Unhinged(Necessary Evils #1)(48)

Noah gave a hesitant nod. “Yeah. I think so.”

“Good,” Adam said before rolling onto his back, stretching with enough force for Noah to hear his joints crack. “Wanna shower with me and go get breakfast before I head to my dad’s?”

“You have to go to your dad’s?” Noah asked, that feeling of unease creeping closer.

“I dropped the hard drive for Calliope last night when I was getting the candy rations. She downloaded it this morning. It’s every bit as horrific as we thought it would be. But it’s…recent. She’s trying to identify the victim and has isolated the faces of those who participated, and she’s running them through facial recognition programs. My father doesn’t anticipate any problems running down their identities. He wants to put together some sort of strategy for eliminating them. We’ve never gone after this many people in one go. If we’re not careful, somebody might start putting the pieces together.”

Noah waited for the horror to overtake him once more, but it didn’t. There was only that vague sick feeling of too much pizza and vodka. “I want to go with you.”

Adam twisted onto his side, one hand propping up his head and the other resting on Noah’s belly. “What? No. I don’t want you triggering yourself again.”

Noah shook his head vehemently. “I’m fine. I’m good. There’s still a chance that some of those men could be the same men…from when it was me. Those impulses don’t just go away with age, and after a decade of not being caught, I imagine these guys are pretty cocky, like you said.”

Adam studied Noah’s face like he was searching for the right answer. “My whole family is going to be there. Well, minus Aiden. I don’t know if you’re ready for six of my family members at once.”

Noah shrugged, propping himself up, mirroring Adam’s pose. “If I’m yours—just yours—like you say I am, aren’t I going to have to meet them all eventually?” A thought struck Noah like a physical blow. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

Adam frowned, then leaned forward to press his forehead to Noah’s. “Nothing is going to change my mind.”

Noah flopped backwards. “You didn’t sign up for my mental breakdown.”

“I didn’t sign up to be a member of a family of killers either. I didn’t sign up to drag my brother Archer out of a thousand bars or the twins out of kink clubs or sit through a handful of boring lectures about cell regeneration in rats or quantum physics,” Adam said. “I did sign up for you. I chose you. Mental breakdown and all. Eventually, you’re going to see that I have my own kind of breakdowns…and mine sometimes end with a body count.”

“But only people who deserve it, right?” Noah asked.

Adam nodded. “The code is non-negotiable. My father would put one of us down for breaking it. He says once we cross that line, we can’t go back.”

“Put you down? Kill you?” Noah asked, that icy feeling in his belly returning once more.

Adam didn’t seem even remotely fazed by the thought of his father killing him for breaking some arbitrary code he’d created.

“We’re only useful to society if we follow the code. If we turn our backs on it, then we can’t be trusted. We become the monsters. My father will act accordingly. And my brothers will help.”

“Jesus.”

Adam grinned. “Still want to meet the family?”

Did he? Part of him had no interest in meeting four more people who would treat him the way Asa and Avi had, but he also needed to know. He needed to figure out who had done those things to him and probably other children. If that meant putting himself in the Mulvaney family’s cross hairs then that was what he needed to do. He wasn’t leaving Adam—not ever—and if Adam came with a family of psycho killers…so be it.





By the time Adam and Noah left the house, it was well past noon. Breakfast became brunch as they both nursed mild hangovers, though Noah was far worse off than Adam. He kept his sunglasses on, even in the shade of the patio, nursing black coffee like he was the psychopath.

They were receiving plenty of furtive glances from other patrons, but it was hard to say whether it was simply because they recognized Adam as a Mulvaney or if they were just observing two clearly hungover individuals. Either way, they kept their distance, and Adam did his best to focus on Noah and whatever he needed.

Apparently, what he needed was a stack of pancakes taller than he was and greasy bacon barely cooked. Adam ordered French toast coated in syrup and powdered sugar, though he spent more time watching Noah take down the intimidating amount of food than he did actually enjoying his own.

“Why are you just staring at me?” Noah finally asked, his tone suspicious, pancake-filled fork frozen halfway to his mouth.

Adam smirked at him. “I like looking at you?”

Noah smiled like he couldn’t help himself. “I look like shit today.”

“Still pretty, though,” Adam countered, watching a blush spread across Noah’s cheeks.

“Are all psychopaths this good at flirting?” Noah asked, his tone suggesting he was only half kidding.

“Honestly? Yes. That’s why people always talk about how charming serial killers are. We’re very good at pretending to be people. But it’s all acting. Most of the time, we don’t mean a thing we say. But, in this case, I’m telling the truth. I like the way your face is put together. Your brown eyes, your freckles, your lips. It makes me happy to look at you.”