Blood to Dust(90)

“I do enjoy it,” I suck on her fingers. We hear the Italian girls in the next room giggling. They’ve been eavesdropping on us having sex for days. “Do you enjoy f*cking me as much as you enjoy killing people, Cockburn?”

“Yes,” she pants. “Of course.”

I hook my finger into her * and curl it. That’s when she bends down to kiss me and I whisper into her face. “Because sometimes I think you’re hungrier for blood than you are for cock.”

She comes on top of me, shaking and smiling, and I come inside her, groaning and laughing.

I could get used to that. Live like this forever. I’d take the f*cked up Burlington-Smyth baggage she brings along with her, Preston included. But my girl wants to kill the man who ruined her, and we’ll do it, one way or the other.

She’s got one more piece of her soul to collect.

Dealing with Camden will burst our bubble. After we’re done, we’ll figure out where we want to live, what we want to do.

Today, we are going to go over our plan to corner him after his father’s funeral. We sit at a small coffee shop in Chelsea, expensive as f*ck but this place is dear to Pea’s heart. It’s where she often ran away from her cheating boyfriend to window shop. I stand up from my seat, stretch, gulp my small shot of espresso in one go and slam it against the wooden table.

“I’m going for a piss. Wait here.”

“Worry not, I’ll never leave your side,” she says with a wink.

I kiss her lips and walk toward the restroom. While taking a leak, I whistle and watch my cock through lazy eyes. It’s been buried in Prescott’s * and ass so many times recently, it can practically call them home. I wash my hands and look at myself in the mirror, and the shit-eating grin I’m sporting these days will have people thinking that I’m happy. Shockingly, I am. I’m really f*cking happy, for the first time in my life.

I’ve been through so much shit, killed so many people recently, and still, I’ve never felt more alive.

Alive because there’s another heart I need to live for.

It’s beating against mine every night.

Beat. Beat. Beat.





I look down at my phone, texting a guy from Brixton who offers muscle for hire. We’ll need all the help we can buy when we strike Camden in Kent. Typing fast, my finger pads furiously tapping the screen, I pause when a whiff of an expensive cologne hits my nostrils. My hands stop, my brows furrow. It’s familiar. . .and revolting.

I don’t dare lift my eyes from the screen.

“Diabla,” his low voice is so chilling, he sounds like the reaper himself. “So beautiful, kissed by the Californian sun. Shame you won’t be seeing it ever again.”

I dart up from my seat, about to charge through the door and run for my life, but I’m too perplexed. Camden clasps me in his arms before I get the chance to slip away, engulfing me in an embrace. His arms circle my neck like we’re old friends sharing a moment, and I feel a blade pressing against my carotid artery. People can’t see it. His hand is curtained by my long hair. But it’s there, and the insanity twirling in his sapphires tells me he’s still crazy. Crazy enough to kill me.

He buries his face in my shoulder as he hugs me tighter, inhaling my scent like an addict snorting a line of coke.

“Show the smallest sign of distress, and I’m slitting your throat and leaving you to die on this floor, sweetheart.”

I gulp, staring at the car that’s waiting for him outside. A flashy Alpha Romeo. I recognize his driver through the rolled down window. Simon. He used to drive me around when Camden and I were together. My ex said we were too good for the tube.

“Follow me. Don’t worry, your lover will join you soon.” He grabs a napkin from under my coffee mug and jots his address down with the same object he threatened me with. One end is a pen and the other is a knife. Clever. And so very Camden.

I let him throw me into the backseat of his car for no reason other than the fact I’m in shock. He’s not supposed to be here. Yet he very much is.

Camden slinks onto the leather seat, crossing his legs and lighting a smoke nonchalantly. He stares out the window as he speaks. “You did me a huge favor. I always wanted to inherit the family business. My old man got sloppy with age and with pride. Those are the things that usually kill you.”

Should I attack him? The doors are locked and it’s just us and Simon. Camden is not Nate. He’s not as tall, strong and monstrous. As if reading my mind, my ex-boyfriend shrugs, turning his gaze to me. He blows smoke into my face as he speaks. “See this pen?” he fingers his weapon. “It’s a custom-made blade. Sharp like a hunting knife. It could cut your skin like butter. Gorgeous, really. My fiancée bought it for me for Christmas.”

“Lovely,” I fold my arms over my chest, mimicking his posh accent. “I’m glad she nurtures your inner psychopath. I let it starve for years.”

Camden laughs and tsks, moving closer to me. He brushes my hair away from my neck and kisses it softly, speaking into my skin in a hushed tone. “I’ve missed our banter, Diabla.”

I suck in a breath. The scent of cigarette and expensive cologne suffocates me. “And I wouldn’t go around labeling people as psychopaths with your track record. You murdered my dad.”

“Your dad murdered my soul,” I hiss back, scooting so close to my side of the car, my whole body is pressed against the door. “And my baby.”