Chapter 5

Walking into the Crows Hollow PD isn't something I ever thought I'd do. Especially not after killing a man and using his fingers to fuck me for Neo's enjoyment. A shiver rakes my spine at the imagery conjured in my mind, and I have to fight it off as I spot Detective Clark at the coffee machine.

She kicks it hard. "Give me back my money if you will not give me sustenance!"

I plaster a smirk on my face and approach, readying my fake persona to be friendly. "That's a fight I don't think you'll win."

She turns, eyeing me, but smiles. "You're probably right. Stiffed me a dollar-fifty, too."

Her eyes drift down to my thermos.

I waggle it in the air. "Coffee shops will fill these for mere pennies on the dollar with fresh coffee," I lie.

She sighs with envy. "I need to remember that trick next time."

"Agent Black, I didn't think you were coming. Glad you did, though," Detective Daniels says as he rounds the corner from the hall, stopping in front of where Julieanne and I had been chatting.

He motions toward a door that says interrogation on the outside. "We've been keeping the files in here. Come."

My heart palpitates behind my ribs, skipping a few beats as I follow behind him apprehensively.

Julieanne looks none the wiser, giving the coffee machine that spurned her one last sidelong glance before following us. Half of me wonders if they're on to me. If they know who I am and are luring me into a room, I'll never leave as a free woman again.

The other half of me shuts that half down because it's stronger. Wiser.

I have to keep my shit together. If it's the only thing I can manage.

Neo's fingers had worked out some of the tension I'd had in me after leaving the crime scene. But not all of it. A buzzing energy beneath my skin calls to me, and I'm inclined to listen if I get out of sorts.

So, I have to make sure that I don't.

Because now is not the time, and this is not the place.

The door opens, and Detective Daniels ushers us inside.

The entire room is covered in stories from when Neo escaped to the present day when the killings began anew.

I take a few moments to look everything over. An article mentions my being missing, reported by a family member, and how my disappearance had coincided with the Butcher escaping the asylum. Lucky for me, however, this article doesn't have a photo. Because I can do all I want to about my outward appearance, but I can't change my face.

The more I look, the more I realize they don't think Neo is the killer. It looked like it had been weeks since they moved on to other ideas.

"So, you don't think the Butcher is back?" I ask, turning to look at the two detectives who'd been watching me analyze all they've put together.

Detective Clark shakes her head, kicking off the door where she'd been leaning against it. "No. Like you said, the Butcher was a killer with a strict motivation. He killed those who escaped justice. And also, he didn't dismember. Though we've been working the copycat angle for a few weeks, he leaves no good evidence behind."

"It's almost like we're going to have to wait for him to slip up," Detective Daniels adds.

I turn away from them to hide my smirk. "You'll have to wait a while for that to happen," I say.

"What do you mean?" Daniels asks.

There's no suspicion in his voice toward me. Even so, I tread carefully. "Did you see everything he did? How long he spent with the body? How meticulously he cleaned and removed her tongue? That's the skill of a true killer. One who has studied the art only."

"Careful, Black, you sound as though you admire the fucker," Daniels says, but I'm staring at crime scene photos before me, too lost in the images rolling through my brain from earlier.

Each woman is removed from her tongue, and the jar reads some word he's written in their blood.

Liar. Thief. Monster.

I turn toward Clark. "He's targeting those who've done their time, but their crimes are heinous, are they not?"

She simply nods.

"Were any of them released early? Like… on early parole?"

Daniels grabs for files and flicks one open, his finger moving down the list with astute accuracy. I inwardly remind myself to stay off his radar. As much as I'm a monster, he's a fucking hunter.

And I don't want to find myself in his crosshairs.

"They all got out early. Only slightly, but you're right. One of them got out because of overcrowding."

"So he hasn't altered the Butcher's M.O. too much. They served their time, but not fully," I mutter, turning around and letting my eyes graze over the jars again. And he brandishes them with a name he thinks is fitting. Each one gets a title like he's leaving behind the reason he killed them."

Clark steps up to my side. "But yet, he's giving us no evidence to go off of."

I turn toward her, eyes calculating and cold. "He wouldn't be good at his job if he gave you anything to go off of, Detective Clark, now would he?"

"Well?"Neo asks as I kick out of my heels and toss my keys on the table nearest the door. A yawn spreads my lips, and I pad toward the kitchen, where the scent of something cooking wafts through the house.

"He's kept your M.O., but he's changing it. All the victims got out early, so their sentence wasn"t fully served. The tongue thing, I think, is a message for you. He's giving the reason he did it but also showing off for you," I tell Neo, scooping spaghetti onto my plate and heading for the bar.

I'm famished, and my feet are throbbing.

"And what do you think, stupid girl?" he asks, and I nearly forget I'm hungry. His husky voice rakes over my flesh and leaves goosebumps in its wake.

The call to kneel at his feet and beg for him to punish me is so fucking intense. And I have done nothing wrong. To my fucking dismay.

As if he understands the turmoil in my body, he smirks before shuffling across the kitchen and rounding the island to sit beside me on his stool. He turns to me, massive thighs falling open leisurely. The way Neo commands a room, commands those fucking jeans, is mouth-watering.

I swallow my mouthful of food, pushing the plate away.

He shakes his head at me before pulling it toward himself. He twirls spaghetti onto the fork and lifts it toward me.

"I'm fine," I lie, knowing my stomach feels like it's eating my backbone.

"Don't fucking lie to me." It's a simple command from the mouth of a lethal man I'd be wise to listen to.

Though every fiber in my body wants to rebel.

I open my mouth, eyes locked on his. He slides the fork into my mouth, and I make a show of slowly sucking the twisted pasta off it.

He swallows, and my eyes track the movement in his Adam's apple.

"Now, what do you think?"

"About what?" I'm exasperated. I'm too tired to think or care, yet he's forcing me to eat and to focus past what I want to do, which is slide over his lap and beg him to fuck me.

I don't like to be distracted.

"I'm certain you saw more photos than we could get our hands on. What do you think of how he works? Is he trying to frame me? Or is he simply out for attention? Was he at the crime scene, do you think?"

I stiffen on my stool, and my back straightens. "At the crime scene?"

He lifts the fork again, and I mechanically remove the food.

When he sets the fork down, he lifts his hand and brushes my hair behind my ear. I'd left my wig in the car, and my natural hair was messy from wearing it all day. God only knows what I look like.

"Stupid girl, no man kills as beautifully as he does and doesn't stick around to see how it's received."

I swallow. Why hadn't I thought of that?

Possibly because I'm new to this world. To this life full of blood and deranged men who go bump in the night.

"I—" I stammer, and a fire lights in Neo's eyes.

He stands, nearly knocking me off my stool. When he grips either side of my chin in his hand, pain sings through my face. Instead of wincing or crying out, I groan, my breaths coming in eager waves.

"Focus, stupid girl. Was there anyone there that rubbed you wrong? Anyone at all? Did you get the sense you were being watched?"

I think back to the crime scene, running over every face and person I'd encountered.

I shake my head in his firm grip. "No. No one."

He squeezes me tighter. This time, I cry out.

It doesn't stop the wet rush of fluid between my thighs, however.

"That means I was wrong about you. You're not the one for this job, are you? You're unobservant. Too eager to be in my life without knowing how to behave yourself."

"But you didn't tell me." I clamp my lips shut quickly when I realize I've chosen the wrong words to let free.

Neo shoves me off the stool with force and nearly falls over it as he backs me to the wall near the window. It overlooks the spacious backyard I'll be buried in if I can't get my shit together.

"Stupid, stupid girl. You're a fucking weakness to me. Do you know that?"

His words sting my veins, lust ambling through me like a drug.

"I do," I breathe.

"I'd love to hear you say I am your weakness, but I'm not. You're weak in so many aspects, aren't you?"

I nod as his grip releases some.

He looms over me, his dangerous eyes calculating his next move as I fight the urge to kneel at his feet.

He leans down, his lips hovering over mine. I close my eyes, letting his breath fan over my face and wash over me like a blanket of insanity woven with dark intent in its fibers.

"You're going to do better next time, aren't you?" he asks.

I whimper as his lips meld to mine, his tongue parting my lips and twirling around my moan.

I've wanted him all day, and no matter how I get him, I'll take it.

He pulls back, looking at me as he awaits my answer, but the scanner goes off.

The dispatcher says there's been a murder.

Neo's cock hardens against me as he hears his favorite word uttered over a staticky radio wave in our dining room. "Get dressed, stupid girl. We're going out."