Freya’s still sleepy and sated when I lay her down on the bed, but her hand grips my wrist as I stand up. “Don’t go. Don’t leave me in here.”
I bend over and press a kiss to her lips. “I’m not going anywhere, kitten.”
The tension falls from her shoulders, and she turns onto her side to face me once I’ve slipped under the covers.
I hook my leg over hers and pull her hips against mine. I think she’s fallen asleep but then her fingers come up to my chest, tracing the ‘f’ she cut over my heart.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she whispers.
“Baby, in case you hadn’t noticed, pain’s kind of my thing. You can cut me any day.”
Freya pinches her bottom lip with her teeth. She’s quiet for a moment. I can see the thoughts flickering behind her eyes, but I force myself to give her time and eventually she says them out loud.
“I always thought I was like my mother. I didn’t know her, but I knew that half of me came from her and that must be the good half. If I could just be like her then I wouldn’t be likehim.But Zach, he’s not my father’s son. So if the genes on my mother’s side made him and my father’s genes made my father, then what does that mean for me?”
I press my hand over her fingers, flattening them against my chest. “It means genetics mean fuck all.”
“Except they don’t though, do they?”
I run my tongue along the inside of my teeth. “If Zach got his psychopathic genes from anyone, he got them from Jeremiah, not your mother. His father runs a fucking cult remember.”
She drops her gaze and stares at my chest. “I pulled a knife on you. I cut you.”
“Freya, you didn’t do anything I didn’t want you to,” I remind her, but she’s not listening to me.
“I used to hate what my father made me do. I never enjoyed cutting those women, not once, but now my first instinct is to grab a knife? Before it was just self-defense but lately there are all these thoughts fighting in my brain and I just get so fucking angry and I—” She curls her hand into a fist and squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m scared. I’m scared of what I might do.”
I let go of her hand and lift her chin with the edge of my fingers. “Hey, look at me.”
She opens her eyes, and I tuck her damp hair behind her ear.
“You’ve got a shit ton of trauma, Freya, half of which you’ve only just remembered, and you’re trying to work through it all while also chasing serial killers. Something would be wrong if youhadn’tgone a little dark.”
She doesn’t say anything.
I hold her against me and settle back into the pillows. “Did I ever tell you about my first kill?”
Freya shakes her head.
“His name was Tom Richter. I was twenty.” My body goes cold like it always does whenever I think of that day. “This guy was holding up a bank. Just a small branch, they probably didn’t even have that much money. Found out afterwards the guy was desperate. His kid was sick, and he couldn’t afford the treatment.”
“Shit,” Freya curses softly.
“Yeah. He took one of the tellers hostage. There must have been thirty cops out front. I should have known the second he stepped outside what he was going to do.”
Freya runs her thumb back and forth over my heart.
“He shot the teller and then turned the gun on us. Just let fire, didn’t stop till I put a bullet in his head. Suicide by cop.” I swallow. “I’ll never forget the look on his face. Something happens when someone makes the decision to die. The eyes go empty, like the soul’s already gone.”
I shake the images from my head and turn to look at Freya. “I hate that day, but I don’t regret killing him. If anything, I regret not shooting sooner. Three people died that day.” I stare into Freya’s eyes, so unlike Tom’s, so deep with life. “It’s okay to be a little dark, Freya. It doesn’t make you evil. It doesn’t make you like your father.”
“Were you okay? After?”
My chest aches. “Not for a while. I saw a shrink though and that helped.”
Freya reaches out and I resist the urge to purr like a fucking cat as she rakes her fingers through my hair. She catches a lock between her thumb and forefinger and brings it forward, fiddling with the dirty blond strands.
“Carmen made me see a therapist.”
