Page 31

“No.” I shake my head. “Let me tell you, please.”

Skylar grips my hips, pulling me harder against him as he nods. I tell him everything. From the moment we met to the moment his abusive stepfather stole him from me. The story spills out of me in a heavy, jagged rush, but Skylar doesn’t flinch. He just locks his arms around me, holding me against his chest like a steady, unbreakable anchor while the worst parts of my past try to drag me under.

“I idolized and worshiped you for years. But there was a moment right after I missed my shot, letting Franko get away, that I realized you kind of look like Aaron. My Aaron. The boy I lost all those years ago. Images of Franko potentially murdering you almost brought me to my knees. You’re nothing like Aaron, and I didn’t know you. Not like I do now, but even then, I knew I had to save you.”

The headlights of my car cut through the darkness of the industrial district, illuminating the skeletal remains of an old abandoned factory of some kind. It’s an imposing, rusted cathedral of brick and steel, abandoned back in the nineties.

“Pull up to the left and park,” Skylar says from the passenger seat. He’s back in his element after spending most of the day uploading solo content to his site. He’s wearing a dark peacoat that looks entirely too expensive for a wasteland like this. His signature pendant, which his sister left him, is wrapped around his neck, and he’s twirling it absently between his fingers.

I kill the engine, making the sudden silence of the night amplified. I don’t unbuckle my seatbelt right away. My military-trained brain is already assessing the area, checking the blind spots, mapping the escape routes, and calculating the structural integrity of the building and roof.

“Why are we here, Skylar?” I ask, my hand resting on the steering wheel, but itching for my gun. “I have a lead who might know about Franko’s whereabouts. We don’t really have time for a field trip.”

Skylar turns his head, his brown eyes reflecting in the low glow of the dashboard lights. A wicked smile pulls at his lips. I swear, it’s the look he gives me when he wants me to lose all sense of control. “We have time, brute. There’s something I want to show you.”

He doesn’t wait for me to reply. He steps out of the car, his movements graceful and casual.

“Fuck,” I curse under my breath, jump out of the car, and follow him into the dark.

We slide through a rusted gap in the corrugated siding. The air inside the factory is freezing, thick with the smell of wet concrete and decay. Water drips from the rafters above. The place looks like it’s straight out of a horror movie.

Skylar saunters ahead of me without a flashlight, weaving past the jagged debris with an easy familiarity. He leads me up a flight of iron stairs that groan under my weight. Fucking hell, is this why he teases me about all my muscle in bulk? I feel like I’m going to cause the damn stairs to collapse from under me. We reach a narrow, grated catwalk overlooking the factory floor. Fifty feet below us, I can see cracked concrete, shattered glass, and abandoned machinery.

“Well, what do you think?” Skylar whispers. He leans against the rusted railing behind him, spreading his arms like he’s showcasing some grand display.

I blink in confusion, clearly missing something. I peer at everything below us, searching for what it could be.

“It’s my favorite theater.” He grins, a slightly manic look on his face that makes my pulse quicken with excitement.

Nervously, I step up beside him, my gaze focusing on the drop.

“A theater for what?” I ask, still not understanding.

“My artwork, of course,” he murmurs lowly, his voice a tantalizing purr that slices through the silence. He points down to a rusted iron pillar directly beneath us. “Several weeks ago, Franko’s assistant went missing. He was a pathetic man no one gave two shits about. He filmed a lot of the shit Franko and his men got up to before uploading it to the dark web. The bastard filmed it. Filmed the rapes and all the other questionable shit. He didn’t do a fucking thing to help any of them.”

Rage burns through me. While stalking Franko and trying to figure out his whereabouts the first time, I discovered photos and videos I wish I could unsee. I glance at the pillar, my sniper brain instantly assessing the angles. “It’s a bad defensive position. No cover from above. A single shooter up here could clear the area in less than ten seconds.”

“I mean, sure, a sniper could do that,” Skylar says, turning his body toward me, crowding me against the railing, his amber wood scent drowning out the scent of the factory. He reaches out, his fingers tracing a slow, agonizing path up my chest before dipping under my jacket. “But where’s the art in a bullet, Jericho? I like to play with guns, but I prefer my victims to see it coming. I prefer my poisons and knives. I prefer torture and chaos.”

My pulse rate skyrockets, and lust pools in my belly. The railing creaks under our weight, but I refuse to back away. Instead, I crowd him. Stepping into his personal space until our chests are almost touching. The drop is right behind him, but he doesn’t care. He’s looking at me like I’m a fucking deity.

“What happened to Franko’s assistant?” I rasp, my voice rough, my pulse hammering against my ribs. There’s a reckless, heavy hunger spreading through my veins at his proximity. How does he do this to me? Every. Fucking. Time.

“I didn’t use a rifle.” Skylar grins. His gaze shifts down to my mouth, his thumb resting right against the pulse point on my neck. “I used a special blend of sedatives and poison to sedate him and place him into a coma for six days. Then I woke him up.”

I arch a brow. “Why six days?”

“It was the same amount of time I was in a coma. My sister tried to run. She made it to my place and told me Franko’s men were after her. I didn’t know the details at the time. Not yet. Moments later, someone broke into my house and slammed something heavy on my head. Six days. I was asleep, safe in a fucking hospital bed. When I woke up, she was already dead. Suicide. They made it look like suicide while I lay there. Sleeping.”

A sharp gasp leaves me. “You weren’t just sleeping, Sky. They put you in a fucking coma.”

A smile crosses his face, and his finger traces my bottom lip. “I love how angry you’re getting for me. It’s hot.”

“Well, it’s true. They hurt you and put you in a fucking coma.”

Skylar chuckles. “And I used my poisons to put Lenny in a coma. Just like I did with a number of Franko’s costars and friends. I put several of them in a sedated coma before I woke them up to show them their world has completely flipped. Then, I tortured the shit out of them.”

A sudden, electric jolt of awe slams into me. He didn’t just kill these men. He’s admitting he hurt them. No, that he took pleasure in hurting them. I glance around. “And you did some of the kills here?”