Chapter 18

H is screams are music to my ears. They play over the screams of my father—the man this asshole tortured to death. My hammer comes down again and pushes a nail through his other hand. The nail head ends up flush with his skin as it locks him to the wall. He screams again, his mouth invisible behind that horrifying gold giraffe mask. One of the last things my father saw.

Besides me trying—and failing—to save him.

"Do you remember him?" I ask.

"Who?" the man screams, spit hurtling from his mouth.

"You nailed his hands, just like this." I slam the hammer against the nail one more time, pinching his muscle and flesh between drywall and metal.

"I didn't do shit!" he yells.

I turn, walk out of the room, and grab the picture of my father from the nightstand. When I'm back in the spare bedroom, I push the photo into his face. A photo of a time when my father was smiling and happy beside me. I was happy too. Before everything happened.

"Does he look familiar?" I ask.

"Fuck you!" he hisses. "And fuck you too, Knox."

I turn around and see Knox in the doorway. Heat creeps across my cheeks as he sees me in my worst form. My chest rises and falls as adrenaline dumps into my system, and I'm sure my eyes look absolutely crazed. I'm not sure why I have a moment of insecurity over my feral appearance. Knox has seen it. He's felt it.

"There's not enough torture in the world for this man," I say to Knox. There really isn't. Each nail feels like a tiny scrape off my need for vengeance. It's like I'm peeling a carrot, and the thinnest skin comes off with each swipe of the blade.

"Why?" the man asks Knox. "We took you in and?—"

"I didn't want to be taken in. I was fine where I was. Like her father, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time." He nods toward me.

"You're a dead man, Knox," the man says. "You know that, right?"

"I'm aware," he says. "But so are you."

"She's not one of us," the man mumbles.

"And I'm no longer one of you," Knox says.

My eyes flame with heat. They're both part of the same dark entity. It was easy to forget that sometimes, and the reminders are always painful. Especially since I'm falling for Knox.

I scream as I hammer a row of four nails up each one of Mark's outstretched arms. He screams until his voice is hoarse, but I keep going. I hammer one through his pants, right into his groin. His voice drifts, and his screams fade into a pained silence.

Knox gasps behind me. If anyone can grasp what sort of pain this asshole is experiencing, it's him.

Finally, I hammer a nail through his forehead, just like he did to my father. His pleading whispers turn to gibberish as his eyes loll in his head. His appearance haunts me. It's so similar—awake, oddly lucid, but with metal piercing his skull. My father spoke gibberish at the end too, but he was able to get out the two words I needed to find his killer.

I turn to Knox and walk into him until his back collides with the wall and his gray eyes fall to me. My hand drops to the front of his pants, and I rub over the fabric.

"Now isn't the time, karma," he whispers.

Unfortunately, I'm not in the mental space to take no for an answer.

"You need to finish him," he says, pulling my hand away.

"My father managed to crawl home with that nail in his head. He can suffer for a while. He deserves to suffer for eternity."

"This isn't you," he says. Then he swallows and looks right into my eyes. "And it's not me."

"Maybe this is me, Knox. Does that change things for you?"

He grabs my hand and puts it back on the front of his pants. "Does this feel like it's changed anything?"

I smirk up at him and turn toward the man nailed to the wall. He's so out of it that he keeps trying to peel himself from his confines, causing more blood to drip onto the floor. Knox is right, though. This isn't me. Not really. It makes me no better than them if I allow him to languish instead of sending him to hell where he belongs.

I grab the knife from the dresser, and Knox follows me as I approach the half-conscious man. I tug his head up by his hair and hold the blade to his throat before pressing the metal deeper and dragging the sharp edge from ear to ear. Warm, dark blood squirts from his gaping neck, splashing me.

I turn back toward Knox. A splash of blood colors his face, and another spray marks his bare chest. A scarlet jet hit my face too, dripping in thick lines down my chest and the curves of my breasts.

Knox looks at me for a moment, and before I know what's happening, he's pulled me into his chest. The blood slicks our skin as he kisses me, spreading blood anywhere we press against each other. A weight rises away from my shoulders, and I feel light. High, almost. I didn't realize just how heavy the need for vengeance had weighed on me.

Knox drags me to the bed and pushes my chest onto the mattress, then raises my skirt and cups my ass with bloody hands. He spreads my lips as he works down his slacks before pushing his warm cock inside me.

I can't help but stare at the man I killed. Weird, sadistic thoughts of Knox fucking the slit in his neck make me moan harder. I let every ill thought I've ever had join the party in my mind. Killing Sam with the blade of my knife in his ass. Gutting him as I take from him the way he's taken from me. Using his pleas like he's used mine.

"You've made me a monster," I pant, reaching to touch his thigh and grip his leg.

He leans over me, grinding his dick into me as my ass nestles into his pelvis. "You aren't a monster. You're just karma. Their actions decided yours. You only wish to give what they deserve."

"And you? What do you deserve?"

It's a question that's been pressing on my mind more and more with each passing second. How does this play out? How can it play out?

He pulls out of me and flips me onto my back, then puts his cock to my entrance before he pushes inside me. "You. You are all I want until my last breath. I don't know what I did to deserve you, but you're mine. Your pussy is mine. Everything I've ever done, in this or past lives, brought me right to this moment when I'm balls deep inside my own karma. The kind I hoped for when I almost died. I don't want to be part of them anymore. I want to be part of you."

"I don't want to be beneath you," I say.

Of course I don't. I've been beneath someone for too long.

He rolls onto his back, and I climb on top of him. It's a physical representation of what he's willing to give me. He's telling me that I can be on top. I can take control when I need to.

I ride him, controlling the pace and the depth, rocking my hips on his as I chase my orgasm. He raises his hips to meet mine, rocking me forward and off balance.

I put my hand on his chest. "Stop. Let me do it myself."

By the look on his face, I'm certain he's never had a woman on top of him who held her own pleasure so high on her priority list. Now that I've gotten my vengeance, my sole focus is coming on his dick. I hope he understands, because I don't intend to stop until my body is drained from pleasure. Until every muscle aches and reminds me just how alive I am now that the man who killed my father is dead.

I lean into my hand on his chest, drop my head back, and ride Knox like it's my job. My clit rubs against his pelvis, and the piercings graze it as I lift and lower myself on him.

"Fuck me like you hate them, karma," he says through teeth-gritting pleasure.

"You ruined my life, asshole!" I scream, spreading my chest and yelling into the air. "You broke me!"

"Tell him, Allister. Tell them all!"

"And you." My glassy gaze shifts to the dead body. "You altered every fucking path in my life. You led me to Sam! You've haunted my every waking moment!"

I come down hard on his lap, getting rough enough to change his expression from pleasure to pain.

"And you." I look down at Knox. "You are the only thing I don't hate. You're the only one who hasn't hurt me, even when I deserved it." I moan as an orgasm rushes toward me, despite all my anger and frustration.

"I like you too, karma," he says, gripping my hips as he feels me getting closer. "Now come for me."

I drop forward, and his mouth devours mine. My chest rises and falls against his. Karma should absolutely be covered in blood like this. Not her own. Just the blood of the men who hurt her. The vermillion streaks meld into my skin and give me life, and I breathe that into him.

My mind is made up. I won't kill Knox. I don't know how we'll make this work, but we have to try. Instead of killing for my father, it's time to start living for him instead. He'd want me to be happy, and my greatest chance of happiness lies beneath me. It won't be easy, but nothing good in life ever is.