Blackmailed by Her Bully

Hunter moved toward her and gripped her.

“What are you doing?”

“What you’re about to see, you can never tell a living breathing soul or you will be dead.”

“You can look Ava in the eyes and know all this time, I fucking won. I fucked her. I hurt her, and no one believed her. Not even you. The precious knight you used to think you were.”

Logan grabbed Luke around the throat, cutting off his air supply. Luke instantly started to choke.

“You think you’re in any position to taunt me? I was never a fucking knight, Luke. I was always a bully. A worse one than you. Look around you. Look what I created in the death and blood of my victims. This is all me. Every single part of me, and you, Luke, you’re not going to live to see anymore.”

She cried out as Logan pulled a small knife out of his pocket, opened it up, and plunged it into Luke’s crotch.

She didn’t know what she was seeing or what the hell was happening.

Logan loosened his hold to let Luke scream.

“Look at her,” Logan said. “Look at her and know she is going to have the best fucking life I can offer her, and you, you’re going to be rotting in a gutter.”

Luke was shaking. Perspiration dotted his brow.

“You will never be free,” Luke said.

“I am free.”

He plunged the knife into Luke’s neck, ending his life right before her eyes.

Ava was in shock. Her body shook and Hunter tried to hide the scene from her, but it was there for her to see.

“Hunter, take her home. I’ll deal with her when I get back.”

She didn’t put up a fight as Hunter led her out of the office. There were guards waiting and what looked like a cleaning crew, all of them ready to do what their boss had ordered.

Hunter put her in the back of the car, and she curled up in a ball, trying to escape everything she’d just seen.

“Are you okay?”

“He killed him.”

“Luke deserved it. Don’t tell me you’re mourning for that sick fuck.”

She shook her head.

“Good.”

They were driving, and the city, it was all a blur. The lights, all of it. She didn’t see a thing as Hunter took her back home.

Not to Crow Valley.

To Logan’s apartment.

When he pulled back into the private parking space, she didn’t wait for him to open the door. She climbed out and looked at the door.

Hunter was there, taking her by the hand, leading her toward safety.

The moment they entered the apartment, she went straight toward the shower. She climbed in fully dressed, turning on the hot water, scalding her flesh as she removed the dress Logan had picked out for her.

She didn’t use soap or conditioner, just stood beneath the spray, letting it roll off her.

Slowly, she turned it to cold, the chill making her shiver.

She turned the water off the moment she couldn’t take anymore, stepping out of the tub, and grabbed a towel. Had she really seen Logan kill Luke?

It was all too easy, wasn’t it?

The blade slicing through his body. Draining his life.

It was almost too much for her.

Drying her body, she pulled on a pair of pajamas and went out to sit in the living room.

Hunter was already waiting.

“Hot chocolate soothes all pains and problems,” Hunter said.

“I’m not in pain.”

“No, but you have a whole host of problems, and I imagine you’re pretty freaked out right now.”

“A little.”

She sat down, and Hunter handed her the hot chocolate.

“Sorry, I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“If it makes you feel any better, that was a quick kill. The bastard didn’t deserve it. He should have been made to suffer more.”

She laughed. “I don’t know why I’m laughing. This is not something to make fun of.”

“I wasn’t making fun. Logan did what he had to do. Do you really think if he let Luke go, he’d disappear and live a nice life away from you?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Men like Luke, they set out to hurt and destroy people. It’s what they do. They don’t know any other way.”

“And what about Logan? What does he do?” she asked. “What does any of this mean for us? So he knows the truth. Luke, he lied about so much. There is so much pain because of him. What do we do about it?”

“We take it one day at a time, like everyone does. We make it work, somehow.”

“Do you know what the scary thing is?” she asked.

“What?”

“I don’t even feel guilty about his death. Luke deserved it. Does it make me a bad person?”

“You’re talking to the wrong guy here. I don’t think it makes you anything. I hated Luke, so seeing him die was no hardship to me. He didn’t have a right to walk free. Not after what he’d done to you and Logan. Drink your cocoa. I don’t want Logan to be upset with me because I didn’t take care of you.”