Chapter 1

They say in a mad world, only the insane are sane. I have to agree. The world I'd been living in before was black and white. There was right and wrong. This new world I walk through is full of vibrancy and life, but it's also overwhelmed by death and burden.

But it's one I've taken on.

With Neo beside me.

If he's the hand that feeds, I'm the mouth that savors. The lines of right and wrong blurred a long time ago.

You might be wondering what's brought us back to Crows Hollow. Well, there's plenty of revenge to be had. But revenge is always best carried out with a clear head. Knowing such, we'd done our traveling and so much killing. We"ve gotten it out of our system to return and do this right.

"Ready?" Neo asks as the massive clock tower in the town square chimes.

Slipping my hand into his, I nod.

I've been reborn, becoming a new me. However, a feeling nags at me. A voice in my head says this side of me has always been there, waiting for me to nurture it, to bring it forward.

"We're going to turn these streets crimson, stupid girl."

His words scatter through my brain, and a scintillating thrill rushes inside my veins.

It's dark, and the twinkling lights on the streets of Crows Hollow are all that are awake. It's three a.m., the witching hour. We've come back because someone's killing here. Not only that, but they're using Neo's M.O. to do so. It seems while we've been busy traveling the world together—killing for fun and fucking for leisure—darkness awoke in our absence. One we will need to snuff out.

"How will we find them, though?" I ask, a sinful smile pulling my lips upward. Lunacy has become me, or have I become lunacy? One can never tell, can they? Whether it was there before, waiting to be awake, or Neo infected me with it, it's here and needs to be fed often.

"We'll do what all the greats do, stupid love. Insert ourselves into the investigation."

Giddy energy makes me skip and squeal with excitement. But Neo turns to me, murder on his face as he forces me off the main road against a building.

His hand grips my throat as my head hits the brick wall of a shop behind me. "You need to contain yourself. I need you to dig fucking deep, Lyla. I know you've let go of inhibitions as of late, and trust me, stupid girl, I live for your brand of insanity. But I need you to rein it the fuck in. Because if we're going to do this, we have to do it right. That means not drawing attention to ourselves. Do you understand me?"

Even though the same thrill is dancing in my stomach as he holds me tight, his eyes dark and crazed as he lords over me, I nod in compliance.

For if I'm the lunatic, he's the creator.

And one must behave appropriately for one"s creator.

For a time.

The house Neohas set us up in is in foreclosure. We purchased it under fake names—identities he'd bought us on the way back to Crows Hollow. I am now Lillian Black, and he's my husband, Steven. We'll fly under the radar as much as we can. We'll change our appearances and alter perceptions of those around us so that we might draw out the little fucker who's pretending to be Neo.

Pretending to be The Bombshell Butcher.

"It's already looking great in here," Neo says, walking in and seeing all the hard work I'd put into cleaning and arranging the small amount of things we'd amassed in the nearly two years we've been together. The home had come furnished with whatever was on site, and I'd purchased some other items at the local Dollar Spot. I don't know how long we'll be here, and if we have to leave, I don't want to have put too much into this place.

"Thank you." I barely get the words out before his lips crash into mine.

When he pulls back, I'm breathless. Moments like this are when tiny bits of the old me surface. Ones that put me on edge. I shake out of the hold of the images that pepper my brain and smile at him.

"What did you find out in town?" I ask.

It's new for us to walk amongst the living in daylight. We usually find ourselves in clubs under the twirling red, purple, and green lights. It's where we hunt. Seedy motel rooms and truck stops are where we live. This life we're embarking on will be new to us after so long on the run.

"Found out there have been three murders so far—all blonde women. Police are still looking into the backgrounds of two of them, but one of them was a convicted rapist. She only just got out of lock-up."

My brow lifts.

"What?" he asks.

"Well, is that on brand for someone attempting to copycat you? Did you kill those who did their time?"

He shakes his head. "No. I didn't. It's what sets them apart from me."

"And what do the police think?" I ask, rubbing the tip of my index finger down the prominent vein in his throat. If I look hard enough, I can almost see the pattering of his heart that pumps the blood within it.

He clears his throat, which brings me back to the moment. I almost laugh. "They think I've changed my M.O. and that it's me returning to haunt them."

I roll my eyes and turn away from him, slapping the dust rag against the meager coffee table again in show. "Peasants, the lot of them," I joke, turning and catching the tail end of a scowl he gives me when he knows my back is turned.

As of late, he's become unamused with the side of me I let free when I killed James. The part of me that broke that night. I can control it, sure, but I don't want to.

Not when I've tasted freedom.

"You're going to have to get it together, stupid girl. How will you infiltrate the investigation, acting like you've broken out of the local asylum?"

I smirk, backing toward the closed bedroom door as he slowly steps towards me. "But I did escape the local asylum, sir."

His lip lifts in a feral show of dominance at the term.

"And why will I be infiltrating the police investigation?" I ask as he halts before me, looking down at me like a meal on a platter.

When he grasps both sides of my head and grips my hair, I moan. Pain no longer makes me afraid. Nothing does. I was reborn as he wanted me to be. Now, I live for him. I live for every fucked-up thing he wants to do to me. I'm his doll, and I don't care who knows it.

"Because I told you to, that's why. Your identity here is now Agent Black. You came from out of town and trailed the copycat here to Crows Hollow. You'll tell them you're not here to interfere, only to see if your cases link with theirs. If they need verification, I'll give you a card to give them. My contacts will give them all they need on you to solidify your story."

His power and reach still astonish me. It's because he killed at the behest of many rich and powerful people, who have become his network of spiders—ones that do his bidding.

"Do you understand me?" he asks, his voice filled with gravel and rage as he tightens either side of my hair in his hands.

I lift on my toes, breathless from the pinch at my scalp. "Yes, I understand."

"Mmm, good. Now, you know what happens next, right?" Glee fills his eyes, and my heart patters harder in my chest.

I almost breathe relief out of my lips when he lets my hair go.

"On your fucking knees," he orders me, and the repercussions of his words and his tone flutter through my chest as I do just what he's told me to.

"You know better than to question me. Don't you, stupid girl?" he growls, pulling his dick from his pants and slapping me across the face with it.

I nod.

He slaps me again on the other side of my face, this time harder.

I close my eyes in bliss. Being used by him makes me feel so much at once. But above all else, I feel loved. Neo can't show me that he loves me any other way. He's broken beyond repair, and I'll take what bits of him I can.

"Your words," he groans, and this time his cock slides against my cheek, pre-cum trails in its wake.

I shudder. "Yes, sir. I understand you."

"And?"

A feral ache takes up residence in my stomach, my pussy soaking my panties beneath my jeans. "I'll behave. I'll do what needs to be done."

"That's a good little whore. And?"

My brain is too fuzzy with the need to form words, my tongue salivating to taste the cum on the tip of his cock, but I manage. "I won't question you any more."

He pulls back as I open my mouth and shoves inside with one hard thrust. "I fucking doubt it. Because you're a stupid girl who needs a lot of direction."

His hands slam against the drywall as he cages me between his body and the wall. I can almost hear the house quake in fear, and it would be wise. One such as Neo Wade is terrifying.

"That a girl, take me down that vile throat. There you go, fuck…" His hips roll as he fucks my mouth in vicious thrusts. My eyes are crying the pretty tears he loves to watch trail down my cheeks, and my pussy is throbbing for him.

"Is my stupid girl wet for me?" he grits out.

Almost throwing myself off rhythm, I bob on his cock, knowing that I would be punished for it.

When he moves further into my mouth, my head hits the wall behind me. He dives into my throat even deeper, fucking at a downward angle now because of the shift of my body.

"Show me," he says, and it only registers briefly before he backs up. His eyes are on me like a predator's, and I can't shake the excitement in my center.

I get out of my jeans and panties in a flash, sliding fingers through my cunt before dipping them inside. One pump. Two.

I walk closer to him, fingers coated in my arousal. I rub them across his mouth when I reach him. His eyes roll back as he breathes in my scent, licking his lips to savor each fucking morsel I've given him. This is what drives me over the edge.

The way he wants me. The devotion he shows me, even if it's obsessive. There's not another like him. It never will be. So, dancing in the flames of him, I had to get burned. And that's just what I had to do.

He reaches up and slides his hand into my hair, gripping it tightly as he turns me around and leads me over to the back of the couch, bending me in half.

He's inside me in the next second. My pussy clenches around him in thanks as he bottoms out. My screams are unending as he fucks me hard and fast, just how I like it.

"Fuck, Neo! Harder!" I shout, and it comes from a guttural place in my being.

"Shut your mouth, stupid girl. You don't deserve my fucking cock, and you know it! But I'm weak! I am a weak fucking man for you. Goddamnit!"

He pulls out of me to keep from coming, his breaths coming heavy behind me.

I grin, knowing he can't see me from this angle, and then waggle my ass side to side in invitation. "Come on, weak man. Fuck me like you mean it!"

He snarls, shoving back inside me as I tighten my pussy in waves, convulsing the muscles surrounding him to drive him insane as my orgasm builds.

"We're going to find the fucker that's framing me, and I'm going to fuck you in a pool of their blood, stupid girl. I'm going to make you ride their lifeless mouth. Make you come on their fucking tongue for me."

It sends me over the edge as my eyes cross. "Neo!"

"Fucking. Stupid. Little. Whore!" he shouts, punctuating each word with a hard thrust that takes my breath away before he spills himself inside me.

For a long time, I thought his seed in my womb soiled me. But then I realized that I might have been deranged throughout my entire existence. Neo only saw it in me and gave it a world to live in.

With his hand nurturing it.