me, it’s charming too.
Once upon a time, she’d have been my type. Exactly what I went for.
But that was back in the past. When that troubled time had been like a fairy tale in comparison to this one.
“You need help,” she repeats, “and if you don’t let me in, then I’ll find someone who will.”
The words are strained, uttered like she doesn’t want to say them, but feels like she has no choice.
She already admitted that the illness she suffered had affected her mind, and for the first time, I sense a threat from her.
Not when she spoke of the bodies that litter my past, not when she spoke of my crimes... I didn’t feel the threat then.
But now?
I do.
“What are you talking about?” I rumble, feeling wary and starting to believe she just cornered me in.
“Prison is penance. This life you lead, it’s a prison in itself.” She shakes her head. “I know what you fear most, and I’ll feed it to you if you don’t let me in.”
Despite myself, I bark out a laugh.
She’s a pocket rocket, barely comes up to my chin, has blonde spikes for hair on one side, short curls on the other, a face that puts Grace Kelly’s to shame, and a body made for sin—the good kind.
Her threatening words should be ridiculous, but somehow, even though I laugh, something uneasy settles inside me.
She means it.
And while she’s addled, while I know the police would believe me where Paulo was concerned, she already mentioned five names who were my victims.
“Trapped inside your own mind with nothing to think about and nothing to do other than focus on your past. And with that past, you’d never go to jail,” she states with a humming lilt that, once again, makes me question exactly what kind of crazy has walked into my life. “We both know that.”
My jaw works as her assertion hits home.
“So, what is this? Blackmail? To what? What do you want from me?”
Her smile sends chills down my spine. “Everything. Nothing less than that will do.”
My nostrils flare when she slips her arms around my waist, and somehow, she avoids the areas that were bleeding, raw from my ministrations.
Her body collides with mine, branding me on one side with a heat that seems to penetrate me.
Soul deep.
I barely refrain from shuddering in response.
I have no idea what to do, no idea what she wants, but I know she’s a threat to the one thing I have left.
My sanity.
It’s barely there, hanging on by a thread, and she’s put that on the line.
She’s right.
A prison cell I could handle. I already had once. Fuck, it would be a walk in the park after Oran. But an asylum? A ward where I was doped up, medicated so intensely that every part