He saunters closer until he’s right in front of me, his gaze caught on his wine as he swirls it in the glass and then takes a sip.
“Either way,” he says as a smile sneaks across his lips, “the sound of her begging will be a beautiful symphony. A masterpiece.”
My throat clogs. My eyes fucking sting.
I know there’s no reasoning with him. There’s no bartering. I have nothing to offer. But I try anyway.
For her.
“Please, please, just leave her alone. If you want begging, I’ll fucking beg. If you want money you can have everything I own. If you want to cut me up into a thousand pieces, you can. Do whatever you want with me. Just please leave her be. Please.”
David leans closer. His eyes scour every inch of my face. “Why would I do that, when I can have you both?”
A flash of movement. Silver in the dim light.
Pain erupts in my wrist and agony spills from my lips. I look down to where the corkscrew is buried in my flesh, twitching with every beat of my heart.
“The Pont Neuf,” David says as he holds his glass beneath my bound arm. Blood trickles into the wine. “It’s nice, but a little bland for my taste. I like something full-bodied.”
He leaves the corkscrew in my arm as he takes a long sip. When David’s eyes fix to mine, they’re hazy, half-lidded. His slow smile is exultant.
“So much better,” he whispers, and swirls the wine and blood together before drinking more down. “That little tang of iron really adds another dimension to the mix. As insufferable as that pretentious old windbag was, I must admit—Thorsten really was on to something. And all this talking? Well…it’s made me hungry. I bet you’re famished too.”
David turns away toward the counter where the mandolin lays in a smear of blood on the stainless steel.
It’s Sloane’s face I see when I drop my chin to my chest and close my eyes. It’s her tears I feel when sweat slides down my face to drop on my lap. I think about how fucking beautiful she was when I told her I didn’t want her, her skin radiant with the pain of my words. I watched her heart shatter, and I twisted that knife for nothing. Because I’ll never be able to save her. Not from this. Not from him.
I can only hope that she disappears the way I know she can. They way she should have, from the first moment I let her out of that cage.
I’m thinking about that first day I met her in the bayou when I notice David go still in the periphery.
When I drag my gaze from my lap, he’s still standing at the table where the mandolin is, but his posture is different. Stiff. Tense. He pivots a slow turn with his back to me, his head angled at the length of the prep table to his left and then the counter on his right.
“Looking for something?” a voice says from the shadows.
Shock and confusion. Desperation and fear. It all crashes into my chest as Sloane steps into the light, David’s gun raised in her hand.
She’s so fucking beautiful. So brave. The gun doesn’t waver in her hand as she keeps it trained on him and walks forward to stop enough to the side that I can see her clearly. Her skin glows with a light sheen of sweat. Hazel eyes rimmed with black liner and thick lashes flick to me.
Her face is expressionless as she takes in my bloody arm and the corkscrew embedded in my wrist.
She looks to David. A slow smile creeps across her lips.
“Hello, David. I’m so happy we finally have a chance to talk,” she says.
And then she lowers the gun.
“I was wondering when you’d finally make your move.”
Her smile takes on a dark edge. A sharp edge. One that slips right between my ribs.
Sloane doesn’t look at me. Not even a glance in my direction. She keeps all her attention on David, warmth and wonder in her eyes, that fucking dimple a shadow next to her lips.
I want to rip his fucking skin off.
“I admire your work,” she says. “The South Bay Slasher. I assume you befriended Thorsten while you were in Torrance, am I right?”
David smirks before raising the glass to his lips and taking a long sip of wine, then he sets it on the counter next to the mandolin and crosses his arms. “So, you’ve been stalking me. Can’t say I’m entirely surprised.”
Sloane shrugs. “I like to know who’s out and about.”
“I know. I’ve been doing some stalking of my own. I’m aware of the caliber of prey you hunt. You’re here to kill me.”
“If I was,” she says as she raises the gun and examines the barrel, “I would have done it already.”
David lets his gaze travel the length of Sloane’s body. There’s a flash in his eyes, a flicker of all the things he wants to do to her, all his depraved desires. “I was watching your special little moment with this asshole a couple of hours ago, don’t forget. I know pain when I see it. You could say it’s my specialty.”
“And it was a very convincing performance, wasn’t it.” Sloane shrugs and keeps her finger on the trigger as she rests her elbow against her hip and points the gun toward the ceiling. “I’ve been watching you, too.”
“Little lies will catch you in a web, Orb Weaver. You should know that better than anyone,” David says through the dark, predatory smile that creeps across his lips. “I shut down the security cameras.”
Though David edges a little closer to her, Sloane remains relaxed. Nothing about her stance changes when she says, “Tsk, tsk, David. You must not have counted all the video feeds. That one there?” she says as she points the Glock to a camera in the corner of the room that’s aimed toward us, its red light still on. “That one is mine. I’ve been watching the whole time.”
David’s smile falls as he realizes she’s right.
Sloane’s smirk is triumphant as she gives him a wink. “Like I said. If I wanted to, I would.”
In a whip of movement, she aims the gun at David, the muzzle pointed at his forehead. He stiffens and drops his arms.
“Pow, pow, pow,” she says in a staccato rhythm. Her grin spreads before she lowers the weapon to her side. “Just kidding.”
I can only see David’s profile, but he can’t hide that gleam in his eye.
He’s fucking enraptured.
And Sloane eats it up, her face lighting in an indulgent smile. “Did you befriend Thorsten to find me?” she asks with a flirty tilt of her head.
“More like to defend myself. I had an idea you might come for me someday. I figured if I made friends with someone like us, I might have a buffer every August when people of our… nature… tend to wind up dead. Of course, Thorsten didn’t know he was being hunted, so I suggested I could pretend to be his fucked-up servant for the night while he scratched his itch with the serendipitous appearance of two seemingly perfect victims.” David takes a drink and studies her before he leans against the counter. “You know what they say: teamwork makes the dream work.”
Sloane beams. “Indeed. But sometimes it takes a while to find the right team.”
David tips his glass in her direction. “Very true.”
“Blackbird…” I say.