17. Aly

Chapter 17

Aly

I f someone had told me two weeks ago that I would end up driving a car with a body in the trunk, I would have…I don’t know. Laughed? Told them they had lost it? And yet, here I was, driving back toward the city with a queasy killer and the corpse he’d created.

I glanced at Josh, slumped sideways in his seat with his forehead resting against the window. “You doing okay?”

He craned his head sideways, slowly, like he couldn’t believe I was even asking him that because he was obviously not okay. “I’m great. Definitely not in the middle of an existential crisis. You?”

“Disappointed.”

He sat up a little, frowning. “What?”

I shrugged and refocused on the road. It was pitch black outside, and with the night I was having, it would have been just my luck that a deer would jump in front of us. “Brad’s death was too anticlimactic.”

“Anticlimactic,” Josh repeated.

“Yeah. I mean, a piece of shit like him? His demise should have been more violent and, ideally, included getting lit on fire at the end.”

That surprised a snort out of him. “Bonfire o’ Brad.”

“Barbecue o’ Bluhm,” I said, grinning.

Josh groaned. “We’re going straight to hell.”

“Good. Maybe we can get another shot at him down there.” I glanced over my shoulder toward the trunk. “I’m lowkey considering pulling over so I can stab him a few times and make myself feel better.”

“Haha,” Josh said humorlessly.

I gave him a blank look.

His eyes flashed wide. “Jesus Christ, Aly.”

I winked to let him know I was kidding – kind of – and faced the road again.

He shifted beside me, sitting fully upright in his seat. “I can’t believe I just murdered someone.”

I held up a finger. “Technically, I think what you did classifies as involuntary manslaughter.”

“Oh, good. That makes me feel much better.”

“It should,” I said.

“Why’s that?”

I shot him a wink. “Less jail time.”

“How are you so calm about all this?” he asked.

“Because death is nothing new to me,” I said. “I see it on a weekly basis. Mostly, it’s good people who pass way before their time due to illness or injury. So much of the loss I witness is senseless and tragic, leaving far too many heartbroken family members in its wake. It’s nice to see someone like Brad get what they deserve for once. I doubt even his parents will mourn him.”

Josh was quiet in response, and I glanced over to see him staring out at the passing snowscape as he processed my words.

God, the man was beautiful. His profile in the dashboard light was a thing to behold. It made me wonder why he’d ever want to cover his face with a mask.

I’d seen shitty people in his comments say things about how men like him were all butterfaces, and that’s why they wore masks, but that wasn’t true of Josh, and I’d watched enough face-reveal videos from other creators to know those commenters were wrong. So what drove the masktokers to it? Was it the anonymity? The opportunity to don an alter-ego like a second skin and become someone else entirely?

That felt oddly fitting for Josh. He was like a soft dom – sweet in the streets and mean in the sheets. But, like, mean in the best way. Bossy and demanding and relentless, and oh, no, I was getting turned on within five feet of a fresh corpse.

I jerked my gaze back to the road. That cemented it. I’d officially become so numb that not even the body of a dead rapist affected me like it should.

I snuck one last glance at the passenger seat. Or maybe Josh was so handsome that the laws of morality broke in his presence.

“The worst part about it is that I don’t even feel bad,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m freaked out that I killed someone, but beneath that, I don’t have any guilt over it. I’m more fucked up over not being fucked up if that makes sense.”

“It does,” I said as we approached a four-way stop. My map helpfully told me to turn right, so I threw my blinker on and followed the directions as I mulled over a more detailed response. “I think most people would feel the same way in your shoes. Death in and of itself is terrifying. The first time I watched someone pass, I stepped into the hall afterward and puked all over the floor. I’ve watched other new nurses pass out. Your response is pretty normal. As for not feeling bad, why would you?”

He turned toward me. “Because I took a human life.”

I shook my head. “That’s societal pressure. You’ve been taught that killing is wrong and only monsters do it, but that’s not right. People kill for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes, it’s in the heat of the moment, and they spend the rest of their lives regretting what they’ve done. Other times, it’s out of desperation, like a woman killing her abuser because she knows that if she doesn’t, she’ll end up dead instead. And then there are accidents like what happened tonight. I’m honestly relieved we did it ourselves. Part of me was panicking over the thought of those people calling the cops instead of taking care of Brad on their own.”

I reached out and gripped Josh’s knee. “Just keep reminding yourself that it was an accident, and making one mistake doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Especially when the result is removing a rapist and potential murderer from this earth. Between his family money and his obvious escalation, he would have gone on to target someone else if we didn't stop him. Who knows how many lives we might have saved by taking his?”

Josh shifted, his leg flexing beneath my palm. “You keep saying we, but I was the one who did it.”

“Yeah, but I’m just as complicit,” I said. “Maybe I didn’t put the duct tape over Brad’s mouth, but I went into this planning for him to end up dead, one way or another.”

Josh slipped his hand beneath mine and threaded our fingers together. “Thank you for saying all that. It helps.”

“You’re welcome. And I hope you know I’m not blowing smoke up your ass. I truly believe we made the world better by removing Brad from it. I know vigilante justice is problematic as fuck, but sometimes I think it’s necessary, especially when the system put in place to deal with men like Brad fails because it's susceptible to loopholes.”

“Don’t forget bribery,” Josh said. “Brad gave off plenty of warning signs that went ignored, including peeping through windows, animal cruelty, and sexual harassment. All as a teenager. I read a quote from a judge who let him off without so much as probation after he got drunk his senior year of high school and drove his car into the house of a classmate who’d turned him down. It was, “He’s a bright young man with his whole future ahead of him. It’d be terrible to ruin it over something like this.” The judge was a golf buddy of Brad’s father.”

I pulled my hand from Josh’s before I broke one of his fingers from squeezing too hard. “That right there is why I won’t ever feel bad about this.”

Josh let out a low, angry sound. “It barely scratches the surface of what Brad got away with.”

I glared at the road ahead of me. “I keep getting stuck on how it went on for so long. That one judge? I get. Not that I understand, just that there are corrupt shitheads in every profession. But years and years of Brad getting away with his crimes? That no one will ever be able to explain to me in a way I’ll understand, even if they give me a detailed bullet list of every misstep along the way.”

“Maybe it all led up to tonight,” Josh said. “Maybe I was meant to kill him.”

I frowned. “Like fate?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe I was always meant to be a killer, and it would have happened one way or another.”

What the fuck? How could Josh possibly think something like that? Him? Destined to be a killer? I couldn’t accept it. He was too good, too kind, and yes, he’d broken into my house and stalked me, but I’d asked him to commit the B dismemberment, I’m not so sure. And because we’re amateurs, the risk of getting caught somewhere along the way is too high for me to stomach. I’d much rather let the professionals handle it.”

“Consider me team mob then,” Josh said.

“It’s going to come at a cost,” I warned him.

He gripped my shoulder, and the urge to turn and nuzzle my cheek into his hand was too strong to resist.

He stroked his thumb up my neck. “Do you know what the cost will be? Are we talking money or, like, favors?”

“Probably favors. Just because I’m family doesn’t mean I’m exempt from blackmail and coercion. I’ll probably have to convince the hospital to hire another mobster or something.” I sent him an apologetic look. “I can only imagine what they’ll ask someone with your hacking skills to do.”

He squeezed my shoulder. “If it means staying out of jail and the media, I’ll do whatever they want.”

I frowned as I took a left turn. He was concerned about the media? The thought of winding up on the news hadn’t even occurred to me. I was still too worried about getting caught driving with a dead guy in the car to think much past that, but maybe I should have. Brad did come from a lot of money, after all. Rich white boys were always considered newsworthy by the media. It made me even more convinced that going to Nico was the right choice, despite whatever fallout might come from it.

“You never gave me an answer,” Josh said, snapping me out of my dark thoughts.

“About what?”

“Whether or not you’re my girlfriend.”

My pulse ratcheted up, and there went my stomach, going aflutter. “Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” I said, sneaking a glance over at him.

He flashed a wolfish smile at me, and honestly? I forgot about the body in the trunk. Hell, it felt like the sight of those dimples was realtering my brain chemistry so that all my future thoughts would revolve around this man.

My body’s response to his was bad enough, but I was doomed now that I had a face to go along with it. Doomed, I tell you. Whatever self-preservation remained went out the window. This was what I wanted – he was what I wanted – to hell with the consequences. And yes, it was all happening faster than was probably normal, but with him, I didn’t need months to make up my mind. These past few weeks had been enough for me to decide what my answer would be.

He made me feel alive. He’d dragged me out of the gray world I’d been living in and taught me how to see colors again. In a sea of men who barely put in any effort, this man stood out for going above and beyond. He was the definition of “If he wanted to, he would.” Because he’d done for me what no one else ever had: he not only met but exceeded my needs, both physically and emotionally. He kept me on my toes, never knowing what he would do next. And he did it all while making me blush and laugh, often at the same time.

Of course, I wanted to be his girlfriend. Hell, if I had it my way, every free moment I wasn’t working would be spent in his company from now on. I hoped he understood what he was getting himself into because while his obsession had started relatively recently, mine had been going on for months, and once I got my claws in him, I didn’t plan to let go.

He shifted forward, crowding into my space in a way that made my breath hitch and my nerves spark. “Aly? Do you want to be my girlfriend? The position comes with snacks and orgasms and maybe a little light stalking.”

I grinned. “Yes.”

He swooped in and kissed my cheek, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so happy. Even with a dead body not five feet from me. Even on my way to ask the last person I wanted to for help. Josh distracted me from all the awful bullshit and made me feel good instead. Maybe this relationship had started out on questionable footing, and maybe we still had a lot to learn about each other outside of our mutual stalking, but saying yes to being Josh’s girlfriend felt like the easiest decision I’d made in a long time, and no matter what was to come, or what secrets Josh still held, I doubted anything would ever make me regret it.