Barbie Bitch (Rejects Paradise 3)

I unlock my phone and read over the words, feeling my soul somehow shatter even more.

Nic - I guess your boy isn’t as clean-cut as he’s been making himself out to be. Marco DeCarlo was just found dead in his kitchen. One bullet through the chin, just like your friend. Maybe that bastard has a pair of balls after all.

No.Chapter 29I don’t remember the walk from the pool house to the Carrington mansion but one second I’m sitting in my bed, reading over Nic’s text for the fifth time, hoping that my sore eyes are deceiving me and the next thing I know, I’m searching through Colton’s mansion, desperately seeking him out.

I know he didn’t just kill a man. He couldn’t have. That’s not who we are. Sure, we did some fucked up things and the whole Jude situation was fifty shades of messed up, but Colton was there when I was about to slaughter Jude and he stopped me. Colton saved me from myself, saved me from endless amounts of guilt because that's not who we are.

We’re better than that.

We’re not cold-blooded murderers but the evidence pointing toward Colton is just too much to deny. He was coming after each of the DeCarlo brothers, he vowed that much and then promised to go after Vincent.

He said that he was putting them in prison. He said nothing about putting them in the ground.

Colton couldn’t have done this. Please, someone, tell me that this is some kind of horrible coincidence. Colton isn’t a killer. He's an amazing guy with a big heart. He’s the guy that I've maybe fallen in love with. I couldn’t have fallen for another killer. I just can’t. That can’t be my life.

I only just escaped guys like Nic who think the world revolves around them and the bullets in their guns. Colton isn’t like that. I know him. I refuse to believe it. He's cold and calculating, but he’s no murderer.

Although, I never imagined that he’d be the kind of guy to lock a rapist in a cramped little dungeon and use him as his personal punching bag, just waiting for him to slowly rot and die. Then again, I never thought I had it in me to slit a man’s throat but standing in that dungeon with Jude on his knees, I would have done it without hesitation.

Maybe Colton is a monster. Maybe this is all some sort of act and he’s just like Nic. Just like the Widows and everything I was trying to escape.

What’s he going to do when he realizes that I know his little secret? Will he lock me up? Will all the tables turn on me and I’ll suddenly become the victim?

I should have listened to Nic in the first place. He's never liked Colton. Maybe someone like Nic can sense that darkness in another. Maybe he knew I've been walking into a trap this whole time.

I always knew Colton was going to break me. I just never expected it to be like this. I thought he was good. I thought he was the light that I’ve always been missing.

My feet take me flying through the mansion. I peer into every room, desperate to find him, desperate for answers, knowing this must be some sick misunderstanding. He couldn’t have done it. Sure, finding Marco dead isn’t surprising, but Colton being the one to shoot him?

I just … fuck. He’d totally do it if it meant avenging Maryne.

I throw open his office door and scan the room before quickly moving on. Where the fuck is he? I fly past the internal garage door and look inside. His Veneno is here and I can guarantee that means he is too.

My mind is a mess of torturous thoughts, each one of them trying to convince me to give him a chance. I should hear him out, at least listen to him plead his case before I let him have it. He can’t be a killer. He can’t be like Nic. It’s one of the reasons that I’ve allowed myself to get so close. I can’t keep falling into this trap. Sure, I knew he was dark. Locking Jude up was proof of that, but he’s supposed to be the good one. He’s supposed to be the one with his head screwed on properly. I’m the mess in this relationship—not him.

Maybe I’m being too hard on him. After all, I nearly killed a guy myself, but he was the one bringing me back. He was the voice of reason, so if he did this, if he ended DeCarlo's life, does that make him a liar or just a hypocrite?

After checking all the places he could be on the lower level, I race up the stairs taking them two at a time. I go straight for his bedroom. It’s the only place he’d be up here.