Page 233 of The Monster and the Masochist

Her lip curled in a tiny scowl as she looked me up and down.

“I’m grateful for your help with this… But… Stay the fuck away from my sister. I’d hate to have to kill you.”

A burst of air puffed out of my lips, and if I could have laughed, I would have.

It was cute, really, that she thought she could kill me.

Cassandra was one of the scariest people I’d ever met, and I would rather not be on her shit list… but there was nothing that could keep me from watching over Naomi.

Not Cassandra.

Not even Cal, though my adorably excitable best friend was more or less oblivious to the fact that I’d been stalking his sister since she’d left for school.

The stalking was done in her best interest, but still. I knew Callum wouldn’t be thrilled if he learned just how deep my obsession with his little sister’s safety went.

Not bothering to give Cassandra’s threat a response, I just turned away and stalked back toward the reverend’s office.

Happily, Logan had won the fight over the chainsaw, and he and Ronan were now wrapping the bodies in plastic so they could dispose of them properly, and I knew they’d give me the space I needed to deal with the bureaucratic bullshit that came with jobs like this.

Wet work was a shitty task. It was laborious, messy, and not particularly rewarding… but if I had a choice, I would have rather been hacking up bodies with Ronan than dealing with the rest of this shit.

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to doing a forensic scan of a pedophile’s laptop, but it needed to be done, and I was unfortunately the only one here with the skills to do it… Well, Logan could probably do it, but I knew he’d rather be cutting up dead bodies, too.

They were doing me a favor here, so I wasn’t about to bitch out and ask Logan to switch with me. Plus, he was way better at managing Ronan than I was.

With a silent sigh, I settled into the reverend’s large leather swivel chair and opened up his computer, tapping in the passcode I’d watched him use a dozen times through his own security feeds.

The screen flickered to life, and I was presented with his desktop.

I was in. Easy.

The rest of this was gonna fucking suck… But it would be worth it if it helped me keep my little bee safe.

Before digging into the long night of horrors I knew I had ahead of me, I slipped out my phone and checked my tracking app, smiling at the little blue dot blinking up at me.

Good girl. I thought to myself, when it became clear she’d stayed in her dorm tonight.

Flipping to the live feeds I had in her room, a rush of affection rolled through my chest. She was already asleep, which meant she would be safe for the night while I was stuck here working.

Seeing her safe and looking so peaceful gave me the motivation I needed to finally click open the soon-to-be-dead man’s email and get to work.

Don’t worry, sweet girl. I’ll kill all the bad men so none of them can hurt you.

And though I knew it was impossible to completely rid the world of the type of evil I was up against, it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to fucking try.

Alexa Play: So Long, So Long by Dashboard Confessional

Vox, meticulous murder planner that he was, had included a change of clothes for me in the murder kit. Before getting in his car, I’d taken the time to change and clean the blood and gore off my face and hands in one of the church’s restrooms.

Logan told me he and Ronan would take care of my blood-soaked leggings and hoodie. So, I left them in a neat pile by the body of my first victim before finally heading back to Fairview.

I fired up Vox’s Aston Martin, but I took a few seconds to check my phone before pulling out of the compound.

I wasn’t surprised to find a stream of missed messages from my wife.

I’d been gone for more than a few hours, and if the roles had been reversed, I would have been blowing up her phone too.

Wifey: