Daddy's Adorable Assassin (Daddy's Little Deviants)

COSMO

Myeyesflewopen, and my heart thudded in my chest. For a second, I stared at the wall in front of me, disoriented. What had woken me up? I evened out my breathing, keeping it steady like I was still asleep… the way I’d done sometimes when Virgil came to my room in the middle of the night after putting me to bed.

Someone was in my room. I could feel their presence at my back, and alarm speared through me. It’d never crossed my mind that anyone would be anything less than law-abiding while I was at the facility, but what could they be doing here at this hour? And why didn’t they announce themself? Why were they being stealthy if they didn’t mean me harm?

With the wall in front of me and the intruder at my back, I didn’t have many options. I had nothing to defend myself, even if I knew how to do that in hand-to-hand combat. Virgil had tried to teach me how to fight, but it’d been useless. After several attempts, he’d declared me puny, then placed a gun in my hand.

“You come across trouble, boy, and you don’t have this, you run as fast as you can. Do you understand?”

I hadn’t needed to fight until the day he’d tried to get rid of me. What were my options? I could scream, but no one else was down here at night. If I needed anything, I had to wait until someone patrolled the area to make sure I hadn’t escaped. Then they led me to the bathroom if I needed to go.

A hand touched my hair, and I opened my mouth to scream, but the sound got trapped in my windpipe. That touch. Only one person touched me that way, like they cared about what happened to me.

I rolled over onto my side and drank in the sight of Hunter. While locked up, I had no sense of time, but considering the last shift change, it had to be well past midnight. What was Hunter doing here in my room so late? I searched his face. Then it hit me like a punch in the gut.

He knew. Of course he did. I’d given him the address that would expose me and my misdeeds to him. He would have found Virgil’s dead body and everything else that had gone on in that house. Of how the dead couple had groomed me to be the perfect toy they each wanted—a doll for Mother and a soldier for Daddy.

Had he watched the tapes? A wave of vulnerability I hadn’t expected crashed down on me. I’d known everything would come to light, but seeing him now that he knew, I wanted to crawl under the bed with the blanket and hide the way I used to do when Mother caught me eating sugar from the cabinet.

I turned, but Hunter placed a hand on my arm. “No, don’t.”

His touch was light, but it felt like a tight band. Slowly, he closed his palm around my bare arm, much firmer, and stroked my skin with his thumb. I swallowed. What did he want from me? Was he here to act on the interest I saw in his eyes? Had he watched those videos and decided that I was already used to the depraved attention of one man, so I wouldn’t turn him down?

My heart threatened to break when he said nothing. I thought he was a good man… that there was truth and transparency in his eyes.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up,” he said. “I felt compelled to see you. To check that you were okay. Are you okay?”

I swallowed and nodded.

“Good. We’ve been tough on you in here, haven’t we? And after all you’ve been through.”

I shuffled to sit up, and his hand fell away. No, that wouldn’t do. I grasped his hand and placed it on my blanket-covered knee.

“I’m sorry I didn’t explain before.”

“You spoke when you felt comfortable to do so. I apologize if I ever made you feel unsafe, like you couldn’t trust us while here.”

“It’s hard to trust people.”

“I see that now.” He pulled his chair closer. “Cosmo, are you in little space right now?”

Little space had been my safe place since I’d been here. It had kept them from being too hard on me, but this felt important. Hunter shouldn’t be here at this hour of the night. Had he broken some rules to see me? I shouldn’t like that idea so much, but I did.

“No, I-I feel safe with you.” I cocked my head to the side and watched him. “Am I safe with you?”

“Always.” He squeezed my knee. “I’m just trying to help you, but for me to do that, I have to ask you some questions, Cosmo. I need answers to questions that might be the only thing to get you out of here. Do you understand?”

“But why do you want to help me?”

“Because after all you’ve been through, I don’t think anyone can blame you for not running straight to us the moment you found out what Virgil was up to. Why didn’t you go to the police?”

I lowered my gaze to my hands, plucking at the light blue blanket. It was much softer than the other one and smelled nice, like he had laundered it before he brought it to me.

“At first, I didn’t believe it. And then I was scared.”

“Of what he would do to you?”

“And afraid they’d take him away from me.”