Page 110 of Insidious Heart
I blink at Ember multiple times as her eyes go wide, my own shock mirrored on her pretty, pierced face.
“You’re in love with Victor?” she whispers.
And I nod. “I guess so.”
“Youguess so? Oh girlie, if you just blurted it out without even thinking twice, you aredefinitelyin love with that serial killer.”
I stare at her in surprise before I burst into a combination of laughter and tears, pain lancing through my chest right along with the rest of me. “I’m in love with a serial killer.”
Ember nods slowly. “I mean, he is pretty hot.”
Andthatmakes me laugh and cry even harder. “Right? He’s so handsome, and his body is amazing. Victor has nipple rings too. And his dick is pierced.”
“Oh my god!” She snorts and starts to laugh with me. “None of that is surprising.”
“Nothing other than I’m in love with him.”
“Right!”
We both giggle and laugh through our tears as I spill my guts and tell Ember everything I love about Victor Crow, realizing with every fact shared that I fell for him a long time ago and he’s possibly the most perfect man I’ve ever met, even if he does kill people for fun.
I understand him, though. I just get Victor and the way he works. He made sense to me when he was nothing more than an article in the news, and my ghost makes even more sense to me now that I’ve gotten to know him.
It shouldn’t surprise me at all that I’m in love with him because falling in love with Victor was as easy and natural as breathing. I never had to think about it, never had to try. It just happened on its own, and I know the only way for me to stop would be the same as any other natural instinct or action.
Just like breathing, the only thing that’ll make me stop loving Victor is death.
And I can’t help but find the morbid beauty in that.
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
VICTOR
“I haveto give it to you,Beauregard.” I wave the needle-nose pliers through the air before pointing them in his face. “I thought you’d be a screamer. A squealer at the very least, but you’ve just grunted and groaned the entire time you’ve been here and that’s better than most men I meet.”
With a smug grin, I spin from the pig bastard currently superglued and chained to a chair, then drop his fingernail into the small metal basin on the autopsy table that wasgiftedto me by Snipe. One he gave me tohelpas soon as I rolled up to Marbles’ places with Stevie passed out in the front seat of the station wagon, and Beau hogtied and knocked the fuck out in the trunk.
“Do you knowwhyI thought you’d be a screamer? How I could ever fathom the idea ofBeau the Butchercrying like a little bitch while his fingernails were being pulled out with pliers?” I turn to face him again just as the piece of shit has the balls to mumble a threat in my direction. “I’m sorry, what was that? I didn’t quite catch the last bit?”
Beau tugs at the restraints, a little more of his skin tearing off and sticking to the vinyl-covered gynecological exam chair, a throwback from Little John’s reign back in the day. Beau scowls at me through the copious amount of dried blood and matted hair on his head and face, those shit-brown eyes tinged so yellow they look like they're swimming in cirrhosis. Beau bites down on the ball gag in his mouth, attempting to bare his teeth or threaten me again and it makes me laugh.
“Here, let me help you out. I’m sure you have a lot to say after the last fifty-one hours of sitting like that.” I stick the pliers in the tool belt wrapped around my waist—over the leatherbutcher’sapron because I’m hilarious—then lift my gloved hands to the gag, leaning toward him and tightening it with a shove before I straighten back up. “Just kidding. I don’t give a fuck about the unintelligent bullshit you want to spew right now. If you’re good, maybe I’ll let you have a few final words before I cut your balls off and stuff them down your throat.”
The piece of human waste jerks in the chair again as I laugh, circling him slowly and admiring my work.
We haven’t been together very long, and good old Beauregard is popping my torture cherry, but I think I’ve done a pretty impressive job so far.
When we first got here, I made sure to strip him down to his shit-stained skivvies before painting the chair with superglue and depositing his dumbass in it, skin to glue. I debated on just leaving him like that to see how long it would take before Beau stripped the flesh from his disgusting body in order to get free, but I thought better of it.
I cut strips of duct tape, covered his wrists, ankles, and throat in the glue, then secured him to the chair that way as well before sticking the ball gag in his rotten mouth. And that’s when the real fun began.
I’m not a cigar smoker, never have been, but having that soggy bag of dicks at my disposal called for a celebration. Three stogies and a pack of smokes later, Beau was wide awake and covered in burns, ready to listen to anything I had to say.
Or, thatwasthe plan.
I started explaining what led us to an empty semi-truck trailer in an undisclosed location, tried to drill the point home that we were here as a direct result of his actions, emphasizing my words by hitting him with my bare fists, but Beau wouldn’t hear it.
He grunted and groaned, tried to threaten and cuss at me. Frankly, the bastard wouldn’t shut the fuck up, and since I’m a talker who hasn’t truly been given the chance to have a full blownvillain speech,I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity with him griping at me the entire time.
