Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 51051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
When the cops found me curled in a ball, rocking back and forth, bloody knife in my hand beside my mother’s mangled body, which was slashed like a pinata, they thought I was the next Edmund Kepner. A serial killer. They were half right. I am a killer, and my moral compass is skewed at best, but there's nothing serial about me.
The evening sun sets, and the seductive allure of dusk shrouds the manor. The floor-to-ceiling windows are a nice touch. Azadeh once complained that the manor was a stuffy crypt and needed light. That forced me to demolish the stone at the back of the house and install glass walls.
My body stiffens as Zeke brushes his fingers against me.
“Take a breath,” Zeke says, leaving one hand on my arm while ensuring the other is visible.
He’s using the method we’ve been working on. He touches me casually to allow my brain to register that he’s safe. That I’m safe. I force myself to make eye contact with him. Shutting out the world and seeing only him. Zeke. He’s my safety point. He’ll never harm me. I’m safe.
He must recognize something in my eyes because he asks a simple question. “Feel better?”
“Better? Not sure. But I can handle it.”
“Did you go there?” Zeke asks.
I nod. It’s the only place I go. My mother’s beaming smile as she watches other people’s children brutalized in ungodly ways. I always see her. But oddly, it isn’t the torture that makes my stomach churn. What damages me the most is my mother's joy as she watches the horror before her.
I shudder at the memory. I want to scrub it from my brain, but I never can. I try to focus on the comfort of Zeke’s arm instead of the horrified cries of the children burned into my memory.
I shut my eyes, concentrating on Zeke’s touch and the warmth of his deep voice.
My eyes fly open, and a vivid blue eye captures mine. Zeke’s face is scrunched with concern, marring his Hollywood star looks. He’s so handsome. It’s a pity he doesn’t realize the truth of his beauty. He believes the eye patch detracts from his attractiveness, but it only adds to it. An air of danger on the most angelic face I’ve ever seen.
“Fuck,” Azadeh mumbles, rushing to my side. Tears well in her deep brown eyes. “Lev, I’m sorry.”
She’s apologizing to me? I’m the idiot who kidnapped her sister and lost her because I couldn’t vocalize my needs like a normal person. Mona is in danger because of me. Azadeh should be slitting my throat, not kneeling by my side, crying. The capacity of love in her heart is inconceivable. Her limitless kindness consumes me. Her sweet soul pushes me to the brink of madness.
“You’re the air I breathe, Azadeh,” I whisper so low that I’m not sure she hears me. “You can’t fault a man for doing what’s necessary to keep his life safe.”
My words are a half-truth because my actions aren’t solely to protect her; they’re about my obsession with her—an obsession that borders on sickness.
An obsession that disgusts even me.
Chapter 16
Lev—Age 23
The Manor
Ihad no clue why I kept the manor. The place was a haunted hell of brutal memories and horror. I longed to strip bare and drain every ounce of my parents' DNA from my body. But since that wasn’t possible, I erased their essence from the house they’d loved. I hired a company and used the money I inherited from the animals to eliminate their presence. The house had morphed from an ancient mausoleum into a modern haven.
I gazed at the state-of-the-art surveillance system. A camera covered each room, every hallway, corner, and inch of land. I’d set them up for safety, that little boy inside me still paranoid about the boogeyman coming to get me. But that all changed the night I saw Azadeh naked in her bed.
Many beautiful women had been written about in history. Some caused the downfall of empires. Others the beheading of great rulers. I’d always dismissed those tales as fodder spun by misogynistic men who feared the fairer sex. But as I gazed at Azadeh’s sleeping form, her large breasts rising and falling in a slow rhythm, I knew I would do anything for one taste. The only problem was that my broken and battered mind wouldn’t allow anything to come to fruition in a healthy way.
I envied how Zeke, Cyrus, and Azadeh touched each other. How they physically demonstrated their love and connection was a foreign entity to me. Something peculiar and strange to my genetic makeup. The idea of one of them accidentally grazing my flesh made my skin crawl and my mind recoil. When Zeke and I worked on my issues with touch, it was controlled. I knew what was coming and prepared for it, but I wasn’t at a place where it was remotely natural to be touched by another.