Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“Is that all, Mum?”
She narrows her eyes nearly into slits at my words. “Just one more thing, my pet.”
And she curls her fingers into a fist and punches the mirror, sending glass flying everywhere.
3
MADDOX
I grab Alissa’s shoulders. “Alissa? Are you okay?”
She blinks a few times. “S-Sorry. Just shaken by this whole experience.”
I brush a finger over her cheek. “Of course you are, baby. I am, too.” I look around the picnic grove. “But right now, I have to finish replanting this bush. We can’t leave any trace that we were here.”
She looks down at her finger that she pricked on the rose bush. “Shit, Maddox. I was bleeding. My DNA will be here.”
Shit. She’s right. “Have you ever done a DNA test with the cops before?”
She shakes her head.
“Then they won’t be able to prove that any blood left here was your DNA. No need to worry about that.”
“Do you need any help?”
“No. I’m almost done.” I toss a few more shovelfuls of dirt into the small hole under the rosebush. “Do you think you can carry the hatbox?”
She looks back at the picnic table. “Oh my God, Maddox. You didn’t rebury the hatbox!”
“Of course not, baby. We need to take it to a coroner, have it tested.”
“Why?”
“Because if we’re going to accuse Rouge of killing May, we need to prove that she was under Rouge’s employ at the time of her death. That May was killed shortly after being suspended from the club. And we need to know how she was killed.”
“I think it was the removal of her head, Maddox.”
“We don’t know that. That could have happened after she was killed. But we need to take it to a coroner to find these things out. Once we know how May died, we can try to figure out where and when it happened, trace our steps back, and hopefully link the death to Rouge, or whoever did this.” I gesture to the hatbox. “But we’d better get moving before one of Rouge’s Kings show up.”
“Her Kings?”
“Yeah, the Kings of Aces Underground. There’s one for each section. King of Spades, King of Clubs, and so on. They act as Rouge’s muscle. And my guess is they’re the ones who carry out her dirty work.”
“So it was likely one of them who killed May.”
“And they’d be the ones scoping out the area to make sure no one figured out what happened to May,” I reply. “There are rumors that Rouge also uses her Kings as…sexual entertainment. That’s how she gets them to do her bidding.”
She scoffs. “How could anyone do something as awful as what happened to May just for the promise of a good pussy?”
I can’t respond to that. Because I was once under Rouge’s spell myself. I don’t know what it is about her, but she’s like a black widow. You know that being with her is dangerous, but that’s part of the allure of it.
Until you take a step too far and learn something you wish you never knew.
Or at least…you think you learn something.
The memory is still a little fuzzy.
I don’t want to tell that story to Alissa now. We don’t have time, and I don’t want her to think less of me for the mistakes of my past.
I still haven’t even told her about my father. His downfall from grace in the last year of his mayorship. She needs to hear about him before she learns the darkest parts of my history. Peel away the layers of my deranged past one at a time.
This is, after all, only our third date.
Fuck.
What a third date.
Most people say that you should abstain from sex until the third date. We had sex on our second date and went straight to exhuming body parts on our third.
Why hasn’t this woman turned the other way and run as far as she can?
Could it be because she has feelings for me? The same kind of feelings that I have for her?
I shake the thought out of my head. If there were ever not a time for this conversation, it’s right now.
I shovel the last small pile of dirt back into the hole under the rosebush. Without the volume of the hatbox, the rosebush is a little lower than it was before, but it’s probably not noticeable. I’ve scraped together a little extra soil from around the other bushes to make up for it.
“Maddox?”
I look back at Alissa. “Yeah?”
“Shouldn’t we take the hatbox to the police? Not the coroner? Surely it will end up with the coroner anyway if we take it to them first. And then they can get an investigation underway.”
I sigh and rub at my forehead. “And that would be a great idea if the chief of police weren’t a dues-paying member of Aces Underground. I’m afraid Rouge has him wrapped around her little finger.”